Do!aqua Mini-M: riverrun

[Ugly Genius]

Originally Posted by chase127

That tanks chillin yo.

Hey, weren't you chris127 a hot second ago?

[rrrrramos]

Whoa is this one not in the kitchen? That doesn't look like UG countertop to me!
That being said, I like it, the rocks look awesome! Bummer you won't be joining the 2211 Club :/

[Ugly Genius]

rrrramos, it is in the kitchen.
I actually moved an old dresser into the kitchen to put it. Yep, a dresser.
Tonight, after the sun's set, I'll snap a photo of the kitchen to show you all how Ugly does what Ugly does when he does what he does in his kitchen.

[Ugly Genius]

My kitchen now.

[Kayen]

Where is Elements then?
Nice kitchen, needs more food IMO.

[AzFishKid]

nice kitchen, needs more food imo.

lol.

[rrrrramos]

Heh, looks good. Bright, but good. I just gave my 2.5 the kitchen treatment. Found the perfect little spot for it too.
You do pretty well at concealing what would seem to be a jungle of wires and equipment.

[PinoyBoy]

I admire all your tanks... But you don't cook much do you?

[MedRed]

Love the hardscape! No room for cooking in that kitchen! lol

[Ugly Genius]

Here's the funny thing...
I order so much take out, there is more food in my living room than there is in my kitchen.

Some close-ups of the rocks.

[Outlawboss]

Sweet rocks. I don't know how you get so much personality into all your tanks through hardscape alone. Either you're really lucky or an Ugly Genius! I think it must be the latter.

[Ugly Genius]

Thanks, Outlaw!

Here's a technique I use when setting up a hardscape.
Let's take a rockscape as an example.
It works very much like a puzzle.
I start out by choosing my main rock. This rock will be, obviously, the largest and most distinctive of all the rocks.
I then find a "co-star". The "co-star" is the rock that fits into one of the main rock's sides as if it were a puzzle piece; as if nature had weathered the two so that they fit like a hand in glove. This "puzzle piece fitting" is very important. It gives the layout a natural-looking foundation and, more importantly, forces you as an aquascaper to not try to draw the most impressive layouts with the shapes of the individual rocks, but with nature in which they lay with each other. (Sometimes, this will even require that I sacrifice a cool feature of the "co-star" in order to have the two rocks mesh puzzle piece-style.)
If I'm lucky, I'll have a third rock that will also fit snugly in a crack of the main rock. If so, I place that one, too.
The remainder of the rocks -- I don't follow the odd-number-of-stones only rule; I just place how many the rockscape needs to look good -- are then accented around so as to appear a part of, yet separate from, the focal rocks.
The main point of this puzzle-style is that aesthetics are built around the relationship of the cracks and edges of the rocks and not on the profile of the landscape they create.
Give it a try on your next rockscape. It makes those difficult "what looks best" decisions easier.
All you have to ask is, do these rocks' edges match up? If so, it's good.

[JadeIceGreen]

I wish I had that kitchen, lol.
Looking forward to close up on the seams of the Do!Aqua tank.

[chase127]

Originally Posted by Ugly Genius

Hey, weren't you chris127 a hot second ago?

yes i was

[Ugly Genius]

I don't watch this tank all that much because it's still in it's "throwing down roots" phase and not growing all that much (i.e. boring), but today I looked closely at the tank while waiting for my food to arrive (Chinese porridge -- hella good) and a feeling of satisfaction washed over me -- that I had done good with this hardscape.
The tank's simple. This is something I can appreciate with all the plant complexity I have going on in all of my other tanks.
I'm now getting excited about filling it. It's still got a month and a half to go, but if Source -- which I might rename "Might" -- has taught me anything, it's that dry start's go quick.

Anyway, picts...