# 150 Tall Aquascape Plan ( No longer a plan - Tank Scaped! )



## danellis1229 (Jan 24, 2013)

lighting may cost forrtune but if you dont mind spending the money or taking a bath with each cleaning or replanting i love tall tanks but what a pain


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## Steve002 (Feb 7, 2014)

Why are you running with 3 outlets? Drilling 3 holes in the glass like that will make a weak spot between them. One outlet would be more than sufficient, just size it larger.

Don't forget to build the outlet to draw from the bottom or you'll end up with a lot of debris accumulating there, especially in such a tall tank and on top of the sand.

Have you considered DIY tank scape walls to hide your piping and as part of your scape layout? They are relatively easy to build from concrete on styrofoam and/or canned foam.

Don't use Java moss it will make a mess out of your tank, plug your outlet, and has no shape to it, there are better mosses than it. Anubis is my favorite plant and am often tempted to do a tank with an overgrowth of various Anubis only. They are great when they start dropping all their roots towards the substrate. Good low light plants too.


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## vanish (Apr 21, 2014)

Steve, the plumbing is a BeanAnimal Overflow. My stand fully supports the tank as well. The tank and stand are already built.

I have a DIY foam background in my 75G, so yes, I have considered it. I actually had (still have) a FAR more complicated plan than this one, but I don't want to get overcomplicated with this tank just yet.


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## vanish (Apr 21, 2014)

Oh, I should add, one of the reasons I have decided NOT to go with the foam BG at this time is because of how limited you are with an aquascape once you do it. Once its there, you must always match up your scape with the BG.


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## vanish (Apr 21, 2014)

Nothing on the scape idea at all?


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Not a fan of the two-tone substrate look. If you want the look of a bare area maybe raise the side with the driftwood using a sever slope or something. IMO the dark left side will contrast heavily with the lighter right side. Just my $.02


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## vanish (Apr 21, 2014)

Any other opinions on the two tone substrate? The idea was to get kind of an island look.

Got about two weeks before I start filling it up.


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## ChemGuyEthan (Apr 13, 2014)

Well, I like the two-tone look in general. I would say you're losing a lot of plantable space as the layout sits. Maybe add another "island" in the back right corner as well, one that's a little smaller? Then you would have kinda a beach that goes between and in front of both of them. This extra island might also help to hide the return pipe a bit.

Another option might be to extend your one island out more. This won't hide the return at all, but again will provide more plantable space and maybe keep the scape from looking quite so barren for more than half of the space.

Amano has made some beautiful scapes using the "island" method with sand contrasted by rocks/wood. I like them. Are you planning on building up the island nice and high? You could maybe use lava rock or something as a spacer underneath substrate, not sure how deep you could pile on the Safe-T sorb as I've never used it. Otherwise this scape may look somewhat flat compared to the height of the tank.


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## Xiaozhuang (Feb 15, 2012)

If you're going for the clean beach look to contrast with the stone remember you will have to vac the gravel regularly; the maintenance on a large tall tank may get tiresome. Also losing that much plantable space means that you'll have much less plant biomass to compete against algae. Given that tall tanks may require stronger lighting and yet suffer from a reduced floor area, plantable space is especially crucial. If you're using mostly slow growers such as moss, anubias and java moss, planning space for faster growing plants may be a wise combination.


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## tomfromstlouis (Apr 2, 2012)

One way to make the island look work is to have the rocks tumble naturally into the "sea". What you show is a rock wall like a fortress whereas a more natural look would be to have the larger rocks near the wood tumbling into smaller rocks near the beach. If you dumped a bucket of rocks of various sizes into a pile the result would not look as you show.

My comments assume you are wanting a natural look.


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## vanish (Apr 21, 2014)

I have to give you guys that do these amazing hardscapes more credit. I started playing with my supplies the other day and coming up with something cool is HARD. You really need a lot more material than you plan to end up using. Unfortunately, that's not always possible.

I'll be able to get more cholla at Thanksgiving, but I collected my rock at a place I'm not planning on returning to any time soon.

For your entertainment, I took some photos of the process. Keep in my the tank is actually another 8 inches taller than the board in back. The light grey and red rocks were just helping hold things in place.


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## vanish (Apr 21, 2014)

Wow.... nothing? Tough Crowd.


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## Xiaozhuang (Feb 15, 2012)

I think the last two are good. Raising the entire hardscape higher, with supports or substrate may be good as plants can over-grow the hardscape easily. The other thing that is hard to gauge without seeing it in your tank is whether the hardscape is small or large in relation to your tank. If you have more stones, you can play around with some closer to the front and back walls so that the setup doesn't look too contrived.


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## tomfromstlouis (Apr 2, 2012)

OK then, a comment:

You are going about this correctly. Personally I never cared much for cholla wood and as a result none of your designs appeal to me. Cholla does not look natural so trying to use it in a natural way might not ever work. Since this is simply a personal opinion it probably does not help you much.


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## Acro (Jul 7, 2012)

I like the 1st one and the last one.


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## Cthulhu (Dec 18, 2012)

I like the last one.

But my concerns about your projects are not the aquascaping part. Looking at the drawings on the first post, you seem to want the whole space inder the tank to be a sump. You don't seem to have much free space there, and that could be a real problem. You will need to access the plumbing you have there. The output pipe in the back right doesn't seem accessible at all. You may want to rethink that, you will need to do maintenance eventually and you don't want to make it harder than it needs to be. Trust me, I used to have a sump under my 95 which took much less space than yours, and it was a pain doing maintenance there. 

Also, it's useless to have 3 pipes on the left, just a bigger one would be best. Steve002 said it should draw from the bottom, but that would be a mistake, it would mean that in case of failure the whole tank could drain into the sump (then out of the sump into your living room's floor). 

But from my experience, sumps are more trouble than they are worth. 

If you have access to your house's plumping (drain and tap water), you could automate your water changes, like I did with my 95g. Water changes are very unpleasant with a tank that size.


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## vanish (Apr 21, 2014)

Thank you all for comments, both positive and negative.



Xiaozhuang said:


> I think the last two are good. Raising the entire hardscape higher, with supports or substrate may be good as plants can over-grow the hardscape easily. The other thing that is hard to gauge without seeing it in your tank is whether the hardscape is small or large in relation to your tank. If you have more stones, you can play around with some closer to the front and back walls so that the setup doesn't look too contrived.


I would LOVE to put in more hardscape. Unfortunately, when I collected the rocks, I completely underestimated the volume I would need for this tank. I may be able to collect some more next summer, but I doubt any time sooner. I'll see if I can arrange it so its not sitting on the very bottom of the tank. That's a good idea.



tomfromstlouis said:


> OK then, a comment:
> 
> You are going about this correctly. Personally I never cared much for cholla wood and as a result none of your designs appeal to me. Cholla does not look natural so trying to use it in a natural way might not ever work. Since this is simply a personal opinion it probably does not help you much.


It is a but tougher to work with, I agree. I think it will look much better when actually in the water with plants growing on it, but we'll see. I appreciate your comments.



Cthulhu said:


> But my concerns about your projects are not the aquascaping part. Looking at the drawings on the first post, you seem to want the whole space inder the tank to be a sump. You don't seem to have much free space there, and that could be a real problem. You will need to access the plumbing you have there. The output pipe in the back right doesn't seem accessible at all. You may want to rethink that, you will need to do maintenance eventually and you don't want to make it harder than it needs to be. Trust me, I used to have a sump under my 95 which took much less space than yours, and it was a pain doing maintenance there.
> 
> Also, it's useless to have 3 pipes on the left, just a bigger one would be best. Steve002 said it should draw from the bottom, but that would be a mistake, it would mean that in case of failure the whole tank could drain into the sump (then out of the sump into your living room's floor).


Thanks for your concerns about the plumbing, but that's all built and tested at this point. There is more room in the sump area than it appears. The stand is 36 inches tall and the sump is only 20" or so, leaving my about a foot of working room.

The three return lines are for a Beananimal return. http://www.beananimal.com/projects/silent-and-fail-safe-aquarium-overflow-system.aspx It runs dead silent when properly tuned (tested this already) and has a double failsafe with a built in audible alert. That's the reason for the three drains.



Cthulhu said:


> If you have access to your house's plumping (drain and tap water), you could automate your water changes, like I did with my 95g. Water changes are very unpleasant with a tank that size.


I don't. DW said no holes in walls.  For water changes, I can attach a hose to my return pump for draining (have a secondary outlet on a ball valve), and to the laundry tap for filling. We'll see how much it sucks!


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## vanish (Apr 21, 2014)

ChemGuyEthan said:


> Well, I like the two-tone look in general. I would say you're losing a lot of plantable space as the layout sits. Maybe add another "island" in the back right corner as well, one that's a little smaller? Then you would have kinda a beach that goes between and in front of both of them. This extra island might also help to hide the return pipe a bit.
> 
> Another option might be to extend your one island out more. This won't hide the return at all, but again will provide more plantable space and maybe keep the scape from looking quite so barren for more than half of the space.
> 
> Amano has made some beautiful scapes using the "island" method with sand contrasted by rocks/wood. I like them. Are you planning on building up the island nice and high? You could maybe use lava rock or something as a spacer underneath substrate, not sure how deep you could pile on the Safe-T sorb as I've never used it. Otherwise this scape may look somewhat flat compared to the height of the tank.


Wow, I think I totally missed this post originally. Great, helpful comments. I am going to make the island as large as I can with the material I have available. I think using lava rock as a space is a great idea, as it is very similar to the larger rock I am using.

I am planning on attaching as many plants as I can afford to the wood, but I'll keep in mind the total plantable space.


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## vanish (Apr 21, 2014)

This is what I ended up with, sorry about the blurry hardscape shot.


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## Xiaozhuang (Feb 15, 2012)

I think the layout is pretty nice. I find that the java fern on the wood is a little too evenly spread out though, I personally prefer a few more focused clumps. The lighting effect is also interesting...


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## vanish (Apr 21, 2014)

Xiaozhuang said:


> I think the layout is pretty nice. I find that the java fern on the wood is a little too evenly spread out though, I personally prefer a few more focused clumps. The lighting effect is also interesting...


I agree on the branches on the right, too evenly spaced. That was the first branch I did and when I stepped back I realized the same thing.

Here's hoping once it grows in it will be less of an issue!

Edit: One thing I find interesting is that where the big rock on the left is located it looks like the island is small. When you get above that rock though, you see the island takes up a LOT more space then expected.


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## Fishly (Jan 8, 2010)

Looks good! Time to update your siggy.


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## ChemGuyEthan (Apr 13, 2014)

Nice man, looking pretty good! I agree with the java fern spacing, but hopefully it'll grow in or you win the lottery to buy more plants, haha.

I think it takes up a nice proportion of the tank. Considered attaching any moss to the wood too?

Keep up the good work!


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## vanish (Apr 21, 2014)

Fishly said:


> Looks good! Time to update your siggy.


Yes indeed! Done! Thank you.



ChemGuyEthan said:


> Nice man, looking pretty good! I agree with the java fern spacing, but hopefully it'll grow in or you win the lottery to buy more plants, haha.
> 
> I think it takes up a nice proportion of the tank. Considered attaching any moss to the wood too?
> 
> Keep up the good work!


Thank you very much!

There is some moss in there, though it came as a hitchhiker. I don't mind, I'll let it do its thing. Here's some examples.


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## Acro (Jul 7, 2012)

Fantastic! 

There are so many attempted projects that never come to light, I was afraid this was one of them. BUT you came through and produced something beautiful!
It is really unique, High Five to you!


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