Aquascapes that don't sacrifice swim space?

[Scapexghost]

I really enjoy nice looking aquascapes, but im a fish keeper first, and most aquascapes sacrifice a lot of swim space. Often the substrate will rise very high in the back, and the scape will be build arould large pieces of driftwood or rock that take up much of the tank. Aesthetically this gives the tank verticality and adds a lot of visual intrest, but it turns a 30 gallon tank to a 10 gallon tank.

So, what are some ways to make a tank look nice w/o taking up to much space? Some ideas would be to iwagumi, which leaves a lot of open space usually. The issue being than iwagumis usually have nice carpets, which are difficult to achieve. Another would be a jungle tank. Not really an aquascape but makes the tank look full without taking away swim space, since the gish can just swim through the plants. 

I suspect that most master aquascapers don't care about swim space or even think about it much, since those tanks have very few fish, and if they did care they could make a great looking tank with plenty of room.

Does anyone have some examples of their aquascapes or other's aquascapes with a lot of swim space? I'd love to see some to get some ideas.

[Guppysnail]

I’m fish first as well.  I choose swim space over aesthetics.  I’m not a great Aqua scaper but I think my tanks are pretty and planted I find spider wood and manzanita being thin and can be glued together to creat height and give a full look without being full. I choose low flat substrate and utilize plants for height variations effect.  I also find roots from emergents flowing into the tanks bridges the gaps and fish love to swim through them and the emergents add to the overall lush tank look. I also love lucky bamboo as it gives an interesting forest affect. I have tons more CPD fry surviving since I added it.  They shelter in the emergent roots behind the lucky bamboo. 
 

I just moved everything t the fish room in November so most of these are not completely filled in yet (I actually have a large plant order on my windowsill that needs to go in.  This my give you some ideas. 
 

The bigger chunks of mopani I hollowed out underneath and around the back making the chunk into a shell so I still get the visual without losing space. All the fish love to play in it.  
 

Again I’m not a great Aqua scraper but perhaps some of these will give you ideas. 

Edited May 23, 2022 by Guppysnail

[Scapexghost]

On 5/23/2022 at 4:31 AM, Guppysnail said:

I’m fish first as well.  I choose swim space over aesthetics.  I’m not a great Aqua scaper but I think my tanks are pretty and planted I find spider wood and manzanita being thin and can be glued together to creat height and give a full look without being full. I choose low flat substrate and utilize plants for height variations effect.  I also find roots from emergents flowing into the tanks bridges the gaps and fish love to swim through them and the emergents add to the overall lush tank look. I also love lucky bamboo as it gives an interesting forest affect. I have tons more CPD fry surviving since I added it.  They shelter in the emergent roots behind the lucky bamboo. 
 

I just moved everything t the fish room in November so most of these are not completely filled in yet (I actually have a large plant order on my windowsill that needs to go in.  This my give you some ideas. 
 

The bigger chunks of mopani I hollowed out underneath and around the back making the chunk into a shell so I still get the visual without losing space. All the fish love to play in it.  
 

Again I’m not a great Aqua scraper but perhaps some of these will give you ideas. 

The emergent plants add so much to the tank. Makes it seem more like an ecosystem and less like a glass box. Definetely something i want to play with more. And, of course, the fish aren't utilizing the area above the tank anyway so filling it with greenery won't take away any swim space.

[Flumpweesel]

I agree its a fish first policy in my tanks. I like to make layers so increasing the floor space in my tank so I have some resin "log" tunnels that i wedge the plants in and prop at different angles to create hides and some large v shaped bog wood that creates a cave underneath but two large resting platforms for the lazy fish.  Raising the floor in this manner has increased the volume of the tank occupied by the bottom and mid water prefering fish I keep the plants to the back and sides in the main and no to dense so the fish can use them but lots of room still through the main of tank  ( kinda how ponds are in the wild).   sorry no pics as I'm at work at but I do have one on my background on my profile. 

[AndreaW]

I guess this tank could be considered a messy jungle, but I like it and there seems to be plenty of swimming space around, behind and under the driftwood. I kept the rocks and plants pretty simple since this was my first attempt at a planted tank. It's a 10G corner tank, so I centered the driftwood coming from the center bottom.

My main goal was to create a planted tank that would be interesting for my Betta, and I think I accomplished it. He seems to like it and spends a lot of time "exploring" all the areas of his tank, and there is still plenty of space for him to swim in the open. 

Edited May 23, 2022 by AndreaW

[AndreaW]

This is my 46G bowfront that I recently re-did. I was worried The large driftwood and rock on the right would take up too much space, but they actually work out well since they've created areas to swim under and around. There is a lot of space behind the driftwood that the schooling fish enjoy. The Pleco loves sitting on top of the driftwood, or under the Anubias under the right piece of driftwood. I feel like there is more swimming space than the previous castle and plant decorations that were in there previously. It's still a new setup, so I'm waiting for the background plants on the right side to grow up and fill in, but my plans are to keep them trimmed so they don't take up too much space.

One thing I've found though, is from switching from plastic plants to live plants, the fish tend to hang out in the soft live plants and will swim between the leaves, where before, they would usually avoid the plastic plant areas, and I can understand why!

[nabokovfan87]

I would push you towards dutch style aquascapes. They give you a lot of open water and it gives you something where the fish have places to hide if they wish without big rocks taking up space.  If you want to have hardscape, I would encourage you to look into something like manzanita branches.  They are very small and can be very aesthetically pleasing.

Other types of wood will take up a lot of space, but will give the fish more room vertically if they are mid / bottom dwelling fish. 

As an example:

Using slightly larger pieces you can achieve something like this.