Following the soon to be trend, here is my ongoing journal for my PFK Aquacube, a 5 gallon 12" cube aquarium as supplied through a PFK magazine subscription.
I've never setup a fully aquascaped tank before, with previous attempts pretty much being plants and a few rocks. I am taking design inspiration from the roadside landscapes which I see whilst driving around Northumberland, some are surprisingly beautiful, I hope to capture something of them with this tank.
I am not currently planning additional light, nor CO2, though I will be using Seachem Flourish Excel, Flourish and Eco-complete substrate. The tank will be heated, though as yet I am unsure of the livestock.
Images are running off my own server via good old broadband so please be patient: if they don't display try again later, sometimes the connection can be flaky!
So, first off, here is the tank, background and rocks before anything starts going in:
The background was stuck to the back of the tank: it is double-sided black/blue, for now I have used the black since this is closer to the landscapes which are providing the design ideas. I can swap it over easily if it doesn't work.
I then added some rocks, bought from a LFS, at present the lack of substrate means I can't build up the height of these as I plan to. I aim to slope the EC quite heavily towards the back right and have it 'fall over' the rocks down to the front left and right of the tank.
Rocks in place:
I have some oak twigs which need dried out etc, for now here are two purely for the sake of it!
I have done some golden rule planning on paper, though as yet I haven't worked this into the tank in any way. Until substrate arrives I can't really do anything but get a rough idea of how things will work. The EC should hopefully arrive tomorrow, once this is here I can move on a bit. In the mean time I am going to sort out the twigs and dry them in the oven for a good while.
I've never setup a fully aquascaped tank before, with previous attempts pretty much being plants and a few rocks. I am taking design inspiration from the roadside landscapes which I see whilst driving around Northumberland, some are surprisingly beautiful, I hope to capture something of them with this tank.
I am not currently planning additional light, nor CO2, though I will be using Seachem Flourish Excel, Flourish and Eco-complete substrate. The tank will be heated, though as yet I am unsure of the livestock.
Images are running off my own server via good old broadband so please be patient: if they don't display try again later, sometimes the connection can be flaky!
So, first off, here is the tank, background and rocks before anything starts going in:
The background was stuck to the back of the tank: it is double-sided black/blue, for now I have used the black since this is closer to the landscapes which are providing the design ideas. I can swap it over easily if it doesn't work.
I then added some rocks, bought from a LFS, at present the lack of substrate means I can't build up the height of these as I plan to. I aim to slope the EC quite heavily towards the back right and have it 'fall over' the rocks down to the front left and right of the tank.
Rocks in place:
I have some oak twigs which need dried out etc, for now here are two purely for the sake of it!
I have done some golden rule planning on paper, though as yet I haven't worked this into the tank in any way. Until substrate arrives I can't really do anything but get a rough idea of how things will work. The EC should hopefully arrive tomorrow, once this is here I can move on a bit. In the mean time I am going to sort out the twigs and dry them in the oven for a good while.
What are your plans for plants?
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