Hello everybody.
I would like to try to keep some shrimps. Few months ago I added some blue neocaridina to my main aquarium, but they not doing well. Very rarely I can see them displaying natural relax behaviour and not producing any babies. This can be down to my water parameters and bulling from fish. I believe that I have fairly peaceful community tank, but maybe not for baby shrimp. So I decided to make a separate new environment for shrimps. Unfortunately my "horizontal" space is limited and decided to go with something narrow and tall.
I don't have any experience in aquascapeing and never done anything like this before. So looked at a lot of pictures on Internet what othere people done. I couldn't find a tank that I can just copy it and be happy with it, but I found a lot of pictures that inspire me to carry on with my project. I understand that all inspiration designs was done by professionals with a lot of experience and skills. But I will give it a go and see what can be done.
Picture below is my main source of inspiration, I would like to make something like that but on a smaller scale.
There is one more picture of scape that will work for my tall vase design
I have some more "idea" pictures but I don't think it's wright to spam them in here.
Now let me describe what ideally I would like to achieve.
Tall vase 25cm wide and 50cm tall filed with plants, sticks and stones. I aiming for aquascape to take as little volume as possible. As volume of water and swimming space is already limited. I would like to use small stones (slate) glued together to create cave like structure. And more stones glued together going towards a top and hugging main trunk. For substrate I planning to use white gravel capped with play sand. For a filtration I would like to use mini canister filter to save swimming space and increase total water volume. I have two of them on my mind. Main criteria that filter must be silent and fairly cheap. Maybe even a simple diy filter. Later I will ask people on this forum for more advice. For lightning some cheap led light. Will need a advice on this as well. I'm planning to add a lot of plants. Will need some easy going and short plants. Will try to stay away from mosses. Happy to do trial and error method. As for residents I would like to put some neocaridina shrimps. And maybe in distant future add caradinas. And ideally I would like to add some fishes to make more lively. I will need some advice on fish list as well.
Now let me tell you that I really have so far.
From a florist I managed to get a cylinder vase wich will need a good rub and scrub (easy done). Outside dimensions 25cm wide and 50cm tall, wich will hold just over 20 liters of water. I decided to get my own wood. I have found a dead Hornbeam hedge and cut top of it. Jetwash most of the bark from it. Soaked fot two weeks and then took rest of the bark manually using a big file. I'm still soaking it and keep changing water every few days as it still staining water, but not changing PH much. In a picture below you can see my vase and wood.
Extra branches I will try to use in upper half of the vase. Maybe put them against a glass to keep space open. As for stones I managed to get slate chipping. I have two colours. Bigger size black colour and smaller one is purple. And tiny bit of green colour slate. I'm planning to use only one colour. Personally I prefer purple one as I don't want whole thing looking to dark and depressive. In next picture you can see colour and size of slate. And colour of wood against stones.
I'm planning to use no more nails to glue all stones together. I understand that gluing small stones together will take a long time and it is a fiddling process. There is a good chance that I will fail at this stage.
That is all my progress for now.
In this post you can find a lot of "will" "would" and "wish" but I will try my best to complete this project to the best of my abilities. And hopefully my aquarium vase will be good enough to share with other people.
Thank you for reading all of this post and I would welcome and appreciate any ideas suggestions or criticism.
Hopefully to be continued.
I would like to try to keep some shrimps. Few months ago I added some blue neocaridina to my main aquarium, but they not doing well. Very rarely I can see them displaying natural relax behaviour and not producing any babies. This can be down to my water parameters and bulling from fish. I believe that I have fairly peaceful community tank, but maybe not for baby shrimp. So I decided to make a separate new environment for shrimps. Unfortunately my "horizontal" space is limited and decided to go with something narrow and tall.
I don't have any experience in aquascapeing and never done anything like this before. So looked at a lot of pictures on Internet what othere people done. I couldn't find a tank that I can just copy it and be happy with it, but I found a lot of pictures that inspire me to carry on with my project. I understand that all inspiration designs was done by professionals with a lot of experience and skills. But I will give it a go and see what can be done.
Picture below is my main source of inspiration, I would like to make something like that but on a smaller scale.
There is one more picture of scape that will work for my tall vase design
I have some more "idea" pictures but I don't think it's wright to spam them in here.
Now let me describe what ideally I would like to achieve.
Tall vase 25cm wide and 50cm tall filed with plants, sticks and stones. I aiming for aquascape to take as little volume as possible. As volume of water and swimming space is already limited. I would like to use small stones (slate) glued together to create cave like structure. And more stones glued together going towards a top and hugging main trunk. For substrate I planning to use white gravel capped with play sand. For a filtration I would like to use mini canister filter to save swimming space and increase total water volume. I have two of them on my mind. Main criteria that filter must be silent and fairly cheap. Maybe even a simple diy filter. Later I will ask people on this forum for more advice. For lightning some cheap led light. Will need a advice on this as well. I'm planning to add a lot of plants. Will need some easy going and short plants. Will try to stay away from mosses. Happy to do trial and error method. As for residents I would like to put some neocaridina shrimps. And maybe in distant future add caradinas. And ideally I would like to add some fishes to make more lively. I will need some advice on fish list as well.
Now let me tell you that I really have so far.
From a florist I managed to get a cylinder vase wich will need a good rub and scrub (easy done). Outside dimensions 25cm wide and 50cm tall, wich will hold just over 20 liters of water. I decided to get my own wood. I have found a dead Hornbeam hedge and cut top of it. Jetwash most of the bark from it. Soaked fot two weeks and then took rest of the bark manually using a big file. I'm still soaking it and keep changing water every few days as it still staining water, but not changing PH much. In a picture below you can see my vase and wood.
Extra branches I will try to use in upper half of the vase. Maybe put them against a glass to keep space open. As for stones I managed to get slate chipping. I have two colours. Bigger size black colour and smaller one is purple. And tiny bit of green colour slate. I'm planning to use only one colour. Personally I prefer purple one as I don't want whole thing looking to dark and depressive. In next picture you can see colour and size of slate. And colour of wood against stones.
I'm planning to use no more nails to glue all stones together. I understand that gluing small stones together will take a long time and it is a fiddling process. There is a good chance that I will fail at this stage.
That is all my progress for now.
In this post you can find a lot of "will" "would" and "wish" but I will try my best to complete this project to the best of my abilities. And hopefully my aquarium vase will be good enough to share with other people.
Thank you for reading all of this post and I would welcome and appreciate any ideas suggestions or criticism.
Hopefully to be continued.
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