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The stupid arch (AS600)

Artichoke

Seedling
Joined
22 Jul 2020
Messages
13
Location
UK
Hi guys!

Feeling mildly intimidated by all your beautiful scapes, but wanted to share my first attempt at a larger (or at least larger for me) set up with you. Excuse my not so fabulous photography skills.

Been watching the aquascaper aquariums here and think they’re so pretty and clean looking, so decided would take the leap and upgrade from my 20 litre. Settled on the 600 due to space and time limits, and a thousand other reasons. Ordered it… and then waited and waited and waited, until it finally arrived last week! Not sure who was more excited during the unboxing, me or my doggo. :happy:

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I had a two-island kind of design in my head, and was going to keep it simple, until Aquarium Gardens sent me this amazing wood and rock selection, and all that went out the window and I constructed the double arch… (also known as the stupid arch).

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Maybe it’s not the most natural looking thing ever, I know, but it felt great in theory, and even now, when I’m not trying to touch it, I am very happy with it. BUT…stupidly, I didn’t think to glue the wood before soaking it, and now, any effort to join the two wet wooden surfaces has met with, let’s say limited success. After a lot of knocking it over, uprooting grass and cursing… I finally wrapped some wire around it, which has created some degree of, at least temporary, stability. Any suggestions on how this could be fixed, or better approached in future endeavours, would be awesome.

I really enjoyed planting this big a tank, very zen feeling, and it’s amazing how many portions can split those little 1-2 grow pots into.

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Quite happy with the result one week in, but feel like lost some of the depth I had in mind, maybe because the path between the islands seems rather narrow or because the size difference between the two isn’t very large, or maybe it will look better when grown in. Time will tell. Hopefully… Can’t wait to see how it grows and add residents over the next few weeks/months.

Any tips and thoughts are super welcome, thanks for taking the time to look and read my ramblings :cool:
 
I like what rhe stupid arch looks cool have your tried the cigarette filter and super glue method to attach them.together think once the plants grow in and the path way becomes more apparent it will look great
 
ReNaming is in order ... how can I keep my self respect while participating in this awesome unjustly maligned awesome (again) arch! thread


but feel like lost some of the depth
Note that water flattens the perspective so that is part of why depth seems lost

Later when plants have grown in, you can play with trimming, plant colors (bright green vs darker green), plant textures (leaf size), even adding some “bright sand” to delineate the path

And remember what you see in epic photoscapes, does owe considerable “depth” to external lighting and camera lens magic (both Mark Evans and George Farmer demonstrate this in some older ukaps journals) - also when designing the hardscape, decisions are made dependent on viewing through a lens

Jurijs mit JS mentions this in this Brazilian Scape Video

 
stupidly, I didn’t think to glue the wood before soaking it,
I prefer not to glue etc hardscape, but I do place rocks to (hopefully) immobilize wood - and usually have some “extra” stones that will be removed as the wood waterlogs more completely
 
If you can backlight the wall behind the tank with a LED light strip (I use lifx z) it might help increase your depth of field. It certainly works for me anyway with a 60 p tank and similar tank lighting. My tank is also a fair few cm away from the wall.
 
Thanks so much for all input guys :happy:

have your tried the cigarette filter and super glue method to attach them.together
Not familiar with this, would you glue both pieces of wood with the filter in-between? Where does one even get a cigarette filter (I mean besides the obvious...) Was trying to avoid glueing as far as possible, cause figured would be easier if/when want to re-scape in future using same pieces, but might have to this time to spare myself a lot of cursing ;)

If the wood is moving due to buoyancy well after a week or two it should no longer float.
Fingers crossed :D Do you add that LED strip to the wall or to the back of the "bench"?


Later when plants have grown in, you can play with trimming, plant colors (bright green vs darker green), plant textures (leaf size), even adding some “bright sand” to delineate the path

And remember what you see in epic photoscapes, does owe considerable “depth” to external lighting and camera lens magic (both Mark Evans and George Farmer demonstrate this in some older ukaps journals) - also when designing the hardscape, decisions are made dependent on viewing through a lens
Was tempted to add sand but worried the soil would just move in on top of it, so decided to try full carpet (if this fails to grow might need to rethink), and feeling a clear need to get a proper camera for pictures, going to end up taking up photography as well as scaping :cool:

Underneath the Archway!!!
Re-named;)
Hehe, still stupid to me ;) only knocked it over once today though... so hey, may be getting somewhere
 
Hi everyone, got a bit busy with other things, and A LOT of water changes... 🙃

Update from week 4ish, moved in some snails, and the 3 Amano shrimp I found digging through all the local shops, some sort of shortage going on? Or maybe just limited at lfs, either way, they seem to have settled in well 😁

No fish yet, can't make up my mind on what I want, there are too many options, and want to find something that will do well in there, so the research continues 🤓

Plants are growing 😍🌱the carpet seems to be doing best in the back, which is a bit of a bummer, but hoping will spread out more in the front as well. The helanthium tenellum on the other hand, is trying to take over the world - runners were taking over the front corner so had to cut them back, but even though growing a lot some of the leaves seem to go yellow and be really susceptible to algae. Some algae on rocks and some on the larger crypt leaves, but nothing too dramatic going on I think.

Not sure if the smaller island has enough impact, it looks kinda...dinky compared to the larger one, might need to add something.

On a positive note: the arch hasn't fallen over for like 3 weeks now, small victories ;)


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Thanks for reading 💚
 
Not the best on this but something tall behind the island maybe a a tall grass and replicate this on the other side slightly
 
Not the best on this but something tall behind the island maybe a a tall grass and replicate this on the other side slightly
Think you're on the right track, thank you, started by adding some heteranthera zosterifolia (impulse buy :joyful:) behind the little island, will hopefully create a pretty little mound, but might shift some of the Rotala to that side in the future.

Also some otocinclus and pretty orange cherries temperature acclimating at the moment 🥰

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Does anyone know of a good online fish shop or have experience buying off eBay? Bit worried about the shipping, don't want to loose anyone on the way.
 
Hi everyone! Hope you're all doing well in the covid-crazy.

3-4 month-or-so update

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The whole thing kind of exploded 😁 all in all everything seems healthy-ish, I've maybe been a bit lazy with the trimming so it's a bit of a mess... Not many algae issues, had a very small amount of black beard - is that right? on the trident fern just before Christmas, but seems to have settled back down again.

Couple things I'm not a hundred percent pleased with about how it turned out, but I think those are my plant choices/placement choices rather than a plant-health issue. More research for me for next time. 😌 Think chose the wrong type of moss for the cover I was picturing - my christmas moss seems to like to grow in little mounds rather than cover the wood...

Not entirely pleased with left front corner, but I've also allowed myself only a very narrow space there between the wood and the glass so tricky to address.

Only 2 plant health related problems I think, first one being the grass carpet in the front is growing yellow straws - or straws that turn yellow about half way up the shaft, anyone know why this is? Also my heteranthera zosterifolia (that I added on the right island for more density) has some leaved that turn very flimsy/pale/greyish and break apart, while others look perfectly fine, I keep trimming them off, but more pop up, so assume I'm missing something.

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Family gifted me a CO2 art kit for Christmas, so cautiously considering adding CO2... harbouring an irrational fear of either exploding or accidentally killing my fishies and shrimps 😖 so feeling kinda nervous.

💚
 

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