Tips needed for a successful tank layout

[mrramsey]

Ok I am well into the 55g aquarium redux planning. I aquired some large lava rocks and various pieces of mopani and driftwood. The current substrate is a neutral smooth pebbles.

Are there any guides out there that explain how to do an attractive layout for a tank?

Since the tank is currently occupied it makes it difficult to make any 'dry runs' on the design. Right now everything is just kind of all over the place see here:


The new look will have live plants tied to wood and or rocks and here is what I have: For reference the slate is appx 6"x8"x1" the large mopani is appx 20" long 6" wide at the widest point.I also have another black lava rock 1/3 the size of those two .


thinking the lava rocks can be piled to form a tunnel of sorts. This is the part of the hobby I struggle with lol. The tank is a 55g Long roughly 12"x48"x18".

[ScottishFish]

Tank layout is all doing to personal preferance, and imagination.

One bit of advice I can give is this - imagine you are the fish, its more fun being able to swim under/through/between decor than simply swim round objects.

Have a look here http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/aqua...ad.php?t=99213

That's my 42G, the bare look is just an abundance of nooks/crannies/ledges/tunnels/caves/overhangs and the fish love it

[Goes to 11!]

To see what the locals have been up to, Take a lap or three through the last couple years of TOTM winners for some ideas of what works and what doesn't IYO.

Links to 2010 -12 are on this page.

If nothing else it will help you define directions that you are not interested in going.

[mrramsey]

Ah it is helpful to see what others have done! I like the october 2001 from cliff -

Attaching the plants to the wood is one of the things I am planning on doing. I see in the lower left the tunnels.. is that just some black pvc fittings with stones siliconed to it?

Scottishfish I really like the second image of yours. Your substrate is almost the same as mine

[Lady Hobbs]

What a difference! Looks awesome.

[Cliff]

I did make the caves out of ABS fittings I got at Home Depot and river rocks I bought at Walmat. The below links shows some pics on how I built a similar one for a different tank

http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/aqua...ad.php?t=60736

Below are a few pics of how I made the one in the pic

[mrramsey]

That's a neat idea Cliff, was that 2" pipe you used?

[Cliff]

I did not use any pipe, only ABS fittings.

[mrramsey]

I will definitely do one of those!

Ok so here is a really rough white board layout using the newly acquired pieces. What do you think of this?

1. existing river gravel mounded
2. Large lava rocks forming some tunnels
3. 2 mopani pieces
4. driftwood
5. large slate piece w/ javamoss??
6. floating plants

I thought floating plants would look good since the height of the hard pieces maxes out at about 12" . Might need to find a couple more lava rocks to add some additional height.

The plants will be low light Anubia, java fern, etc...

[mrramsey]

Here are the items laid out on the floor to give a better idea of the layout -

Here is a top down view:


Here is a frontal view: