# Half Gallon Hardscape



## jms (Apr 5, 2010)

I'm interested to see what happens here. I also have that same cube and have no idea what I'm going to do with it.


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## LedxZep (Sep 25, 2009)

Some unrolled marmiro balls would look nice if grown on the rock. Some hc for groundcover if your light is good enough and dwarf hairgrass in the back wouldn't be bad.


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## liquidity (May 3, 2010)

Here's a great thread with your same 6x6x6 cube:
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/planted-nano-tanks/103254-laras-0-75-gallon-piccolo-pics.html


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## madhatter4 (Dec 13, 2007)

liquidity said:


> Here's a great thread with your same 6x6x6 cube:
> http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/planted-nano-tanks/103254-laras-0-75-gallon-piccolo-pics.html


That's a good thread, thanks.



I was not feeling the hard scape so I redid it. Better or worse?


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## EntoCraig (Jun 7, 2010)

These are awesome. I love the diligence that people put into these super minis. I have a 1.5 cube just like this, now I am considering smaller  Good luck! cant wait to see the progress!


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## asukawashere (Mar 19, 2010)

I liked the first hardscape better. The white milky quartz rock stood out nicely against the black eco-complete.

As a thought, you might want to add some tiny driftwood twigs. IMO, corkscrew willow twig ends look nice for this sort of thing... nice and thin for the small size "tank" too... I use them in my cherry shrimp setup with moss attached. Something similar might look cool here. 

If you can get ahold of some mini Riccia, that'd look nice in this... or even regular riccia if you place it behind the rock, maybe with some hairgrass or HM behind that... 

I just set up a similarly-sized mini as a local biotope, lol - used only locally-collected hairgrass specimens, but not sure how it'll fill out given time. Interesting project, though - planting with tweezers is really an exercise in patience!


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## madhatter4 (Dec 13, 2007)

I agree about the contrast of the white rock against the black substrate in the first pic, but I also like the depth of the cliff face if the second pic. Here are a few more hard scape attempts using white rocks. Thoughts? I think I may try to make the cliff face one again using white colored slate.

Rescape 2









Rescape 3









Rescape 4









Rescape 5


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## Stemwinder (May 29, 2010)

madhatter4 said:


> That's a good thread, thanks.
> 
> 
> 
> I was not feeling the hard scape so I redid it. Better or worse?



This is my favorite. It would look great with some RCS or some Blue Leg Posos. Good luck. Keep us posted.


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## EntoCraig (Jun 7, 2010)

I also prefer the dark. If you do plants, it will cover most of the black sand any so there wont be much contrast between the white. The dark rock looks for natural.


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## phangtonpower (May 28, 2010)

+1 on the black stone. I like how it's flat. Reminds me of a canyon cliff or something. I don't know about plants, but I think it the black with some nice green would look nice. 

Maybe you can do a wabi kusa type thing.


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## madhatter4 (Dec 13, 2007)

phangtonpower said:


> +1 on the black stone. I like how it's flat. Reminds me of a canyon cliff or something. I don't know about plants, but I think it the black with some nice green would look nice.
> 
> Maybe you can do a wabi kusa type thing.


That wabi kusa thing is pretty cool. 

I too like the black stone the best out of all the others I think. It really gives a lot of depth. Time to look for some plants :icon_smil

Thanks for the comments!


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## actioncia (Jun 9, 2005)

stemwinder

I'd agree with on the last picture with that one darker piece of rock you could try growing some H.C.


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## jms (Apr 5, 2010)

Looks good. I also like the black stone. I found a couple twigs and a rock for mine. What light if any are you going to use? I've seen a couple LED clip on lights at fry's electronics I might give a whirl over mine when I set it up.


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## ryndisher (Jun 1, 2010)

Great so far, wanting to see what you end up planting in that bad boy!


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## madhatter4 (Dec 13, 2007)

I think I want a carpet of some sort in front of the rock and a lot of people suggest I grow some HC. How much light do they really require and how fast will it grow? I want to keep trimming to a minimum. I dont think my boss would approve of me working on the tank/cube a lot.

Behind the rock I think I want to grow something emersed but I have no idea what might work there. It would be cool to have something grow a few inches above the cube. Any ideas?



jms said:


> Looks good. I also like the black stone. I found a couple twigs and a rock for mine. What light if any are you going to use? I've seen a couple LED clip on lights at fry's electronics I might give a whirl over mine when I set it up.


I was thinking about the same lights myself, not sure how much light they put out though.


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## jms (Apr 5, 2010)

madhatter4 said:


> I think I want a carpet of some sort in front of the rock and a lot of people suggest I grow some HC. How much light do they really require and how fast will it grow? I want to keep trimming to a minimum. I dont think my boss would approve of me working on the tank/cube a lot.
> 
> Behind the rock I think I want to grow something emersed but I have no idea what might work there. It would be cool to have something grow a few inches above the cube. Any ideas?
> 
> ...


Me either. The display ones at fry's look dim, but I assume that's because they're on 18 hours a day everyday.


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## Newman (Jul 3, 2010)

what light are you planning on using for this? Nice design, I was going to go for one of these cube vase things but i chose a cylinder vase instead xD


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## madhatter4 (Dec 13, 2007)

I found a piece of petrified wood at my LFS I really like. I think this is the hard scape I'm going to run with.












Still don't know what kind of light I'm going to run but I think I will try one of those clip on LED lights. If its not bright enough I can always swap out the LED for a higher wattage. 

I definitely want a carpet in front of the rock and something that will grow out of the water behind the rock.


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## EntoCraig (Jun 7, 2010)

Love it. Good choice.


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## madhatter4 (Dec 13, 2007)

Finally got around to setting this up in my cube but it ended badly. I work from home a once to twice a week and the time off over the holidays led to a bad crash and a gross looking nano.

I have a new scape in my cube now (emmersed only) with devils ivy growing in the back. I want to plant something in the foreground that will stay low and be ok in office type lighting (T8 5 feet above the nano, off center). 

Any suggestions?


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## dubvstudent (Jan 10, 2009)

madhatter4 said:


> I have a new scape in my cube now (emmersed only) with devils ivy growing in the back. I want to plant something in the foreground that will stay low and be ok in office type lighting (T8 5 feet above the nano, off center).
> 
> Any suggestions?


Java moss is the only thing I know of that will grow under that little light.


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## madhatter4 (Dec 13, 2007)

Will Java Moss even grow in an emmersed state? My water level is right at the substrate.

I was thinking of Anubis but I don't know if its roots would grow into the substrate.


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