[DTWGulo]

Spent about a year messing around with smaller rocks on my deck to put together an aqua scape. Finally bit the bullet and ordered a couple of 85# stones from a seller on Etsy. Really great experience with that that I'm happy to share at some point. This is my "Full Throttle ADA" tank as far as substrate and rock goes. I have a sump underneath. CO2 system is just about ready to go. Lights are MicMol G3 Pros. Still deciding on plants. The only thing I'm sure I want is some Ranunculus. Figured I'd share the end result, can always do a build thread later. My family's sick of hearing about this so here I am.

 

[AcidGambit]

It looks great so far. My only suggestion is that you might want to expose more of the stones because some of the shorter stones may disappear when your carpet grows in.

 

[monkeyruler90]

This is a great place to rant off about your tank, we'll eat it all up!

Looks great so far, I love the scape and the light choice

some UG would look great!

 

[DTWGulo]

Yes, the smaller rocks may get a little lost. I can elevate them up out of the substrate some. They generally aren't buried much at all; just enough to keep them from sliding down the slope. I spent about a week fiddling about with placement of these and/or 25 other small stones. I didn't want it to get too cluttered and these were the pieces that matched best with the two big stones.

Thanks for the input!

Bump:

This is a great place to rant off about your tank, we'll eat it all up!

Looks great so far, I love the scape and the light choice

some UG would look great!

Thank you!
UG. *sigh* That's one of two plants that I didn't have good luck with in any of my high-tech tanks. The other was Elatine hydropiper. For whatever reason I just couldn't keep them healthy.

Do you think a dry start would be best for the UG? I've been contemplating a dry start for various reasons anyway.

 

[billb]

Always enjoy seeing how people scape large tanks! This 180 looks particularly deep (front to back). I have atank that I believe has similar dimensions and have struggled to use it to best effect. I think your plans for an Iwagumi will work very nicely!

 

[DTWGulo]

Always enjoy seeing how people scape large tanks! This 180 looks particularly deep (front to back). I have atank that I believe has similar dimensions and have struggled to use it to best effect. I think your plans for an Iwagumi will work very nicely!

Thank you! It's 24" x 24" x 72". I had a 18" front to back tank there before this one and just wanted more depth to the layout rather than height.

 

[DTWGulo]

Update - 3 trims in and needs one again

Quick update tonight. I'm really happy with how things are going. On and off have had a small amount of hair algae but nothing crazy.

 

[mytmouse]

That looks awesome! What's that growing on the rock? And how did you attach it? I'm setting up a much smaller scale Iwagumi inspired tank and have been toying with using some fishing line to attach java moss on my larger ohko dragon stone, but I didn't want it to overrun it and take away from the aesthetics.