• You are viewing the forum as a Guest, please login (you can use your Facebook, Twitter, Google or Microsoft account to login) or register using this link: Log in or Sign Up

165l 'fissidens and ferns' scape

afroturf

Member
Joined
12 Jul 2007
Messages
127
Location
Nottingham
Well I recently took delivery of my new tank, built by Aquariumsltd, which I have to say I was extremely pleased with it when it arrived. I was brought into the hobby purely because of fish but since the whole planted tank scene has taken off I've always wanted a real nice planted tank, and It will be interesting to see how I manage a tank where the plants are the main focus of the tank not the fish. The main inspiration behind the tank was one of Amanos scapes in Nature Aquarium World book 1, the tank on pg 122. But since then my plans have deviated slightly from this scape to one a little simpler and neater.

Whilst the tank was being built I brought most of the hardscape and hardware and even some fish, I couldn't pass them up when I saw them at a lfs, they are Barbus fasciolatus a fish I’ve always wanted and planned on keeping in this tank from the very start.

Anyhow here are the first hour or so of scaping only sand and rocks so far.(sorry about the poor quality my brother has robed my slr)

ADA amazonia II and gravel foreground

4034658471_572e5d0eae_o.jpg


Mini landscape rocks

4035398460_8eba60f09f_b.jpg


You like the light swich?

I know it my look a little unconventional but it’s far from finished and rock positioning is not set in stone yet :rolleyes: I still have the wood to add as well, the two rocks further back are mainly just to grow moss/ferns on and shouldn’t be noticeable as rocks once the scape has done.
 
nice tank!

i would recommend some moss on the rocks in the foreground other than fissidens. something that might creep along them like xmas or taiwan.

i would also recommend that you use a barrier between the amazonia and the sand to stop them mixing.

you have some beautifull rock there and will look foward to the progress
 
Nice rock work, just bear in mind that fissidens is a very slow growing plant, if you have a look at my shrimp journal you will see that it can take various months to get a decent spread, but once it attaches itself it will start spreading specially on wood. Good luck and keep us posted :)
 
samc said:
i would recommend some moss on the rocks in the foreground other than fissidens. something that might creep along them like xmas or taiwan.

Your right I think I'll use fissidens mainly on the wood and probably xmas moss amongst the foreground rocks and java fern and/or bolbitis on the larger rocks.

LondonDragon said:
Nice rock work, just bear in mind that fissidens is a very slow growing plant, if you have a look at my shrimp journal you will see that it can take various months to get a decent spread, but once it attaches itself it will start spreading specially on wood. Good luck and keep us posted :D

Thats the only draw back of fissidens, every place that sells it, sell it for £6+ for a couple of inches sq portion, I'd probably need 10+ portions for the coverage I'd like. Cheers for the heads up on your journal, lovely tank. I didn't know whether to go for downoi or Staurogyne in the left had side of the tank, but seeing your has made my mind up. Thank you.

I think I'll be sticking with the layout of the rocks, I spent some time today trying to get my wood positioned nicely, a very frustrating task. I think I'm about there with that too, I'll try and post some pics tonight or tomorrow.
 
Rowly said:
I like the rock positioning looks really good, where did you get them from?

got them for Aquaessentials I brought 20kg if i remember correctly, I've used around 2/3 -3/4 of them in the tank.
 
Quick update I've now add some wood to the tank, I'm not really happy as the wood has all different colours and textures as I brought them from 3-4 different places, hopefully they will blend well together in time.

4046572409_69318fe087_b.jpg


Please feel free to advice on any tweaks or improvements I could make.
 
Oh my this is going to be good!
Without really looking I can't think of anything I would change, it's really really nice. I'm inspired, it's made me wish my tank was 15cm bigger.
 
afroturf said:
Please feel free to advice on any tweaks or improvements I could make.
Looks very good to me :) now time to start planning the plants, the hard scape is 5*
 
Top notch scaping!! hope you have patience as fissidens is a slow grower!
 
As has been said, great hardscape Steven. Personally I'd play around some more with the longest piece of wood (manzanita ?) as I find the end of it a bit horizontal and it looks like its been cut to fit within the tank, but having said that those things may well be hidden by the mosses / fissidens. I look forward to seeing it planted up :D

Tony
 
I think I'm set on the layout now, it's the best I can come up with the wood I have. Now comes another easy job choosing the plants. I originally wanted to use only 3 or 4 different plants, sort of a less is more approach but that’s kind of gone out the window now. I have come up a with a list of the plants I'll be using

The definites are -

Fissiden fontanus
Vesicularia montagnei
Microsorium 'narrow'
Staurogyne sp.
Marsilea sp.
Cryptocoryne affinis
Blyxa japonica
Echinodorus tenellus
Vallisneria nana

I may use some of the following to -

Vesicularia ferriei
Bolbitis heudelotii or Ludwigia brevipes
Cryptocoryne albida
Sagittaria subulata
Isoetes sp.

I'll be using the Microsorium round the centre most piece of wood and the two large stones in fornt of it, I plan to use either Bolbitis or the Ludwigia slightly to the left of this just to give a bit of contrast in leaf shape as most of the other plants leaves are all very similar.
 
Back
Top