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Post-apochalyptica

idris

Member
Joined
3 Jan 2011
Messages
816
Location
Herts
Bear with me!!!!!!!
This is little more than a thought experiment at the moment, and I doubt it will ever be much more for me. But I like the idea. And I'm sure there are 1000 reasons not to do it, and I'm interested in ways to theoretically make it work.
So ... tuck the Don'ts and Can'ts and Won'ts and Shouldn'ts in your back pocket before you start to type ...

Nature has a habit of taking hold of what has been discarded.
As a society, we throw a load of **** away. Leave it long enough and, one way or another, nature will prevail. Especially plants and water.

So how about societal detritus themed hardscaping?

My first thought was car engine parts.
A cylinder head or carbs are interesting shapes. Sintered or cast metal surfaces could provide adhesion for mosses etc. Combustion chambers or manifolds could be caves for timid fish. Hose pipes are usually inert. Petrochemical residues can invariably be removed and toxic metals neutralized.

Or discarded construction materials.
How many of us have paid for slate or bogwood for hardscaping when it would be easy to source discarded bricks, rebar offcuts or formwork from just a few yards from our homes. Granted, cement is not something that will chemically benefit a tank.but there are few materials that cannot be sealed with inert coatings.

Yeah, I know this is leftfield, and bats**t crazy, but when there are innumerable Iwagami scapes, why not think outside the glass box?
 
Errr cant rlly imagine those going inside my tanks but bricks and slate hmmm...sounds interesting.Those were what I used as caves for my crayfish when i was small.
 
Why not indeed?
With the materials being cheap or free you've got little to lose by trying. First look out for some offcuts of ply or MDF to make a scapebox and have at it. :)
 
Nature has a habit of taking hold of what has been discarded.

When urban watercourses are 'cleaned up' fish stocks usually fall. No shelter and no hiding places for gribleys. Old tyres and shopping trolleys look awful but can be home to some. However I did draw the line in one water course I was surveying, there was a old vacuum cleaner in the stream and round the corner a length of carpet.

Never bought slate, always salvaged it from demolition sites. Same with 4'' plastic pipe off cuts. Wife disowns me at times.

Have seem urban themes in zoos and similar with indigenous cold water fish. Sections representing canals and harbours etc.

Some USA based fish groups on Facebook have some left-field aquascapes

Good luck with your project.
 
Would very interested to see this, very true in watch your saying. Look at how many reefs there are with sunken ships etc that becomes home to corals, fish and other organisms
 
If you were doing this on environmental grounds (you may not be!!) you would have to take into account the environmental impact of any chemicals used to wash and clean or to make inert the matrrial in question. The chemical to clean those hoses sounds nasty!!

I still like the idea and believe I may have seen something similar in a public aquarium many moons ago. They were making a similarly environmental point. It was quite a powerful message too.

Great idea :)
 
Nature has a habit of taking hold of what has been discarded.
Haha, why not :) It's sort of already been done. Not really that aesthetically appealing but there's potential to create something amazing, both artistically and as an environmental statement.

I reckon for it to work you'd have to use items that most folk are familiar with but position them in such a way that it takes a second glance to identify them. It'd also have to be very heavily planted to the degree where the items were somewhat concealed.

Scaping with house bricks. Imagine if it was heavily planted...
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First look out for some offcuts of ply or MDF ...
Pleanty of that crap in my garage.:(

Never bought slate, always salvaged it from demolition sites. Same with 4'' plastic pipe off cuts. Wife disowns me at times.
Its called Totting. I too find it very hard to walk past a skip without looking for anything useful.

Some USA based fish groups on Facebook have some left-field aquascapes.
There's been a TV show on something like Quest about an American company that does commercial aquariums. I can't bring myself to watch it but some of the stuff in the trailers looks utterly bonkers!

If you were doing this on environmental grounds (you may not be!!) you would have to take into account the environmental impact of any chemicals used to wash and clean or to make inert the matrrial in question. The chemical to clean those hoses sounds nasty!!
It was more an aesthetic thought than environmental. I doubt there's much that can't be made safe with thought.

... Not really that aesthetically appealing ...
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

... I reckon for it to work you'd have to use items that most folk are familiar with but position them in such a way that it takes a second glance to identify them. It'd also have to be very heavily planted to the degree where the items were somewhat concealed.
Very much my train of thought.
 
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