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Mountainscape

zig

Member
Joined
4 Jul 2007
Messages
686
Location
Dublin Ireland
This is the newest layout in my small tank.

54L 60x30x30cm Juwel tank
Eheim 2211 filter
3x24Watt T5s @ 8 hours per day, 6 hours 3x24, 2 hours 2x24.
ADA Aqausoil amazonia (mud)
17 mini landscape rocks (pointy one's :lol: )


Plants and fish.
HC, Hemianthus callitrichoides ''Cuba''
Lampeye killifish

50% Water changes every 3-4 days and I dosed 2ml Tropica plant nutrition+ daily.
CO2 1bps.

I grew this out without a heater in the tank and added the fish later, the fish were a good choice for this size tank IMO, perfect size really, they seem pretty happy in there now.


IMG_7722AA1024x768.jpg
 
Very nice, Zig. You beat me to it....i am just about to do a mountain scape in my 120l using HC and HM.

Dave.
 
Fantastic scape Zig. Love the lampeyes too. love the contrast of harsh, pointed rocks and soft HC.
 
Its the scenery for the next Lord of the Rings movie......What do you mean they've done all three....Wake JRT up and get him to write the 4th.

I love it.

There are so many tanks using this style with the rocks and the HC and the path but yours looks superb. very realistic whereas others seem to loook a little false.

No doubt when you ad the rest of us think it is great soeone on a judging panel wil shoot us all down in flames and say 1 rock is 2mm out of position but who cares. To me it looks awesome and I am being inspired for the first time to actually get some rocks and lights and try this myself. (budget allowing of course)

I shall be coming back for more on this one.

Andy
 
Thanks guys

Dave a 120cm tank would be great for a scape like this although you would need a lot of rocks and substrate which obviously would make the tank very heavy, got to be careful with that many rocks in the tank, if even from a scratch point of view.This tank has some very large heavy rocks in it although you wouldn't think it. You would have much better plant choices though because of scale.

Thanks Arana, getting the scale was pretty easy, getting the perspective correct was much harder, a lot of rocks went in and out of the tank over the course of a few weeks, although the basic rockwork was set from the beginning.

Cheers Ed, very happy with the lampeyes, they school great and are happy to pose for the camera at the right moments.
 
SuperColey1 said:
Its the scenery for the next Lord of the Rings movie......What do you mean they've done all three....Wake JRT up and get him to write the 4th.

I love it.

There are so many tanks using this style with the rocks and the HC and the path but yours looks superb. very realistic whereas others seem to loook a little false.

No doubt when you ad the rest of us think it is great soeone on a judging panel wil shoot us all down in flames and say 1 rock is 2mm out of position but who cares. To me it looks awesome and I am being inspired for the first time to actually get some rocks and lights and try this myself. (budget allowing of course)

I shall be coming back for more on this one.

Andy

eh cheers Andy, sorry I missed your reply there when I was typing away. I will post it up on APC and see what happens. The planting on this is very simple which a lot may dismiss as too easy.

Good to see you back.
 
Very nice, just to find such nice rocks is like the first task for Hercules, arranging them like that the second, getting the HC cover just right the third, just getting hold of lampeyes the 4th, I'm not sure we'll get to 12 but lets just say I'm quite sure its not as easy as it looks....

I like the way side panel reflections extend the range further still...

I would be interested to see a shot from the beginning with substrate and without the HC if you have one?
 
I know you only posted it on APC earlier today but very good comments so far (speaking too soon probably. lol) I'm soo surprised. Normally I think that looks good then scroll down to see many posts of aquascaping snobbery. lol

Maybe my eyes are working properly and I am right for a change in thinking that this tank looks awesome.

Hope you keep getting the positives Zig. Good Work deserves the plaudits it receives.

Andy
 
Another one in the bank Zig, theres no stopping you now ahy!!!!

Looks sweet, very nicely balanced, the fish in the picture take some searching, maybe take some more to find the best position for the picture. Oh and being very picky here so forgive me. Maybe change the ripples too. I say these things cause its an ace scape, and like me im sure your after perfection.

Cheers.
 
Hey thanks everyone only getting back to this now, today was a work day for me :rolleyes: and I was really busy.

I will post up some more shots later, maybe tonight, yeah Im staying in, I believe they have bell ringing on BBC1 at midnight, that should be good :twisted:

Happy new year folks!
 
This is how I put the tank together

This is the original hardscape, I knew I was going to change it as I went along but this was the basic layout I started with, the rest was added on over the course of a few weeks. The front section stayed intact, I didn't change these rocks because these rocks were banking the whole thing up, these are quite large rocks with just the faces showing, the rest of them are buried beneath holding up the soil. The most difficult thing about this scape was obviously the rock placement, but what made it challenging was the depth of the tank at only 12 inches, so trying to achieve a sense of perspective and depth was actually quite hard and needed a lot of rock changes along the way to find the best combination that I was happy with, also when you are dealing with a limited supply of rocks thats another factor you must obviously consider. Anyway here's some shots just to give an idea of how I approached it.

IMG_7362.jpg


This is probably about a week in and I have added some extra rocks already.

IMG_7395.jpg


More changes

IMG_7400.jpg


Mist effect with muddy aquasoil

IMG_7408.jpg


Here's a different shot to finish off, note the perfect ripples!!!!! :lol:

IMG_7568A1024x713.jpg


I will probably keep this layout going for another few weeks and try and get better photos.

Thanks for looking folks and a Happy new year to everyone :D
 
Thanks guys!

Graeme you could be right about the fish, the problem Im having is that once the lights go on the fish stay at the middle bottom section of the tank and nearly always at the front, whereas I would prefer them at the top back to get more interesting shots, Im also only using available light here for the shots, so that has me limited as well. I have an external flash but cannot get it to sync with my point and shoot camera, I will look into getting an adaptor but I don't think one is available for this camera (Canon A610) for the type of flash I have.

An added problem is that the light I am using blew the other night so no more shots until I get a replacement, but basically the easiest thing would be to have the fish move in the upper section of the tank so I may need to use different fish for that anyway as these guys do not venture there, ever, once the lights go on.

But there is no problem, I will solve these issues, and because the scape is the easiest in the world to keep, time is not really a factor thankfully.

Thanks for the great comments everyone.
 
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