fishyjoe24

both look good, I like them both. I would play around with the wood some more.

kimcadmus

I prefer the stream affect. It might be nice to have a few larger (more round) river rocks and to transition between the two areas with a few of the flat ones. I can really see some long grassy or flowing plants in there growing behind and through the wood.

What substrate will you be using?

Michael

The first one gets my vote.

AquaBarren

Nice big layout. No one can answer this for you. I like the idea of #1 with complimentary shapes running in the same direction, but the overall shape of #2 looks more balanced.

I vote with Kim, keep working with the orientation in #1, increasing overlap, more rocks, adjusting heights.

This arrangement is 4 different pieces of wood arranged to compliment each other, moving mostly left to right. Rocks and stainless screws were used to secure the parts at angles that worked together.



Probably another hundred combintonsto have played with. Have fun, you have some great pieces to work with.

niko

Whoa!

Such a nice plan for a tank. And this is pure aquascaping, truly!

Walter, take your time deciding. I like plan #1 myself. But the wood pointing toward the open door. I'd also leave a lot of free room on the right. Just how I'd do it.

Something else that will help you a lot - when you move the wood take pictures. For some reason pictures help you see mistakes better. It seems to me that if a hardscape looks good on a picture it looks even better in real life.

Once you are done with the dry arrangement please soak this Mazanita. This wood takes ages to sink. AquaBarren did the right thing with stainless steel screws + rocks to make it stay down. It's either that or t least 2 months floating.

Can't wait to see how it will all turn out!

AquaBarren, I can almost see your face in the reflection. Funny how we form a notion of how people look based on a screename, haha.

--Nikolay

AquaBarren

Hi Niko,

You can see my face in my profile. 10-year old picture and the mustache is long one...as is a good part of the hair on my head.

Read my journal...most of the rocks came into the picture about ten minutes into the fill...lol...good thing I had some extras around. Lesson learned.

walterk

Thank you very much for the opinions. They are appreciated.

AquaBarren, that's some VERY interesting pieces of wood to play with! That looks GREAT!

I do agree that "no one can answer this for you." I realize that, ultimately, *I* need to be happy with it. Still, hearing the opinions of others will help me to sort things out.

kimcadmus, it was my dream to have a planted aquarium dedicated to Corydoras catfish. The fish are of primary concern for me. So, I'm slowly purchasing bags of Estes "Marine Sand." I've used it before, and it is FW safe. I want to have the depth no more than 1/2", and a color mix that is representative of the below theme (which I've done before). The use of coated sand at a shallow depth should be ideal for their well being -- especially their barbels.

I'm originally from Washington State. I also wanted this aquarium to have elements of an estuary in the Washington rain forest: moss covered trees, river rocks in sand, some sea weed.







This will be a shallow and long tank. Right now, my thoughts are: 90" X 18" X 14". The stand was built at 40" high so I can look straight into it when I'm seated in my office...right at my eye level.

With that in mind, I'd like a or the focal point to be "right there" for me when I look at the tank from my desk. The tape measure in the pics show the focal point of "The Golden Triangle" that Amano loves to use. I like that idea. It's something that I'm playing with.

Now, which way to place the wood is what I'm pondering. I like both ideas. I currently have one huge branch, on the right, and two smaller branches combined on the left to give a fuller and more complete look. There are also five or six minor "twigs" in there, but those three are what I'm working with right now. That may be sufficient.

I will revisit the landscape supply company to hand select additional river rocks. I'm going to try and get some larger ones as well.

I'm toying with the idea of having lighter sand at the focal point and no rock there.

I've got months to work this out. I can't afford the actual aquarium until late in the year. Knowing my personality, I think I will enjoy just playing around with ideas in the meantime.

Anything you can contribute is appreciated. I may end up in a different place at the end of the year with all of this -- good to have fun with it.

walterk

Niko,

Thanks. Everyone has chosen #1. For me, it is much more relaxing to view, and very natural. Still, I love the "creative tension" of the other arrangement. I'm going to let it set for a while.

Great idea about taking pics. It gives you the ability to see mistakes and a library of the possibilities. What I've found though, for me, is that "live" has much more beauty than what the pics show. It just doesn't capture what is laided out.

Up to two months to soak the wood?

About the "right portion"...leaving it open is a good thought. I was also entertaining placing more rock over there to see how that looks.

About the rock -- I favor the idea of having rocks of all sizes scattered about. For perspective sake though, one could have larger rocks closer and some smaller rocks deeper in the tank to give the illusion of greater depth. Just a thought.

AquaBarren

hi Walter,

I have one of those filters. At some point in my 84g, ver 1, I decided that I wanted to add some supplimentary flow as well as skim some surface scum. This filter seemed perfect.

It does work well. It did have a few challenges though that I thought I'd mention since you are going to rely on 4 of them.

First, the suction cups tend to harden and the unit slips eventually. If you're dilligent about keeping your back wall clean no worries, but it was a little bit of a nuisance for me.

The second thing is that the overflow tended to be sensitive to water level. If too high, water comes in from low and the surface isn't skimmed at all. If too low it very quickly starts to suck air and rattles and bubbles like crazy. It also has fairly low surface area for the pre-filter and it tended to clog frequently. Towards the end I was just cutting and replacing the pre-filter with new every weekend. This of course is exacerbated by challenge #1.

Third, the box is 8 inches tall, the outflow tubes project another inch or two below the bottom. Add in depth of substrate and a little clearance from the top and it might actually be a little tight in your 13" tank.

None of these are severe. They were just niggles. I travel a lot and I'd often come home to a slipped filter, or slightly low water level with the thing sucking air, blowing bubbles and making a racket. When the pre-filter clogs, it virtually stops pumping water too. I liked it. It did just what I hoped, but did take a lot of fiddling to keep it functioning well...well meaning moving water at full efficiency and actually skimming the surface.

The fiddling was weekly, not daily, but was starting to make me crazy so out it came. But it did work when "figgled"

YMMV of course. Since you are going to depend on them as your primary, I'd be happy to ship my old out to you for experimentation. Send it back when you're done, I'm going to use it in a QT one of these days. If you don't have experience with the unit, you may want to play with it before planning around it for your project. Happy to oblige.

Love the idea of a tank based on your roots, no pun intended. good luck, can't wait to see it.

AB

walterk

Thanks, AquaBarren --

Yeah, I'm having second thoughts about those skimmers. My office can get fairly hot in the summer even with the AC. As a result, I have to top off my 46 gal frequently. I could see 4 of those things requiring constant maintenance.

I'm pondering an Eheim canister or two, perhaps one with a skimmer.