Designed By A 4 Year Old - 10 Gallon

[jmiller]

Thanks for the response.

I've been spending a lot of time searching through here and another forum mainly looking at plants in tanks approximately the same size and have come up with a small list of plants that I liked the look of so far. Pardon the poor spelling and butchering of names but they include: ludwigia, wisteria, vallis, anubuas, java fern, bolbitis, amazon sword and my two favorites blyxa japonic & hydrophilia polysperma. Thanks for the heads up on the easy plant list I'll try and find it.

As far as aquascaping critiques go, suggest away. I have a thick skin and hardly any experience or knowledge so I'm wanting and willing to learn. From an earlier post I've expressed disappointment with the way that the fish are always on the one side of the tank (rock side) so maybe I need to think about removing the wood. With the dark gravel it just seems to blend in to much anyway. That would solve a two problems. One being to switch it to one focal point and the other to expand the area that seem to make to fish happier. Make sense?

The only potential problem I see in all of this is my wife calls me "Mr. Symmetric". I'm really bad about everything having to be perfectly centered and spaced. I already know that it's going to be my biggest challenge.

I had to step away from the IAGA website. Way over my head. While they were nice to look at I don't have enough knowledge yet to even begin to understand how to take the concepts and incorporate it into something I could use. Baby steps first.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, I had actually been remembering your other problem of the fish hanging to one side. Since probably one thing or another needs to come out to give more room, removing the wook might be a good first trial. Actually the 3 rocks could come out from the center of one side with one stacked on the other two. Its always good to create something that looks as if it could be gone around to some place that seems slightly in hiding. Humans show more interest if there seems to be some pathway like that in a scene. The plants would then somehow be associated with this "rock outcropping." The other side of the tank would be more bare.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[jmiller]

When I get home tonight I'll take a current pic from the front and an overhead. That one rock in the back is pretty big and might need to be replaced with something smaller. It didn't look that big at the LFS.

 

[waterdrop]

You could actually use some smaller rounded pebbles, something you might find in a creek, to make that tank look bigger I'd think. WD

 

[jmiller]

Here is how it currently looks.

I went ahead and spent a little time on the IAGA site just looking mainly at the 5-15 gallon tanks and always find myself drawn to the rock and lightly planted ones.

 

[waterdrop]

To my eye its interesting how this latest layout looks better from -above- than it does from the front! At any rate its still just got a variation of the same problem. From the front the eye is drawn to 3 relatively evenly spaced focal points and of course the overall lack of foliage doesn't cover the equipment well. I do note the loss of the background and I think that actually looks better. Just for grins you should try your idea of taking the wood out and then put the filter and heater together on the left and arrange -all- the plants and rocks together in front of it but keep looking from the front at the positioning of the 3 plants to see how you can make them play against each other. (Part of the exercise is to realize that there's no need to get set in stone with any particular aquascape, it can always be played with and its not to hard once you get used to doing the changing..)

~~waterdrop~~

 

[jmiller]

Other than moving everything to the right side (because of the filter cutout) that sounds doable. I've actually been thinking about a two tier substrate. Like 1" on the left side and 3" on the right and part of the back. I have an idea on what to do with that big rock, I hope it works out, and I may be taking a hammer to one of the others or I might just go to the LFS and get a couple of smaller ones. I'll try moving things around this weekend during regular maintenance.

 

[waterdrop]

Tiered substrate levels are more difficult to maintain but people do do them, often using small rocks as the lift border. In a small tank like yours a very simple curved line would probably work better than a more curvy one, don't you think? fun!

 

[jmiller]

Are you talking about a curved line using the plants, rocks or substrate?

I was thinking that if I varied the substrate I was going to do a gentle curve from front to back. Starting with the raised part on the right containing the plants and rocks only being about 25% of the width in the front and getting wider as it goes back.

 

[jmiller]

Well here it is. I'll call this Version #1. Let me know what you all think.

Dry run layout for fit. I cut a piece of roofing felt the size of the tank to help.

From above. I tried the gentle curve that WD mentioned. I hope that is what he was talking about. Check out the little pathway between the rocks.

Here is the front view. The area on the left needs something small but I'm not quite sure what.

Overall I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. I was limited with what I had to work with plants wise and some of the sizes are a little off but it will do for now until I haave a chance to research some more on real plants.

 

[waterdrop]

Ahh, this is MUCH much better, don't you think? Great work there John!

OK, igore the bit about gentle curve - I was talking about the situation where you have a whole series of little inch sized rocks and use them like a spaced out rock wall behind which the gravel is at a higher plateau and that plateau would probably be at one side of the tank.. but lets ignore that right now, I don't think you need it.

So I hope its not just me doing my own thing but the tank to me is starting to look much more modern. Grouping everything to the right side is working. The black substrate works especially well with the clean glass look on the left.

Next I think we should keep bunching the plants more closely together, rechecking over and over from the front of the tank to acheive the right look. I would like to see more overlap and hiding of the heater. But looking at it I like a lot of the current positioning. I like the plant with large leaves being where it is because that one big leave is providing a good endpoint to the busier right planted area and the taller leaves are covering the filter quite well. How about trying just two moves. The very bright little red thing should be tried in the crack between the first rock at the right front and the next rock such that it is low and peeking out between the rocks. That bright lighter green plant that is leftmost could be tried right in that space to the left of the tall red plant. It will be behind where you've moved the low red plant and will hopefully block the heater view more and make all of the right side planting look thicker and more overlapped.

My only hesitation about the idea is that the little low bright red plant also makes a nice contribution right where you've got it so I almost wish you just had a second one. Even though they are plasic (they are right?) this is kind of fun! Also I think I would make the black gravel on the left side of the tank just taper to a very shallow and flat look all the way front to back (not allowing a dark tank line to show back there but I wouldn't slope it up on the left side. On the right side I'd continue with plenty of higher slopings of the gravel just as you have it. All these are just things for you to try of course.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[jmiller]

I'll try moving the plants tomorrow since I have to scoot the rocks over a little anyway. The cory are trying to wedge themselves in between the rocks and the glass and there isn't enough room. So everything is going to have to shift over about an inch or so. I think I have a solution for the heater and I'll try it tomorrow. As far as the little red plant goes I might be able to half that one. It is something I made from a piece of an old ornament that use to be in the tank. That and the green and white one in the back by the heater were part of it. I hope I can get a good working layout soon so I can start planning for real plants.

I will say that so far the fish really seem to be enjoying the extra space. The cory especially. I have never seen them this active.

 

[jmiller]

Version #2

I'm liking this much better. I think I need to either remove or downsize that rock in the upper right hand corner. It is taking up a lot of "planting" area. I think I might try putting in two or three much smaller ones first.

I think I'll start working on a plant list now.

 

[jmiller]

Okay, I've been really busy for the last few hours and have come up with a list of things I like. Since I have zero experience I need a lot of help. Here is the layout and choices:

1...front / Hemianthus Callitrichoides
1...back / Anubias Barteri var. Nana Petite
1...back / second plant is undecided

2...Vallisneria americana var. Biwanesis (contortional val)
Auubias Barteri var. coffeefolia
Sagittaria subulata (dwarf)

3...Ledwigia Natans

4...Limnophila Indica
Bacopa Australis
Ledwigia Natans (can you tell I like this one)

5...Hygrophra Corymbosa

6...Bolbitis Heudeloii
Hygrophlia Corymbosa - siamensis

Please excuse any butchering of names. I tried to pick plants that were easy and that required very little speciality care. If I have mistakenly picked one please point it out. I want low tech.


Edit: Ones with more than one listed are choices, only one species per location.

 

[waterdrop]

Anubias, vals, ludwigia and hygrophila are indeed all ones I've seen on the easier lists. I suppose your options for a path to proceed might be seen to spit here between taking this post and seeing if you can research the plants any further in the planted section or, and this is true anyway, you can just try them in your tank after you've decided on light, ferts etc. with the plan to keep going with the ones that seem to like your tank and to replace the ones that don't with different ones. I used to sometimes have trouble with vals and have anticipated even more with my soft water but I've been advised they will in fact do ok in soft water if you are patient enough!

Interesting on layout thing we were doing. You implemented all my suggestions nicely but they didn't work as well as I thought. Somehow the bottom pic of post 100 (the previous layout from the front) was more graceful but I can't deconstruct what didn't work. It needs more height going to the right, doesn't look good that the large leaved plant now somehow has its tallness stand out more and looks too centered but its not that I would want to move it, its more that more plants to the right are needed, so maybe its just good that you are now getting closer to the live plant attempt. What are your bulb wattages again and type of bulb?

~~waterdrop~~