Scaping tall tank with small hardscape

[EricksonAquatics]

Hey everyone - 

This is my first actual attempt at a decent scape. I have no idea what I’m doing! 

None of the LFS near me carry any hardscape (weird, but it is what it is). As such I ended up ordering a 3pk of spider wood from Amazon. Ordering online without seeing the exact pieces is definitely a gamble but it’s all I could really afford at the moment. I’m mostly budgeting for plants so there wasn’t a ton left over for rocks and sticks😂

I ordered the biggest size they had but the pieces are still quite small (7-11” ish). For a 29g I can’t figure out how to make it look halfway decent.

Example; here are two of the pieces stacked on top of each other and looking absolutely ratchet.

I’m wondering if there’s any way to make this work? Am I better off going with no hard scape at all and doing only plants? 
I know scaping is a lot up to personal preference but I don’t know if small pieces of wood in a taller tank are going to cut it. I’m planting a lot of tall background plants to hopefully help things out.

All three of said pieces.

I boiled the poop out of them because not going for a black water tank this time. And don’t mind the bubbles from the air stone - not entirely sure what’s going on there but hopefully it’s just a new tank thing and will figure itself out with water changes.

Thanks 🙂

[AllFishNoBrakes]

I too have ordered hardscape off Amazon. It’s definitely a gamble, but I’ve been pleased when I’ve done it. 
 

My suggestion is to just keep playing with it. Prior to planting. Get your hands wet and just keep twisting and stacking and moving. Eventually you’ll get there. Also, I keep in mind that nature doesn’t meticulously and painstakingly lay things out. Maybe that’s just me convincing myself that my “scapes” are good as they are and don’t need to be tweaked, but personally I don’t mind a more natural look. 
 

If all else fails just throw some botanicals in there and voila, blackwater tank that is truly more natural! I know you said you don’t want that, but the option is always there!

Also, keep in mind that as plants grow in things change. The one “scape” I actually “worked on” now looks like this:

You can hardly tell there’s hardscape in there at this point. 
 

Blackwater 29 gallon tank looks like this as of late:

Pretty dark with tannins as of this picture, but the plants and the fish don’t mind. This is all Spiderwood and plants. No rocks in this tank. 
 

Just keep playing with it. These are both 29’s, wood and rocks bought off Amazon and LFS. I also don’t mind that the top of the tank is more open. The bottom and mid-dwellers have places to hide, and the top is more open. 
 

Just my $0.02, if it’s even worth that. 

[Lennie]

Island scape where the island is in the middle seems like your best bet to me

Like these

 

Edited August 4 by Lennie

[mynameisnobody]

Etsy

[EricksonAquatics]

On 8/3/2024 at 11:37 PM, AllFishNoBrakes said:

You can hardly tell there’s hardscape in there at this point. 

That’s the end goal for me anyways! 

Thanks @Lennie for the suggestion! Definitely might be able to make that work. I’ll play with it a bunch today and see what happens. 

[Silverback]

You can try and stack the two pieces on the left together.   They look like they could be combined well and use some gel super glue to bond them together if worried about them falling apart.  I use the small gel super glue from the dollar stores or harbor freight  You can also try to place onto of a pile of rocks or push your substrate higher on one side to achieve some extra height..  

The island look is good too.  Look nice with some Java Ferns attached to your wood growing out of it.  

Good luck!