Inspired by: Tom's Bucket O' Mud

[castle]

Nice idea, I’m following along now 👍

I’m planning something almost identical, to your top tank in dimensions180x100x60cm and partial inspiration. However my side is soft water, and I’m not sure I’ll be growing too much below water 😅

 

[JMorgan]

I'm admittedly biased but I pretty much ALWAYS think that plants are a good idea, - and as Darrel's photo above shows, Lake Tanganyika isn't an exception as far as mother nature is concerned . I was only saying that if your starting point, your tap water, is on the softer side and you want to keep fish that prefer harder water, then emergent plant growth will tip the balance more towards lowering TDS, though not in a way you can't rectify if you want to.

However, I just looked it up by googling Milton Keynes tap water and it seems you have hard water so, assuming you'd plan on doing regular water changes anyway, I'd imagine you could have a lot of emergent plants (roots in the water - leaves out of the water) and not notice any change in TDS. So to the contrary I think you could create a pretty stunning looking tank that had lots of emergent plants as a back drop to a more typical african sub aquatic "rocky" aquascape: you could even have the classic "rock wall" with nooks and crannies to plant in, or a rocky island with all manner of things growing out of it.
cheers

 

[kedar301]

hi guys,

sorry for a late reply...was away on a holiday....
While on a holiday i had a radical idea....why not make a marine reef tank with mangroves? I am now seriously considering reef tank with edible seaweed and mangroves.