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The big mistake.

D

DefconWombat

Member
Joined
5 Oct 2023
Messages
29
Location
Oxford
Never again am I doing a large tank.
After three months we finally got the 500l from the garage and into the house over the holiday week.
Yet more wood has been purchased, fish room is starting to look like a scaling wholesaler's. Wife keeps telling that it’s ok and “we’ll find a use for it”, I’m taking this as code for “you can buy more tanks”.
Had many discussions with many suppliers, we’ve at last settled on lighting and am looking forward to the Chihiros Vivid 2s arriving in the new year.
Overall I’m happy with how the layout has come together, not 100% about the sand/soil transition along the front edge. May need to tweak that.
Now to finish off the filtration and start working on how to plant it.
Happy to hear your thoughts/criticism's, still new to this so every pointer helps.
 

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I think in general it looks very impressive. If it were my tank, I think i'd go to some local rivers to try and pull out some much larger river stones/boulders, to balance out the sheer size of the wood.
Other than that, I hope you love blackwater setups because you may be dealing with tannins for the life of the tank! And, if I had such an awesome piece of hardscape, a royal panaque would be number 1 for possible tank inhabitants.
 
The wood is nice and looks naturally. Please, don't spoil it with any attempts at white/brown combination of substrates etc.
Me, I'd get some rough unsorted gravel with a few bigger rocks and that's it. There are no golf turfs in the nature, esp. underwater.
 
Wow, nice bit of wood!

What are you thinking for planting? I presume the soil area will be covered in plants? If so I think you'll lose all those rocks at the back to the plant growth. It looks like you are trying to create height on the back right? I would probably do this with taller plants, I don't think the few extra inches you'll gain by banking up behind the rocks will make much difference with the scale of everything else.

I would consider moving the line of rocks about 4' back from the front, just behind where the rightmost tip of the wood touches - mimicing that lovely tumble of rocks style you have on the left. Then continue the sand across the front edge - adding a scatter of mixed size stones to soften the join.
 
OllieTY said:
I think in general it looks very impressive. If it were my tank, I think i'd go to some local rivers to try and pull out some much larger river stones/boulders, to balance out the sheer size of the wood.
Other than that, I hope you love blackwater setups because you may be dealing with tannins for the life of the tank! And, if I had such an awesome piece of hardscape, a royal
Click to expand...

OllieTY said:
I think in general it looks very impressive. If it were my tank, I think i'd go to some local rivers to try and pull out some much larger river stones/boulders, to balance out the sheer size of the wood.
Other than that, I hope you love blackwater setups because you may be dealing with tannins for the life of the tank! And, if I had such an awesome piece of hardscape, a royal panaque would be number 1 for possible tank inhabitants.
Click to expand...
It’s actually not leaching as bad as I was expecting. Along with a 9 micron roller filter, charcoal and Purigen it’s pretty good.
 
_Maq_ said:
The wood is nice and looks naturally. Please, don't spoil it with any attempts at white/brown combination of substrates etc.
Me, I'd get some rough unsorted gravel with a few bigger rocks and that's it. There are no golf turfs in the nature, esp. underwate
Click to expand...

tam said:
Wow, nice bit of wood!

What are you thinking for planting? I presume the soil area will be covered in plants? If so I think you'll lose all those rocks at the back to the plant growth. It looks like you are trying to create height on the back right? I would probably do this with taller plants, I don't think the few extra inches you'll gain by banking up behind the rocks will make much difference with the scale of everything else.

I would consider moving the line of rocks about 4' back from the front, just behind where the rightmost tip of the wood touches - mimicing that lovely tumble of rocks style you have on the left. Then continue the sand across the front edge - adding a scatter of mixed size stones to soften the join.
Click to expand...
Partly done to give a little height at the back but mainly just to break any sight line from front to back.

The front right hand edge has been tweaked not to reflect the rock tumble and got have gotten rid of the sand soul divide visible on glass front.
 
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