Aquascaping?

[BrandiC]

I admit, I am NOT good at it.
How can I make my 75 more appealing?
The fixture on the left can be laid down as well.

 

[Nutter]

Adding a background would be a very good start. Probably removing one of the large ornaments & placing the other just off centre would help. If not place both ornaments close together just off centre. Moving the coloured plants to the sides will help or have them bunched around the off centre ornament. Try to have just one focal point in the tank & have that focal point just off centre. A tank that has too many features isn't as attractive as a tank that has one well placed feature.

 

[sirdarksol]

My opinion (and it is only opinion) would be to get rid of all of the plastic plants and replace them with real.
You could do rocks or bits of driftwood with your choice (or a mix) of Java fern, Java moss, Christmas moss, and/or anubias.
Depending on the lighting you have, you could do small ceramic pots that have various rooted plants, too.

Also, I would lay the one on the left down and putting it closer to the center, or right up against the side. It looks a little too balanced right now, and looks a bit forced. (Nutter's suggestion on this would work, too) The point is to make it look artfully unbalanced, and leave uneven amounts of empty space.

 

[Nutter]

+1 on the live plants. Real is always better than fake but some people just don't want to have live so I didn't mention it.

 

[BrandiC]

The background is painted on, I can't change it..

 

[BrandiC]

And as it stands I'm planning to switch to live but we live an hour from a pet store and we haven't made amy trips yet. Have an exact names of good live plants?

 

[Lucy]

I kind of like it.

 

[BrandiC]

I kind of like it.

I do like my background

 

[sirdarksol]

Any of the anubias species would work.
Most of the microsorum species (microsorum pteropus, or Java fern, is the most commonly available)
Vesicularia dubyana (Java moss)
Any of these can be attached to wood or rock.

Most, if not all cryptocoryne (crypts) would do well in low light.
Water Wisteria often does well, too.
These two will do best if they get a substrate specifically for plants (though they may do alright in rocky substrate; I've never had much luck with that). As it's difficult to replace substrate in an established tank, you can use completely new (and well-rinsed) tera-cota pots filled with some sort of planted substrate, if you wanted plants that need to be rooted. This would also allow you to play with aquascaping without continually disturbing the plants.

 

[potatos]

I would go for a more uniform gravel, like black, white, or natural tans, and put your decorative stones in piles, but as sirdarksol said, it is hard to change substrate.
I agree with the live plants, and all the ones mentioned above would be great

 

[sirdarksol]

I would go for a more uniform gravel, like black, white, or natural tans, and put your decorative stones in piles, but as sirdarksol said, it is hard to change substrate.
I agree with the live plants, and all the ones mentioned above would be great

An excellent suggestion, though I kind of like the substrate (except for the brightly colored ones). However, I prefer natural looks in my aquaria. I know that some people like the bright colors.

 

[BrandiC]

Well originally the gravel was all "natural" colors. Whites, tans and browns. But as time passed we added more and more different things. Like marbles, different rocks, etc. Ive had the gravel for sometime now. I would like to make it all white though. Originally I wanted a finer substrate for the bps, but I kindof just went with what I had because of lack of funds :[ But thank yall for all the great advice! I don't know how soon I will be doing my "updates" yet again, because of lack of funds, but it will be asap. And I will def post some pics!

 

[BrandiC]

As far as lighting goes, I'm really not sure what kind I have. I bought my 75 on craigslist. I know that the tank is from 2007 and was bought from petsmart.

 

[ryanr]

I'm assuming the background is painted on the outside of the tank?
A razor blade and some mineral turpentine/acetone[nail polish remover] would remove it. Just don't get the solvent anywhere near your water.

The rest is all strictly my opinion

IMO - the background is drawing too much attention. or maybe it's because you can see through it .... you could try putting a solid colour sheet (e.g. blue/black) behind the tank at first.... to see what it's like when you can't see through it.

If it looks better, then you could look at something more permanent.

And similar to nutter and sds, I would look to make a U shape, whereby most of your decoration is around the the tank, with a larger 'communal' empty area in the middle.

Maybe have a look through some of the member galleries here on fishlore, I'm sure you'll find something that you like that you can probably imitate/replicate

Nice tank though

 

[BrandiC]

Okay so here is what ive done. Personally, I think it looks MUCH better! I do plan to add more white substrate, and what I did is just pushed the larger rocks toward the back of the tank. And I removed most of the fake plants. Once I have live ones the fakes will be gone. But my little bp's ChaI and Shy Guy. They would probably have a minI panic attack if they had no plants. Hehe.

 

[sirdarksol]

Looks a lot better. It still looks a little unnaturally balanced to me, but I've long been a dabbler in graphic arts and a lover of zen arrangements, so my opinions are pretty heavily weighted toward certain styles.

 

[BrandiC]

What would you suggest?.. I tried to put all the advice into consideration.. I will probably end up taking off the background. So I'm going to need advice on that as well! It may take a while though because I have to drain most of the water out to be able to move it.

 

[sirdarksol]

I'd wait to see what others say before playing around with it, but I would suggest something like moving the bluish log about six inches to the right, and then moving the rock formation on the far right out in front of it. Right now, to me, it looks like a hill, starting at the left and angling down to the right.
Like I said, it does look much, much better, though, and others may think it looks perfect. Don't take the opinion of one person with a picky eye (picky doesn't necessarily mean talented, by the way) just because he spoke up first. ;D

 

[BrandiC]

Oh, I do see what you mean though. Looks like a slope. I didn't even look at it that way! hehe. So I was thinking about doing a sand substrate.. I know my cichlids would be fine, but what about the tiger barbs. They should be to, right? Probably a light colored sand. And I would take out all the gravel.

 

[sirdarksol]

I think barbs would do fine with sand.
The time that you run into trouble is when you have fish like kuhlis, who like to bury themselves. Then you've got to make sure that the sand is rounded, rather than sharp. Some sands have warnings on them that they aren't safe for kuhlis.

 

[BrandiC]

Oh well the only fish I may add is either another parrot or a school of roseline sharks.

 

[blkdeath75]

I think the second set of pics looks a lot better than the first with all the colored plastic If you cannot swing live plants, my wife and I did natural looking silk plants from Walmart and it looks decent(not as nice as live but better than plastic). The silk also sways a bit in the current as plastic really can't. But I would definitely add a bit of roughage(greens) lol.

 

[blkdeath75]

Here's the silk plants. One in front of the driftwood is actually real and the round ball is Marimoso moss(think I said it right) the far left and right are silk (think the midlle left of driftwood is plastic though).

 

[BrandiC]

Oh I have some silk plats that were given to me. They look alright in my tank. But I don't care for them much. They are a bit old.

 

[potatos]

It looks much better! the rock formation just set like that or is it glued? if your fish knock it over constantly, or if you knock it over during water chnages, you can use an aquarium glue or selant to make it more sturdy and solid. this would also allow you to move it around at your digression as you fiddle with different arangements without having to rebuild it each time

 

[Aquarist]

Good morning,

I have moved your thread to the Aquarium Aquascaping section of the forum.

Thanks!

Ken

 

[BunnyPuncher]

The background is painted on, I can't change it..

Do slate. The nursery school background is going to limit your options. Pretty much stuck with the "fun, zany, childlike" theme. Nothing wrong with it if that is what you like.

And as you did say you like it, work with it (not around it or against it).

 

[BrandiC]

I do like it, but I think I will still change it. I think I wanted something that looks natural.

 

[angelfish220]

Is the background painted on the INSIDE of the tank? Earlier you made a comment that you'll need to basically empty the aquarium to get the background off. If it is painted on the inside I would try to take it off right away, you don't know what toxins could be leeched out of it and into the water.

Put your fish in a bucket of tank water with the filter on the side. Put substrate in another bucket and keep it damp (preferably with tank water) to keep the the bacteria alive.

Drain the tank and place plastic wrap underneath the places with the painted on decorations to catch the scrapings. Use a razor blade to scrape off the paint. I would try my best to get it off without chemical aid, so the tank isn't polluted more.

 

[Jaysee]

I would paint the background black or blue, at least in the areas between what's already been painted.

 

[BrandiC]

No, its on the outside. I have to empty the tank to be able to move it. Its way to heavy for me to move full of water.
Well one of my tanks ive painted a dark purple color and I really like it.
But I'm also going to see what kind of background I can find.

 

[Tony G.]

IMO a black background really brings out the color of any fish, especially the BP's. (I have black with my goldies and they look amazing).If you want to go with a natural theme, then I suggest getting gravel that looks like something natural and not died (like pea gravel just whites browns and tans)

also, what I do is I just go out one day, bring a bucket with me and go out for walks and go rock collecting. I try to find the same type of rocks and then when I get home I treat them, rinse them, sun dry them and then I scape with them. The reason you choose the same colored rocks is to follow the colored theme. There's some pics on my blog (click the link in my signature, its the 35g tank and also the 10g) and also, walmart has some really nice plastic plants that look pretty real. At least to me, but as blkdeath75 said, the silk plants look really good too, just make sure that the inner wire is not exposed.

Finally you would want to put the biggest rocks and plants at the back and shorter ones at the front to create depth, making the tank look bigger.

Whew! that was a lot

Hope I helped

oh, here's a good link with a video on aquascaping:

 

[BrandiC]

Well I was thinking of doing an extremely dark purple, maybe a plum color. With either black gravel, or white sand. Any opinions on this? I also plan to get live plants as soon as I can.

 

[angelfish220]

I would do Black substrate. White shows fish poop way to easily and the dark color brings out the vibrant color in the fish.

 

[BrandiC]

Can you buy black sand? Or an extremely fine black substrate?

 

[Kristyn]

If this were my tank I would do something like this until I got some real plants in it

 

[Kristyn]

Can you buy black sand? Or an extremely fine black substrate?

Seachem sells a black sand that is supposed to be good for live plants too