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Current build status of my heavy driftwood tank

castle

castle

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Joined
19 Dec 2015
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Location
UK
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Freshwater driftwood, and a nice carbo root piece. Idea is to have it all look like one root. Planning to add more rocks behind and to the left.

Going to take it all out soon so I can add some backing film as I’m a little more invested in this aquarium than I thought I would be.

Unsure on planting at this stage, just epiphytes I think.
 
Very nice. The gap between the rocks and the wood looks great. I like that you’ve not been tempted to infill with more rocks, and it’ll look even better interwoven with epiphyte roots Fish will love all those hiding places.
 
castle said:
Going to take it all out soon so I can add some backing film as I’m a little more invested in this aquarium than I thought I would be
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By take it all out you mean the hard scape?
Assuming you’re applying film inside the tank? Why?
Or have I really misinterpreted this hahah
 
Tim Harrison said:
Very nice. The gap between the rocks and the wood looks great. I like that you’ve not been tempted to infill with more rocks, and it’ll look even better interwoven with epiphyte roots Fish will love all those hiding places.
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Aw thanks Tim, there is a part of me that wants to fill it all in, but that’s a bit more scapey than I want. Need to think about it more as water is really soft and I also quite fancy using vallis nana.

seedoubleyou said:
By take it all out you mean the hard scape?
Assuming you’re applying film inside the tank? Why?
Or have I really misinterpreted this hahah
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This is my bad, applying opaque window film on the outside. I can’t do it in situ, as the tank has a plastic trim around the bottom and top that need to be removed for the application 👍 I just got carried away placing twigs
 
castle said:
This is my bad, applying opaque window film on the outside. I can’t do it in situ, as the tank has a plastic trim around the bottom and top that need to be removed for the application 👍 I just got carried away placing twigs
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Well I’m glad you’re not applying it to the inside, because that was my fear haha

The hardscape looks really well. I’d love to see it planted very heavily over the top. Leaving the bottom open for a shoal of small fish to weave between.
 
castle said:
Aw thanks Tim, there is a part of me that wants to fill it all in, but that’s a bit more scapey than I want. Need to think about it more as water is really soft and I also quite fancy using vallis nana.
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Go with whatever works for you. I’m sure it’ll be great either way.
 
castle said:
Freshwater driftwood, and a nice carbo root piece. Idea is to have it all look like one root. Planning to add more rocks behind and to the left.
Click to expand...

Great work @castle ! .... not really that heavy on driftwood IMO.... plenty of room for plants... plant heavily from the get go... go for smaller fish (Tetras) - they will love the nooks and crannies - hiding places etc as @Tim Harrison said... Botanicals (leaf litter) will augment this... Will look gorgeous!

Cheers,
Michael
 
That looks awesome @castle - my vote goes for keeping the planting minimal, some tall thin plants at the rear to help the illusion of height, loads of leaf litter, switch the lights out for a low output angled point source light, so give lots of dark shadows and some shimmer . . . Habitat style tank . . .
 
Thank you 🙏

I really wanted to share as I was really happy with what could be made with really inexpensive wood. This aquarium was a Christmas gift from folks, and it came with these odd but actually not terrible Aquel leddy LEDs. I don’t really want to change the light but I could remove a couple of rows (3 rows of lights)

Definitely don’t want to add too much more to this, as swim space is limited and we’ve agreed to go the LFS to pick fish together..! 😉

Going to bag up some soil, add some egg crates, get another bag of a la plata, and see what happens. Tank is 50cm high, so I can get some tall plants at the back.

Initially this tank was to be an Amazon swords tank, but I moved away from that.

I’m planning to try and connect all the core branches with dowels and super glue (3mm oak dowel). Should be interesting 👍 I’ll take some pictures as I try.
 
I bought some Echinodorus Decumbens - was reading through Aquarium Plants by Christel Kasselmann and it looks like just what I want in here:

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This may be the only plant in the tank, we shall see!
 
castle said:
I bought some Echinodorus Decumbens - was reading through Aquarium Plants by Christel Kasselmann and it looks like just what I want in here:

View attachment 215385

This may be the only plant in the tank, we shall see!
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Thats a nice looking plant - I've not come across that before:

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Might have to steal that idea from you, as I'm looking for a new background plant for the right side of my tank!!
 
It’s a beauty, isn’t it?

Hardier, grassy tall plants are kinda few and far between. I just wanted something that could punch through the wood, we shall see!

Sadly the tank depth means I’ve got about an inch of space at the back of the tank so, it’s not ideal.
 
castle said:
It’s a beauty, isn’t it?

Hardier, grassy tall plants are kinda few and far between. I just wanted something that could punch through the wood, we shall see!

Sadly the tank depth means I’ve got about an inch of space at the back of the tank so, it’s not ideal.
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Have you kept it before? If so, does it stay as a rosette, or put out runners?
 
Wookii said:
Have you kept it before? If so, does it stay as a rosette, or put out runners?
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I haven’t kept it before sadly, just taking a gamble on it 😬

Aquasabi says:

It is propagated by adventitious plantlets on the inflorescences which appear mostly in the emersed form, but sometimes also in the aquarium.
 
In progress:
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Almost there
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No room to the rear 😬
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I filled some tights with tropica soil; and that’s buried in there. I didn’t photo that as that’s kinda boring. Will add root tabs now I’ve decided to get heavy root feeders.
 
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