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First effort - a rod for my back!

Simmo

Member
Joined
11 Dec 2020
Messages
311
Location
Scotland
Hi Folks,
After a lot of years fishkeeping I wanted to try something different and stumbled on the world of aquascaping. Wow! I have been amazed at the beautiful creations, particularly from Japan and the pioneering work of Takashi Amano; some wonderful tanks and I love the way George Farmer has made it really accessible to normal folk like me. Anyway, cutting a long story short I was inspired to make a tank but wanted to try and use local materials for the hardscape, more because I enjoy being out in the countryside of which there is a lot here and enjoy the foraging as part of the creative process.
I bought a Juwel lido as it fit the space I had a nd looked good quality, it is generally fine but I do have a bug bear with the filter not being easily moved and in hindsight might have gone for the Oase equivalent and an external filter, ah well I might remove it yet and go the external route.
I didn't appreciate that getting local materials and having a square tank woild make life difficult but for me at least it seemed to. The excellent dead oak I found was from a single limb and once cleaned up is rock solid but long and thin and I wanted to make a trunk from the bits which meant making long tall heavy bits of wood stable. As the Juwel has a light and lid getting the pieces above the water line and below the light was a challenge too.
I messed up in a couple of areas due to my own impatience, the backing vinyl has bubbles as I put it n after scaping - doh! and my plan of using only Tropica soil for the main substrate went awry when I couldn't source any locally and had only one 9 litre bag of fine soil so have added this to an inert gravel base giving 1-3 inches oof soil cover. SO my rather long winded question is - is this enough depth? I am waiting for plants to arrive all 'easy' ones as my skills are lacking and I am not using CO2.
Thanks for the advice,
Cheers
 

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I like the wood, will look nice planted. Second what @dw1305 says about the pebbles, I think prodibio do some small rounded ones.
I might be inclined to remove a little sand in the foreground, to make cleaning easier and stop algae/dirt build up against the glass.. That way you can siphon out a small amount of sand and replace with new.
 
Looks really good. That wood you have collected is great. Agree with @dw1305 about some more little pebbles being added.
 
Thank you very much for the replies guys, I take your point about the small pebbles and will fish some out, good idea! I'm happy with the wood, it has a lot of character, really interesting that the oak is very resistant to rot, whereas the beech I saw seemed to be riddled with fungi all through. I would like to remove the piece in front of the filter, it's not part of the design in my minds eye, it's only there to obscure the filter!
Cheers
 
Had a wood floating disaster on the first attempt that nixed all the substrate, was away for 2 weeks and left it during which time yhe Java fern went bananas and the moss died back. Now cleaned out and replanted with same plants plus mini sword and with the big oak screwed to a chopping board 😀 less wood this time to allow more swimming space for fish. Just 12 hours old.
 

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That hardscape looks really nice.
I think a square and lidded aquarium is tough from looking around to scape. Y to get looks really natural- you can imagine some pond or steam in a Forrest somewhere looking that way
 
Hi Paul, thanks for the kind words, yeah trying to find and then get vertical wood to fit was a challenge, but the space dictated the tank shape and I thought it needed vertical elements to achieve the look in my minds eye. Overall I’m really pleased, just need to get it settled and start stocking👍😀
 
So this is how I held down the big oak - might be useful for anyone else who wants to put in bits of vertical wood. The chopping board is from Ebay, it's 10mm thick so that it's thick enough to countersink the three screws that hold the wood to it so there's no chance of scratching the glass or putting pressure on the glass via the screwheads. I put it on a thin layer of gravel and then put gravel on the board to weight it down and used Tropica soil as a cap and for the rest of the substrate.
 

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An update on how it's going, any constructive thoughts appreciated, I'm pretty happy at the moment

A reminder this is a foraged hardscape tank, local fallen oak, stones from local waters and the 'roots' are heather stems from the moors.

Water quality
A month in, the tank has been fed with fish food every day (fishless), the filter is standard Juwel internal Bioflow M. I introduced some filter wool from an established tank to the filter plus a bioboost sachet that came with it and also changed the lower sponges out for sintered glass media, I'm testing daily and I have the following

Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 0. Not 100% convinced it's cycled as no nitrate but I have proceeded to stocking anyway.
GH was about 1, so I've brought it up to about 6 using Seachem Equilibrium, after reading that plants and fish would benefit.
Tapwater pH is about 7.5 (and obviously v. soft) and the tank now is I think about 6.5 but hard to tell as the test kit only goes that low; I'm assuming this is the Tropica soil bringing it down?
The oak is releasing tannins and the water colours up after a day, no problem as far as I'm concered, water changes are 20% every 2 days.
I've thrown in a couple of beech leaves as I like the look, be interesting to see how they mature/degrade

Fish
First in were the sad refugees from my kids tank, most of the fish in the tank had died over time and not been replaced and all that was left was

1 Sterbai cory
1 Peppered cory
1 Neon tetra
1 glow tetra

These guys were fine for a week or so in the new tank but all of them deserve some company. Originally I was going to have a shoal of harlequin rasboras but took pity on my lone neon (that schools with the lone glow) and bought 20 juv neons to keep them company (hoping the glow will school with them). I may try and give away the corys as I don't want 10+ corys, the plan is to have a pair of apistogramma at the bottom and a pair of honey gouramis at the top.

20 juv neons (Riverpark was the Scottish Ebay seller closest to me - very good packaging, 19 survived transport, some duck weed in the bags but hey ho)

Plants

Plants wise things are OK, a bit of long wispy (hair?) algae on some of the wood and the Java fern but it cleaned off OK
Lights are standard Juwel LED I have them on 9-11 in the morning and 5-9 at night

x5 Mixed Cryps have melted and are regrowing
Short sword at the front is OK, I think it might need more light than my setup has to thrive but we'll see
Java fern have grown a lot! I guess the nutrients from the Tropica soil have leached into the water and they're soaking them up!
Vallis is not doing much, it was shaded by wood so I've helped it to get more light, I was concerned it was not getting flow but on reflection see it's waving gently so should be OK
Java moss has gone dark (t was very bright green at first) and thought it was dying but I think it's probably just adapting? I can see what looks like fresh green tips (I think!)
Eleocharis Vivipara has gone crazy and was a unruly mess but now I like the feature it's made wrapped around the vertical wood and with the wisteria below
x5 water wisteria to provide some gourami cover (when they go in)
I've ordered x2 Amazon sword but not sure I need them now, there are a couple of bare areas in the back corners I thought they'd go

Think that's about it, take care everyone
Cheers
Dave
 

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Had a wood floating disaster on the first attempt that nixed all the substrate, was away for 2 weeks and left it during which time yhe Java fern went bananas and the moss died back. Now cleaned out and replanted with same plants plus mini sword and with the big oak screwed to a chopping board 😀 less wood this time to allow more swimming space for fish. Just 12 hours old.
You could also use slate tiles! ;)
 
I was frustrated that the photos I was taking with my compact camera or phone were pretty crumby and found the video in the Photography thread by Nigel95 a big help. I don't have all the equipment he has or the skill and patience but at least I can get photo that looks more like the tank actually looks. Still far from perfect but it's a start. Have increased water changes to 40% every 2 days. The water sprite is flying in circles around the tank, not sure if it'll damage it so am thinking of anchoring it.


View attachment DSC_0001.JPG
 
I was unhappy with the large piece of wood covering the filter as it did not tie in well with my centrepiece trunk on the left and also seemed to be quite friable, releasing debris whenever I touched it and harbouring whispy algae.
I had a bit of foraged oak trunk left but did not want to install the whole piece as it would take up too much fish swimming space and because it was still not waterlogged could cause a big mess to install so i decided to cut it down the centre using one of the flat backed pieces to obscure the filter. This would mean less wood so less buoyancy and less aquarium space.
The sawing took over a hour and at times like this I really did wonder why I made life difficult for myself when I could buy characterful wood at my local aquarium shops! I got there eventually and again was impressed by how solid the heartwood is despite the external appearance and evidence of old activity by wood boring inverts.
Using another bit of my Ebay chopping board to help anchor it, stones and sand were used to on it to keep it down.
The top is cut flat so I am trying to obscure with Java fern and, maybe moss later, unfortunately it has to end short of the surface so the blummin Juwel filter inlet isn't blocked.
I left a bit of space between the wood and the filter housing so hopefully it won't trap any inquisitive fish but will need to keep an eye on it.
I hate messing with hardscape once the aquarium is set up, stuff floating everywhere, plants, detritus, you name it. Hopefully it'll be worth it.
Tank photo to follow at lights on this evening! (I'm excited even if no-one else is :))
sawing.JPG
mounted flat side.JPG
 
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Lights, action! Still pretty murky after the disturbance today and you can see the fresh tannins too. It'll take me a while to adjust to the look but with a bit more plant obscuring of the new wood/filter I think it'll work OK. Next steps are to fill that lovey crack with some moss of some description and pin on some epiphytes - any low tech easy plant suggestions?

I'm pleased with the Amazon swords, they add a lot of volume to the planting, next stage will be to add some red plants to highlight the vertical wood focal point on the left - hence my query about red epiphytes and moss.

My water sprite is just hanging in there after a battering from the surface current; I've added a floating heather stick and that's anchored it for now but need a better solution.

Neons are in for a treat tonight, woke up some brine shrimp for tea! :)

Cheers
Dave

After.JPG
 
So I had a quick look at your posts @Karmicnull and you suggested a good idea for holding floaters, a bit of air tube and suckers so I've done that and the new wood now has a halo of water sprite that also hides the cut end - result, thanks!

Now I'd like some floaters around the top of the bigger wood, it breaks the surface so no problem there but it looks naked without something.... not water sprite though a different species ...:rolleyes:
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Try some amazon frogbit around the wood. It's a larger species, so easy to control, and it has an impressive root structure that fish love. Due to the size of the leaves it also stays on the waters surface unlike some smaller floaters (at least in my brothers lido).
 
Try some amazon frogbit around the wood. It's a larger species, so easy to control, and it has an impressive root structure that fish love. Due to the size of the leaves it also stays on the waters surface unlike some smaller floaters (at least in my brothers lido).
Thanks, I nearly bought some last night but bottled! Ebay seems full of the stuff. I’ll give it a whirl thanks for the suggestion 👍😀
 
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