[Stan510]

If you have a large aquarium and want an Iwagumi or mountain landscape over a 6' long tank for example?..You don't need Co2. You don't need intense lights..In fact with low to average lighting you don't have a algae on rock problem- something hi tech fights with rockwork all the time. If rock is the primary focal point I bet you could get away with just some Java moss or maybe just green gravels here and there.
I was looking at photos of Iwagumi and wondered why use three $600 lights? lol. For just monte carlo?...green gravel I say!
Just my thought of the moment.

 

[Savetheplants]

If you have a large aquarium and want an Iwagumi or mountain landscape over a 6' long tank for example?..You don't need Co2. You don't need intense lights..In fact with low to average lighting you don't have a algae on rock problem- something hi tech fights with rockwork all the time. If rock is the primary focal point I bet you could get away with just some Java moss or maybe just green gravels here and there.
I was looking at photos of Iwagumi and wondered why use three $600 lights? lol. For just monte carlo?...green gravel I say!
Just my thought of the moment.

Average lighting is about my speed. Things seem to go pretty well with that. Thanks for solving the mystery of algae on rocks for us. We've been pondering that one for a long time and here you solve it in just one post. Please keep us apprised of any future thoughts.

 

[Plinkploop]

Average lighting is about my speed. Things seem to go pretty well with that. Thanks for solving the mystery of algae on rocks for us. We've been pondering that one for a long time and here you solve it in just one post. Please keep us apprised of any future thoughts.

😅 are you okay, @Savetheplants ? You seem testy. I don't mean to over step bounds, just hoping you're okay.

 

[ElleDee]

I mean, i've seen some very beautiful scapes that don't have plants at all - you can do a lot with wood and rocks! (Though the green gravel would be novel...) At a certain point what you're describing becomes more of a tank with a couple plants and less of a planted tank.

 

[sm1ke]

If you have a large aquarium and want an Iwagumi or mountain landscape over a 6' long tank for example?..You don't need Co2. You don't need intense lights..In fact with low to average lighting you don't have a algae on rock problem- something hi tech fights with rockwork all the time. If rock is the primary focal point I bet you could get away with just some Java moss or maybe just green gravels here and there.
I was looking at photos of Iwagumi and wondered why use three $600 lights? lol. For just monte carlo?...green gravel I say!
Just my thought of the moment.

... you realize the forum is called plantedtank.net, right? Lol 😂😂

 

[Stan510]

Like Elle says. I think if you have many planted tanks,an Iwagumi might just be justified as different. I just see the scapers pushing that style all the time and it's really kind of an unusual approach to plant growing. When you then put in very few small fish...
Maybe an extravagant use of expensive equipment...but not like reef extravagant where the aquarium is filled with life under those lights.
One commenter on a vid said why even use water and fish? Made me laugh and stuck with me. It's the opposite of Dutch style I guess.

 

[Plinkploop]

Like Elle says. I think if you have many planted tanks,an Iwagumi might just be justified as different. I just see the scapers pushing that style all the time and it's really kind of an unusual approach to plant growing. When you then put in very few small fish...
Maybe an extravagant use of expensive equipment...but not like reef extravagant where the aquarium is filled with life under those lights.
One commenter on a vid said why even use water and fish? Made me laugh and stuck with me. It's the opposite of Dutch style I guess.

Lol they're kinda of right. I can appreciate the differences in all different planting styles and I think that has come with time. I, personally, love the overgrown and tangled look for my own tanks but I will never not look at peoples' pics of their tanks, whatever style, and find appreciation for it. I'm weird like that. Just my 2 cents

 

[Savetheplants]

😅 are you okay, @Savetheplants ? You seem testy. I don't mean to over step bounds, just hoping you're okay.

I'm being sincere. I think @Stan510 has a good point and I appreciate his thoughts. He's done a series of these posts and they have been good. Iwagumi is a lot of rock, triangulated as I understand and it's beautiful. But also I might not be okay.

 

[Plinkploop]

I'm being sincere. I think @Stan510 has a good point and I appreciate his thoughts. He's done a series of these posts and they have been good. Iwagumi is a lot of rock, triangulated as I understand and it's beautiful. But also I might not be okay.

My bad for reading that wrong. My apologies.

 

[Savetheplants]

My bad for reading that wrong. My apologies.

No offense taken.

 

[gjcarew]

Stan, it seems like you have a vision and I'm excited to see it. As a matter of fact, I'm downright intrigued. Maybe you can even start a youtube channel, call it something like Green (gravel) Aqua!

Maybe do a Dutch style next, with piles of red and yellow gravel interspersed throughout the green gravel. Possibly some little stripes of red and blue gravel to represent cardinal tetras.

 

[ElleDee]

I'm ready for some new aquascape styles to emerge. It's not that I'm tired of what we have now, but everyone is aiming for one of a few different archetypes and I like outside the box thinking. Not everything has to be "natural" or the narrow idea of natural that the hobby employs. (Of course real nature doesn't look like anything like an award winning planted tank.)

If I had endless resources, I'd do a blackwater tank with super dark water, spider wood with a sand substrate, some floater with long roots like frogbit to filter the light and green glofish tetra. Natural? No. Eerie and rad? I think it would be! I want a haunted tank!

 

[gjcarew]

I'm ready for some new aquascape styles to emerge. It's not that I'm tired of what we have now, but everyone is aiming for one of a few different archetypes and I like outside the box thinking. Not everything has to be "natural" or the narrow idea of natural that the hobby employs. (Of course real nature doesn't look like anything like an award winning planted tank.)

If I had endless resources, I'd do a blackwater tank with super dark water, spider wood with a sand substrate, some floater with long roots like frogbit to filter the light and green glofish tetra. Natural? No. Eerie and rad? I think it would be! I want a haunted tank!

DIY Aquapros has stopped posting recently but has done haunted tanks, sand waterfalls, floating rocks, bonsai forests... He was very creative. I also love the style of the Aquarium Design Store, which does not try to fit in to any of the standard archetypes.

 

[Stan510]

Thanks. I did spot an aquarium on youtube of 120 gallons with lots of plants and green gravel. I almost posted it. My idea would be the green gravel to be used as natural aquariums stark white sands are. As islands of green around the other plants of various colors. A dark green gravel would be restful to the eyes.
I only have my one tank set up. So youtube would be a very long time for me between updates that showed a difference.
I've been at it over 50 years now and sometimes what I see there is more showmanship than good fish keeping.

 

[DallasYoung]

Lush Monte Carlo looks a millions times nicer than green gravel.

 

[Stan510]

Real plants always win. But,when the aquarium is mostly rock in a mountain range look,why spend the bucks for all that extra specialized equipment for a groundcover that small? Even then,it must be pulled out and replanted when it begins to "float raft like" eventually. Now for a nano tank it makes sense. But when you watch scapers do that to 75 or larger it is sort of lost on me. Just make it a terrarium. I think they do it knowing they are going for variety and not so much practicality or realistically.
It's just another twist to a scaping style of aquariums that gets way out of proportion attention by video makers is one reason I brought it up.

 

[Plinkploop]

I'm ready for some new aquascape styles to emerge. It's not that I'm tired of what we have now, but everyone is aiming for one of a few different archetypes and I like outside the box thinking. Not everything has to be "natural" or the narrow idea of natural that the hobby employs. (Of course real nature doesn't look like anything like an award winning planted tank.)

If I had endless resources, I'd do a blackwater tank with super dark water, spider wood with a sand substrate, some floater with long roots like frogbit to filter the light and green glofish tetra. Natural? No. Eerie and rad? I think it would be! I want a haunted tank!

I would love to see your idea!! I've done blackwater similar to what you're talking about but never with an eerie theme in mind, only to replicate habitat.

 

[Stan510]

I would love to see your idea!! I've done blackwater similar to what you're talking about but never with an eerie theme in mind, only to replicate habitat.

`Also- with very fine sand that's as soft as silt. I had some of that many decades ago and it was pure white and Corydoras could sink their snouts to eye level and seemed to enjoy that. My father got it from his job and so I don't know what it was..or did he. Just looked nice and it was extra stuff.
I agree,with when is something new to come on next? We can only redo Amano, 1998, so often.But! that kind of Einstein original thinking will stand forever.
Just want something next level.

 

[Plinkploop]

There's inert sand meant for saltwater tanks that I used to get that was like that. I can't remember what it was called, though.

 

[Stan510]

It was just a bit more substance than D.E...it didn't cloud the water like that filter powder will. Out of water and wet? It was like white mud.