[AlecFish]

I've had my tank up and running for about 7 months now and I made the mistake going into it by not having a plan. I kinda threw everything together one day and the way it's laid out now, I'm just not happy with it. It's more of a mess as is right now. I tried to accomplish a flowing river, haha. I didn't have enough manzanita wood to work with so you can't really see the wood from afar. Not really eye catching. So I've been thinking of dropping this idea and going with something different. I want my tank to look big, I have a 75g and I'd like to show it off.I really find the look of an island to be very attractive. A focal point a little off center and having open space one either side. That's what I'm lacking in my scape right now. I have very little 'open' space. I plan on going with active fish. I currently have 11 dwarf neon rainbows. Later on I plan on getting a 20 fish school of bloodfins. So they need some space to school and hang out. I was curious to see what your opinions are on a hardscape/layout, I'm not too artistically inclined to do this sorta thing so any help/guidance would be appreciated.

Also, as far as rescaping goes, how would I approach this. I'm thinking that I'd have to keep the fish somewhere, plants in another place and I feel like it would be an extremely messy process. I'd like to see how others have done it.

So here are some pics of my tank, I'm pretty bad at taking pics with my iphone but this should do. Need some opinions on a new scape! hmu

 

[HUNTER]

If it's the whole tank rescape, I would pull all plants out, fish in a separate container with filter and heater, especially if it takes a little while. When all done and planted, you can changed half of the water, siphon all debris and put fish back in. You can do a water test the next day just to be sure no ammonia spike from disturbed substrate. That's what I would do, rescapingnis a messy but fun thing, done it a few times and no casualty.

 

[AlecFish]

Hunter- If I were to add another 20lbs of eco complete to the existing amount I have, would it cause any major spike? But I might be doing this part by part. I have a 16 gallon bow that I'm currently using for plants so I could throw all my fish in there. I'd most likely have to keep my plants in a bucket or something.

As far as scaping goes, I have soo many different plant species to work with, and I'm curious to see what I should stick with and what I can throw out. I see many beautiful scapes only using like 5 plant species. In particular with an island effect I think I should stick with a few plants and go from there.

As you can tell from my pictures above I have a lot. It would be appreciated if you guys could help narrow down my plant selection. I have jungle val, rotala green, dwarf sag, pygmy chain swords, tiger lotus, anubias, swords, hygro compact, asian ambulia, aponogeton ulvaceous, bacopa monneri and a few bunches of golden lollydelia to work with.

I took a look at many different island aquascapes but I couldn't find any blueprints per say or anything like that, but this picture seems to be what I'm going for. Would this look good on a larger scale and what plants would I go with?

 

[burr740]

I think you could avoid a total breakdown just by thinning out some of what you have. The Jungle val for example. Looks like it takes up a good 10 inches of tank width on the left side. You could remove a lot of that leaving only a single-ish row right against the glass. That alone would open your tank up a good bit.

Could do the same with those stems in the back center. Then possibly move that bacopa(?) in front of them over to the right rear corner.

From there could tweak the hardscape using the same rocks and wood, similar to the drawing, and use your smaller plants to fill in around it. The Compacta (or whatever it is, roughly in between the two rocks) that would make a good perimeter plant, mid ground on one side or the other.

That's just a few thoughts. Lots of people would kill to have an overgrown jungle like it is now :red_mouth

 

[HUNTER]

Adding eco complete would not raise the ammonia level, just rinse it thoroughly. The only time there's a risk of raising ammonia level if the substrate is completely disturb and all the gunk get stirred up. That's when the water change comes in handy.

 

[AlecFish]

I think you could avoid a total breakdown just by thinning out some of what you have. The Jungle val for example. Looks like it takes up a good 10 inches of tank width on the left side. You could remove a lot of that leaving only a single-ish row right against the glass. That alone would open your tank up a good bit.

Could do the same with those stems in the back center. Then possibly move that bacopa(?) in front of them over to the right rear corner.

From there could tweak the hardscape using the same rocks and wood, similar to the drawing, and use your smaller plants to fill in around it. The Compacta (or whatever it is, roughly in between the two rocks) that would make a good perimeter plant, mid ground on one side or the other.

That's just a few thoughts. Lots of people would kill to have an overgrown jungle like it is now :red_mouth

Yeah, I've been tinkering with the tank ever since its been setup and I'm just not happy with it, I have a 16g like I said which is solid plant mass so there's my jungle. But unfortunately this is going to have to wait until I have some free time. So for now I need a solid plan.
I was also wondering of ditching manzanita and going with a nice stumpy piece of Malaysian wood. It would provide a lot of little nooks and cranny's to put anubias and java ferns in. It would look pretty interesting, but I need some advice with that if I go down that route.

Also, going off hunter here, should I drain the tank completely or take it part by part (25% one day, 25% the next and so on)?

 

[HUNTER]

I don't quite understand by partially draining little at a time. If you're talking about getting it ready for complete rescape. It's better to drain the whole tank to maybe couple of inches water left after plants and fish put aside, this way it's a lot easier to scape. Just save half of the old water and the rest would be new water. Don't feed the fish until after the next day and ammonia level is tested.

 

[Steve002]

I kinda like the tank with the exception of the vals which take up way to much space. A little colour wouldn't hurt either.

 

[HybridHerp]

If you are doing the island thing, I think you need to keep the ulvaceus. Let that sucker grow and fan out everywhere, being like a big mother tree or something on the island, I think that'd look cool.

If possible get more red plants. What lighting level are you at?

 

[AlecFish]

My plan is to start this rescape memorial day weekend, I should have enough time to take everything out, catch all of the fish and begin the rescape. As far as the actual layout/design goes I'm not certain of exactly how I'm going to do it. I've attached a picture of a rough idea. I put 3 pieces of manzanita together. Also I'd be able to use the manzanita I have in the tank. I can imagine a heavy plant mass around the driftwood and maybe a few foreground here and there. Would it be too much to place all of my stem plants in that area behind the driftwood? Ambulia, bacopa, rotala and vals. I want to use as many of the plants I have now so for red plants, I have some ludwigia red that I could grow out, a red tiger lotus and the rotala has some pinkish tips but that's all I really have. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

As far as my current setup goes. I'm running a Current 2x T5HO fixture with two 6700k bulbs sitting about 4 inches above the top of the tank.I just recently as of a week ago switched over to this fixture, before it was a dual t8, which wasn't putting out enough light for me and the light spread was terrible. The light fixture I have now would put me in the high end of the medium light range. I'm really trying to keep this away from no pressurized CO2, I can dose excel instead of that. And yeah I can't wait to get that ulvaceus huge.

Another question, should I get another bag of eco complete to create something like a hill?