Hardscape Opinions? Do I need more wood? (lol)

[Claire]

As above! Can't decide if I need another piece at the front... Don't have any smaller pieces so will need to cut up a piece if needs be.



Tank is 50x25x25cm by the way, not that it makes a difference!

 

[Claire]

Ps. Excuse the crap lighting...

 

[Michael W]

I think it can work with 3 piece along bottom after a bit of re-arranging. If you can move the middle piece in front of the tall one, slightly shifting the moved piece to face the left direction. Move the far left piece further forward to where the middle one was previously. I'm by no means any good with scaping but just something that I think will still look fine for myself.

 

[Claire]

I also tried this, dunno if it's better or worse




It's hard to move the pieces any more towards the middle due to their length. There is only about 10-15cm of space in front of the big piece. I will try moving again and see what happens.

 

[George Farmer]

"More is more" with hardscaping IMO. Exceptions are if you have a particular heavy planting scheme planned and aren't fussed about going full-on Nature Aquarium style.

Both wood layouts look good. But it's hard to say much more without hearing your planting plans.

 

[Claire]

How many more pieces would you say George? Will just order some more from AE rather than faffing about with an axe/saw - I quite like my fingers as they are like.

 

[George Farmer]

It's your call but I'm a big fan of being spoilt for choice if you can be. Order as much as you can justify/afford and have a good play with loads of configurations.

But if you're strapped then actually your current layouts are fine. You've got good height and composition already.

Have you considered using rocks too?

 

[Claire]

I had thought about rocks too but will need to go hunt for some as the ones I have are really nice but too big. I get rock from a roman age quarry in dumfriesshire which is ideal for student budgets!

I feel this is better - used the other big(ish) piece of wood.

 

[Claire]

The back piece is the same colour as the rest by the way, just because I was using 2 different lights for photo as the tank only has a single t8. Will likely be changing to a clip on twin t5 as budget is tight for leds.

 

[George Farmer]

Looks good.

I think you'll need plenty of epiphytes (ferns, Anubias etc) to break the rather flat nature of the otherwise lovely wood.

 

[James O]

Just an idea from a noob if I may?

The two elevated pieces seem to end at the same place on each side - same height, distance from surface and glass and the angle they form is nearly a perfect right angle.

If you have a longer piece how does this look? Draw a line from the bottom left hand edge of the original tall piece to the just below middle (height wise) of the right hand wall. That way you can hide the piece it rests on (to create the angle) and the angles are softened? If you mound the earth around the point all the wood appears from the ground it will increase the perceived height of the new piece as it reaches the glass.

Or I might be talking rubbish

 

[Claire]

Thanks guys, I have tried to move the pieces around a bit to make it a bit less symmetrical. Unfortunately they're the only pieces I have so I'm stuck with them. They are at diagonal from front left to back right as the tank will be viewed from front and diagonal right at my desk. It's just hard to capture this at the moment with the cover on. I will hopefully be going open topped (not topless, which is what I typed first and then thought better haha) soon which will really improve the viewing of the whole thing.

The tank is only 35l so it will be only shrimp and perhaps some mosquito rasbora (boraras brigattae), therefore I will be having lots of moss, pellia, anubias (trying to get some bonsai but I'm too stingey to buy TGM ) and fissidens. Hopefully it will work. Just need some decent light.