# River themed tank



## Blackheart (Jul 5, 2011)

So does anybody have a tips for creating a tank that looks similar to a creek or a river bed? I'm not doing a biotope so it doesn't have to be exact. The tank I'm using is a 55 gallon and I have a huge piece of driftwood that I think has a nice shape. I'm using natural pea gravel from the hardware store. Not sure what plants I'm going to use but preferably nothing to difficult to grow.

My plan is to have one end with the driftwood in it and make a pretty good sized slope leading down into another area that will have a decent amount of plants and possibly a different gravel. maybe sand.

any tips?


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## fish jihad (Mar 1, 2014)

Pea Gravel doesnt hold roots that well. You may have problems with new plants staying rooted. Some have tied roots to washers to make sure they dont float up.


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## flamechica (Jan 27, 2015)

I have gravel in all but one of my tanks. New plants are a PITA, especially stem plants. Once they get decent roots on them, they stay though. I don't tie washers or anything like that to them because I have read that it can rot the plant. I just keep replanting until they stay put. The long tweezers sold for aquascaping have been helpful for me.

As far as mixing substrates...I hear it is hard to do unless you don't mind them mixing and the smaller grain will always end up on bottom. As far as sloping goes, I have never done that, but from what I have read, it will eventually level out, unless you put something underneath it like egg crate.


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## nchmi28 (Feb 8, 2015)

> As far as sloping goes, I have never done that, but from what I have read, it will eventually level out, unless you put something underneath it like egg crate.


You could use silicone to glue the wood to a ceramic tile, then bury the tile. It'll also help if your wood floats. 
Personally I'm a fan of large river rock stones for a creek look.


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## Raymond S. (Dec 29, 2012)

I'm reasonably sure that creeks look different in different arias.
Where I live there are rocks other than the conventional round river rocks.
The creeks are either full of those or mostly sand bottomed. The ones/w sand have a few of the smaller river rocks scattered across the top of the sand.


























Those are all the same creek and at low level but still running if only a small amount.
I would try to find some small river rocks and use mostly a sand bottom/w a few of the smaller rocks thrown over the top of it. That is also typical of some of the streams around here when they are on the lower flat parts of the valleys between hills.
Can't seem to find a picture of those. The above pictures come from where I "collect"
at times. Collect rocks/driftwood/small plants/small fish.
Don't know how it will work, but I'm trying to build a 10g with the river look in those pictures using one end as the river bank.


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## ahem (Dec 27, 2014)

The difficulties of sands are (1) it kills roots (2) some of them I am convince produce silicates that seem to help diatoms (brown algae) grow and (3) it kicks up a cloud when you do work.


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## Acro (Jul 7, 2012)

ahem said:


> The difficulties of sands are (1) it kills roots (2) some of them I am convince produce silicates that seem to help diatoms (brown algae) grow and (3) it kicks up a cloud when you do work.


I have to respectfully disagree . . . 

I've never heard of sand killing roots. I've successfully grown a variety of plants in sand (Vals, Crypts, Tiger Lotus, Aponogeton, swords) and the plants thrived. There are many others who have used sand successfully. 

As for silicates, that probably depends on the type of sand used.

Sand won't "kick up a cloud" if large grained sand it used. I will agree that the powdery stuff will make a mess.


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## PhysicsDude55 (Oct 24, 2011)

I set up my tank to imitate a river bed.

I was looking to simulate a river bed like this: (kind of like a freshwater mangrove)










I went to a local lake and found driftwood pieces that fit what I was looking for. I cut the wood pieces in half down the middle so that I could mount them against the tank back to look like tree trunks on the side of a riverbed.










I then made a huge foam/concrete DIY background around the drifwood layout. This was rewarding but VERY time consuming (probably spend a solid 30 hours on it - no exaggeration).










The black section of this piece was really easy to make. Its a piece of .5" thick piece of styrofoam which I shaped up a little bit by blowing a heat gun on it for 30 seconds, and I made a thick mixture of concrete and regular black aquarium gravel and applied it heavily. To me it looks like the side of a silt riverbed, and only took a few minutes to make, compared to hours to carve out the rock formations.










Finished Product:










(There are pumps on the right side that make the plants flow in the current, looks quite a bit like a river IMO).

If I had to do it again, I would have added more smooth rocks on the bottom and sloped the background more.


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## Joeymozzer (Mar 23, 2014)

I wanted the same theme, here's my tank. Probably not what you want, not what I wanted but I'm happy so far.


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## NotCousteau (Sep 25, 2014)

I have a native steam tank in a 33 long. I think the long, low profile helps add to a stream look. 

I originally thought about creating a slope, too, but it sounded like more work than I was up for. This was my first tank in about 10 years.

I piled a bunch of big rocks at one end, used smaller rocks in the foreground and in the middle of the tank, and then used sand at the far right. 

If you use a lot of heavy rock, lay down some egg crate across the whole bottom to distribute the weight and protect your glass!

I keep my plant list short (val, java moss, some floaters). I feel that most streams I've seen in nature are a little sparse plant-wise.

Good luck with your tank! Here are some pictures of mine.


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## RugburnTanks (Mar 31, 2015)

I haven't made a stream like tank but what I'm noticing is that some people had to many different plants. Go with on or the types of plants and add a rock bed with a little bit of driftwood. The plants i would go with is jungle val and Java fern.


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## Blackheart (Jul 5, 2011)

That's a pretty nice looking tank there NotCousteu 

My plan actually anyways to keep this tank moderately planted actually with easy to average growing plants such as java fern, crypts, anubias, and rotala.


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## NotCousteau (Sep 25, 2014)

Blackheart said:


> That's a pretty nice looking tank there NotCousteu
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks! Good luck!


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## nonfucious (Apr 3, 2014)

This was my take on it:









I wound up removing the smaller rocks as they trapped a lot of debris.


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## HDBenson (Jan 26, 2015)

I think the key to a stream/river effect is a uniform type of rock regardless of the type - utilize this by using several sizes or the rock and grade it from largest towards the back smaller/est towards the front.. Also, many streams I have visited/scoured tend to have minimal diversity in plant life - at least in a given stretch. The best simulation of substrate would be lots of sand.. LOTS of sand with sprinklings of small grade gravel in patches like stream riffles.


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