My First Nano Aquascape

[siddaa1]

Hello everyone and welcome to my first ever attempt at the wonderful art of Aquascaping.

Got my first tank a few months ago after my girlfriend who keeps fish and has done for a long time decided she wanted a small tank for her living room to keep shrimp in........I thought SHRIMP, is she mental !!

Anyway I bought her the Aquanano 30 as she didn't want the 40 and I started googling tanks and nano tanks especially looking at what she might have in mind. I was instantly bitten by the bug and bought myself the Aquanano 40. That was a few months ago and I've only just about got everything ready to go properly. Anyway enough jibber jabber

specs:
Tank- Aqua one aquanano 40
Cabinet - Just a sturdy beside chest of drwaers
Lighting - TMC 500 Tile
Filter - Built in
Substrate - Tropica Plant Growth Substrate, regular Aquarium gravel, fert balls to insert in medium
Hardscape - Inert river rock & blue slate, redmoor root
CO2 - Pressurised (yet to buy)
Ferts - undecided
Plants - Hemianthus Callitrichoides, fissidens fontanus, Hydrocotyle
Fauna - undecided

So thats where I am so far, I'm going to be adding maybe more plants and mosses as I go, and Fauna is going to be varieties of shrimp and some very small fish. I've got other bits and bobs I'm collecting along the way and am going to be dryscaping whilst I sort my co2, spray bar etc. The diffuser is going to be located in the sump area below the pump and co2 potentially out theu the spray bar I think but I generally change my mind on lots of aspects when I ready something new

Anyway here are some inital pics, there's obviously much more work to go, the slate I need to collect from the girlfriends and smash into smaller interesting pieces to populate the tank as it does look barren.

Excuse the thread on the wood, I've just used that to increase the high of what will be a tree covered in Fissidens moss, I'll bond the wood together when I get some glue.



And heres a view from the side



There's a long way to go, but I'm just happy that I've actually managed to start, and I'm trying to maintain a budget so I generally spend more time scouring fleabay than I do working on the actual tank



All comments are very welcome and any pointers along the way are greatly appreciated. I'll keep upto date with pictures as it evolves and thankyou to this website and the people who post for some wonderful advice and insipration, not to mention the outstanding tanks everyone creates.

All the Best

Anthony

 

[siddaa1]

p.s excuse the crappy camera work, taken on my phone and I really need to learn how to take better pictures !!

 

[Lindy]

Is your wood tied to something? If not it will float like a cork for weeks/months. boiling for a couple of hrs is advisable as is soaking for a week or two.

 

[siddaa1]

Hiya Lindy , the wood is going to be attached to some slate, I just wanted to work on the positioning.

 

[tim]

Nice tank and a really nice piece of wood there Anthony, personally I think the isolated rock looks a little out of place, have you thought about surrounding the base of the wood with some rocks with maybe some graduated smaller rocks/pebbles to blend into the sand foreground, just my opinion looking forward to seeing it planted

 

[siddaa1]

Hiya Tim, yeah I've got some blue slate to break up and place in there at the root base, will probably get that done tomorrow after work. I was pleased with the wood, I'm aiming for a bonsai style look hopefully.

 

[Ian Holdich]

That's a nice rock, do you have anymore? As smaller bits would look great around the base of the wood.

 

[siddaa1]

I've got some blue slate Ian, that'll be going in tomorrow as its a bit late to be smashing rocks with a hammer tonight

I've got some of that rock too, will bust it up good

Just won an ebay bid for an Easy Aqua dual gauge regulator, really chuffed with the price and looks in mint condition, half of my battle is getting my bits on the cheap, got it for £25 and £5 p&p, couldn't be happier

 

[siddaa1]

Just noticed my photos are massive and not conductive to viewing, is there and easy way to reduce the size of them as they are a little on the large side.

 

[squid102]

Welcome to the Aquanano Club! It's a great little tank. Before you add any shrimps make sure you put some sort of mesh just inside the filter inlet grill; I didn't. They love going in there, particularly the babies, if they breed. I had 50+ babies living in the black sponge the last time I cleaned it out.

 

[siddaa1]

Well things going slow as I assemble all the bits I need, Got some coral type rock from LFS and whilst out on my bike stumbled across what I think is actual lava rock, I've got my fissidens ready to tie onto wood toinght and some more mosses to cover the rock and some UG to grow in the foreground with some HC also, It looks like turd right now but hopefully it'll become what I envisage.

 

[siddaa1]

I've got bits of wood to graft onto the tree stem and and make it more expansive, with overhangs. Going lava rock hunting again tmrw on way to work on my bike, hoping to get more of the lovely rock

 

[siddaa1]

Like I say it looks like shite now, but I'm looking to what it might become

 

[siddaa1]

I've got some plants in and moss tied to the wood, rocks and stones roughly where I'd like them and going to start the feeding routine, water is still clearing and the FE should be with me wednesday, give it a few weeks and then consider my shrimp and some small fish.

Any feedback is greatly welcome.

The rock at the back is holding the wood down for a while