Cube-Specific Advice

[Fishsticks]

I'm new to planted aquariums and am about to begin my first one. I have a 30L Dennerle nano cube and will be keeping shrimp in it.

There is a lot of advice out there on aquascaping small tanks, but mostly it seems geared towards rectangular tanks. Some of it doesn't perhaps make as much sense for a small cube. An example is the desire to offset the focal point of the tank - looks great for rectangular tanks, but most cubes seem to be build around a centrally positioned branched piece of wood.

Does anyone have any experience or tips for creating a good looking scape in a specifically cubic tank?

I'm sure I'll be posting follow ups asking for advice on plants too. I'll be using using pressurised CO2 and since I'm building my own LED light fixture then making it as bright as I need is no problem. I'm interesting in trying to cultivate a carpet plant (HC?) and I also really like the effect that mosses give. Other than that I haven't really decided anything.

All suggestions and advice gratefully received!

 

[Ady34]

Hi there,
cube tanks still benefit from offset hardscaping, even just a touch makes a big difference to the eye You can also 'deceive the eye' with different substrates, a contrasting sand bed draws the eye to an area of the tank and can help with balancing hardscape that is maybe more central such as within a cube tank.
Maybe the main thing in a cube tank though is to pay attention to height. Its easy to focus on a proportionate hardscape for the length and width, but you need an equivalent height in my opinion to make them work.
Sorry for spamming up your thread, and hope you dont mind, but heres a hardscape i did for my 40cm cube. Its only slightly offset to the left, but has a large amount of 'negative' space to the right which further deceives the eye, and it has just about enough height (i think) to give a good overall balance. Maybe it could do with a touch more height from the main structure, but the branches reaching upwards help draw the eye to the heigher regions which are sometimes forgotten about:

Plant choices can also be used to add height to a scape, so if you have thought that far in advance its also something to take into consideration
Hope this helps a little,
Cheerio,
Ady.

 

[Fishsticks]

It's very helpful indeed - many thanks! I can completely see what you mean about offsetting and drawing the eye.

 

[kirk]

Im using a 60 cm cubei can't put pics up on here but if you pm me your email ill send you some pics of it?