Hey all
So in my previous post I gave you a sneak peek of the new fish tank; a 35 litre Dennerle Scapers tank with its DIY RGB background. Aquascaping as a whole has 2 distinct stages, hardscaping and planting. Hardscaping is the addition of substrate (ie, sand, gravel or soil) and rocks or wood to provide a natural environment for the plants to grow around and the fauna to live in. In this post I will go into what I have done in terms of hardscape for this new tank.
I wanted to go with a variation on the classic "Iwagumi" style, which is the Japanese style that reproduces rock gardens inside the tank. Normally you would have one key stone which is the focal point, a second supporting stone and then a series of other stone that provide extra decoration. The focal point of an Iwagumi scape should be the stones. If you are interesting in reading up more on Iwagumi, a good starting place is here.
The first step of deciding on your hardscape is choosing a substrate. There are many options, from inert sand and gravel, to nutrient rich soil and even a combination of the two. Some soils need covering in an inert "capping", some do not. Some people use a combination of soil and decorative sand. I have decided to go with Tropical Soil Powder throughout the aquarium as the smaller grain of it looks good in smaller aquariums and its easier to get smaller plants to stay planted in smaller grains.
Next stage in the process is to decide on the type of rocks and the layout of them. For my rocks, I popped over to aquarium gardens and picked up about 10 kilos of grey mountain stone
I tried out numerous layouts before I decided on one that I liked.
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The layout I finally settled on is this one which is a triangle layout.
The photo doesn't really do it justice, but there is a certain amount of balance as well as the tension with some rocks pointing in a different direction to the main stone on the right hand side. I am sure it will look amazing when planted. I ordered plants today so look forward to doing another post once they turn up