wrkucera

very cool. by the way, how do you create the water rippling effect in your photos? I have noticed this effect in other tanks photos as well.

Jumbo

Beautiful aquascape!
How long did it take for HC to grow like these?
More pictures please.

hedson_25

more pics of the layout and mounting...

Intros

Since I visited Ireland I can understand the very natural vision of your greeny hills near the mountains in your scape. Great job!

zig

Hey thanks everyone for all the great comments and interest in this tank, I will try and answer the questions as best I can.

mistergreen the rock is seiryu rock, I think that's the correct spelling, in Europe it is sold as Mini landscape rock. There are a couple of sources to buy it online , I would need to do some digging to find the links for you though, but if you want them just pm me or maybe someone else can provide them more readily. Thanks man.

Thanks Paul, I didn't really think it was excessive tbh, I was using over 5WPG so I thought water changes would be a good idea, I didn't want to drive the tank too hard, so I limited the light period for 8 hours per day and used the water changes as a type of brake. Its only a couple of bucketfuls of water every few days to change out anyway, I didn't have any problems at all with algae at any stage with this layout, Im sure the water chages helped someway towards that result.

Thanks aquaguang, the tank is 13-14 us gallon (I think)

The fish choice was really determined by availability tbh, I knew I wanted some sort of small almost micro fish but they are hard to come by over here, we have some very good LFS but most fish they sell are too big for this type of scape, so choice was limited. If I find something more colourful and suitable I may swop them out, but I do like them, they school well and are a really good size for this tank/scape.

Hey thanks George, I like the fish as well but if I can find an alternative!!! (which probably won't happen but I do like them)

Hey chester, some of your scapes are pretty cool as well man, the tank is running since the 15th of November, so 6 weeks or thereabouts. Thanks.

Hey Jumbo welcome to APC, HC does not take long to grow and fully carpet a tank, maybe 4 weeks or thereabouts, provided you add the right ingredients of course!

Thanks very much everyone, I will do another post and add some more pictures.

zig

This is how the tank was put together, these shots are poor usually after moving rocks around so the water is muddy etc.

Humble beginnings here, this was the original rock hardscape with the bare bones for this layout, there were a good few changes as I went along mainly to rocks at the back of the scape so they weren't to difficult to swop out, so I pretty much built it up over a few weeks as HC grew in. The front rock section stayed pretty much untouched for the duration as this is what is really holding the whole thing up.



This shot is taken about a week in you can see some rock changes already.



More changes



This is the cool morning mist effect you can get by using muddy aquasoil actually this was quite a problem with this scape, large rocks and wet aquasoil definitely don't mix



Thanks again everyone here's a better shot to finish

FazTeAoMar

Hello.

I must say that this is one of the most skilful and well done layouts I have ever seen! It is trully a work of art, made in such a small tank. I like the way how you managed your space in there to build the layout with so many rocks. The substracte sloaps, the placement of the rocks, the sand pathway following the golden rule, the choice of plants and fish... As I said before, very skilful.

The photography is also good and helps us enjoy even more the aquascape.

I must " reward" this layout with 5 stars as it is one of my favourites.

Congratulations!


Regards,
André

Supercoley1

Wht I like about this tank is until you read it is quite small you do assume it is a very large tank.

It reminds me of pictures of New Zealand when you see the mountains jutting out of the forests which grow down the slopes and the tiny HC does give the impression of thousands of small trees looking from many many miles away.

A very impressive scape by all accounts and certainly deserving of a competition entry in the near future. Maybe you can bring a prize to the British Isles for a change. lol

Keep it up Zig.

Andy

gf225

5 stars mate.

houseofcards

That's a really nice scape. Shows that when you use great rocks and positioning there is plenty of interest even without many plants. I love that mist effect. It seems so fitting for the scape. Now if you can keep that muddy mist low and the rest of the tank clear and think your really on to something.