Normalcy 10-20 g tanks #4 St Nermy’s Day ‘Scapes from Scraps

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

Happy St Nermy’s Day!!!

Category 4 - Normalcy 10-20 g

Remember this is a NERM positive event, no negative posts, voting is either a heart or passing on the posts, you can leave positive comments for people. Have fun! 

You have until 4/8/22 to vote! 

Edited April 1, 2022 by Beardedbillygoat1975

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

I had a bit of a tragedy a couple months ago. Had a really nice setup in my 15 g tower tank with panda corys, dwarf fireball platys, some Japanese ricefish growouts and some baby plecos. I got columnaris and we’ll everything except the ricefish were lost. 

it’s really hard to take advantage of the height in the tower with 2 feet of height. So it’s taken me awhile to figure out what I’ve wanted to do in this tank. 
 

Initial inspiration came with seeing some art work depicting the tree of life so thought some sort of aquascaping version would be interesting. My time is always torn on my projects-work, wife, children, sanity etc. I got started March 12. 
 

Started with pieces of local Manzanita and obsidian. Substrate was Brightwell Rio Oscuro, and big box black gravel and sand. Using a UGF  and a Fluval heater. 

I planted it with the leftovers from my 45 g rescape, flame sword, giant bacopa, mini sword, and Val gigantea. 

About a week ago I got back from the coast and had some new plants for the 45 waiting. And so I had morE leftovers so I threw in PSO, another flame sword, and ammania gracilis.

It is currently home to 8 celestial pearl danios.

To complete the tree of life look I’d originally wanted to cover it in Buce red, well the $$$$ stopped that so I threw the Buce down at the base of the right “tree” and covered the branches in hornwort. Floaters in the form of dwarf water lettuce give a sense of a canopy.

My final plan is to add a trio 1 m and 2 females of the red eye red tail puffer. If it looks like the CPDs ate lunch for the puffers I’ll get them out of there. 

Thanks for reading to the end! Have fun!

[Atitagain]

The nameTower tank suites this so well. I love the height of it but I bet it is difficult/ limited to what can be used for scaping. You have done an excellent job with it, I think the way you used the branches and the plants up top does an amazing job of making my eye flow upwards. And that gives the full affect of a tower. 
 

[Guppysnail]

@Beardedbillygoat1975 this turned out fabulous.  I wish I could give more 😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍 Well done. The CPD will enjoy the height.  In my 40 they spawn and play in the cups at the waterline and the plants near the bottom.  All that bushy affect is a CPD dream playground when it grows in the whole way. 

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

@Atitagainthat was my intent. The piece of wood to the Left is a piece of driftwood I got from the coast, used a piece of obsidian with some silicone to weight it down. You can see though that it is floating ever so slightly so eventually as the wood absorbs the water it will rest on the other rock. There is a cool know at the base where the rock and wood meet that will be somebodies cave as it is already started my mother nature and the beach to hollow out. My hope is to use the floaters and hornwort until everything else grows in and then hopefully the moss or the subwassertang will occupy the tree. Wishful thinking but we can dream. 

@Guppysnailthat is my hope. Now that I think about it those cups could really work in this tank couldn't they?! Although they would shade out my bottom plants. Maybe I will give it a couple months and then try them in here and the 45 g.