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Wood and Rocks - Will this work?

S

superdon101

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Joined
5 Dec 2014
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27
I will start by saying I am a total newbie, so please go easy on me. I kept tropical fish a few years ago, but gave up for various reasons. My old tanks were pretty basic, gravel and a few plants. I am now in the process of getting things together for a new set up for a family Xmas present. Overall, I want the tank to be fairly easy to maintain, look good and some nice fish.

I have ordered a tank which is the Fluval F35. Its 58 litres, 38x38 base, 44cm tall. It has an external filter, with the inlet and outlet coming from the base of the tank. Plan is to have some CPDs, pygmy corys and maybe some honey gourami. Something along those lines anyway.

I will also be plating with some easy to grow and maintain plants (not sure yet which ones). Base will be Tertraplant, with Unipac Limpopo on top, unless a lighter sand would work better.

I have been offered this red wood root and dragon stone rock package for £40 delivered.

The photos are inside a container which is approx 40cm across the front and 30cm deep. So, not far off the dimensions of my tank. The lines on the background are at 10cm gaps.

So, what do you think? Do you think I could work with this pack of wood and rock? Personally, I am thinking there might be too much rock? The wood fills out the tank size nicely, but again is it too big?


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Hello, had a look at the pics, I think the wood is a bit soft looking with that stone, but hey it your set up. Once you tie moss to it etc it's going to look different anyway. I can't see why it won't work, just keep making minor tweaks until your happy with how it looks.
 
kirk said:
Hello, had a look at the pics, I think the wood is a bit soft looking with that stone, but hey it your set up. Once you tie moss to it etc it's going to look different anyway. I can't see why it won't work, just keep making minor tweaks until your happy with how it looks.
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Thanks. Do you think there's too much for the tank and not enough room for plants and fish swimming room?

I am thinking of dropping one of the larger rocks at the back and one or two of the smaller ones at the front.
 
From my experience the more rocks to choose from the merrier, seller is selling a scape in a box so to speak so replication will work, I had over 10kg of mini landscape rock and still couldn't come up with a scape in my 12ltr tank, the sellers pic looks good but you would need to bank the substrate up high (read supports) in the rear to add depth to the scape IMO.
 
tim said:
From my experience the more rocks to choose from the merrier, seller is selling a scape in a box so to speak so replication will work, I had over 10kg of mini landscape rock and still couldn't come up with a scape in my 12ltr tank, the sellers pic looks good but you would need to bank the substrate up high (read supports) in the rear to add depth to the scape IMO.
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Thanks. So you think I will have something to work with with that set? It is a scape in a box but the seller has put it together with my choice of wood and rocks.

When you say bank the substrate high, can you tell me more about what you mean and how to achieve it. Cheers
 
Hi superdon, I think you should have plenty of hardscape layout options there with those rocks and the option to use or not use the wood, with the substrate I mean slope from front to rear,
superdon101 said:
Heres a pic of the tank, which is on its way to me...

15101_fluval_f35_aquarium_equipped_ukw400_h400.jpg
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In the picture of the tank you linked you can see it's maybe an inch at the front To maybe 6 inches deep at the rear, this adds depth to the scape, so if you aim for 6-10 inches deep substrate at the rear, you can use the rocks to help stop the substrate falling forwards also cut up plastic bottles or take away tub lids or even the plastic garden lawn edging wedged into th really deep areas to stop the substrate moving once filled, hope this explains what I mean, good luck with the new setup.
 
Yes, thanks. That helps, but building up the back to 6-10 inches sounds like a hell of a lot.

These fluval tanks have the inlet and outlet for the filter at the back right. You can just about maken them out in the pic. All the promo pics from fluval show the substrate banked up into that corner, rather than banked all the way along the back...if that makes sense. Would you recommend doing that?

I am still concerned about lots of rock and wood not leaving room for plants and more importantly not leaving swimming space and limiting my fish stock options even more. Which is why I am thinking of less rock. Do you think these would still be enough room for me to plant this nicely with easy plants?
 
I think the point people are trying to make is it is better to buy a bit more rock than you need, that way you can experiment and work out what fits best. You don't have to put in every single piece you buy, it just gives you options to work with to find out the scape that works best for you based on what you want to achieve. I personally bought way more Dragon Stone than I needed and then selected the right bits to get my design, the excess will just get stored for future changes and re-scapes.

Your tank dimensions are not identical to the dimensions of the sellers scape, the total area might be similar, but it is not identical, so you are going to need to get some rock and experiment until you are happy with your design. It's very hard to think through how things will fit, you will only really understand how it all looks once you start playing around with it.
 
Yes, understood.

It seems there are no major objections to my basic idea and the wood/dragon stone/Limpopo combo, so maybe I will just go for it. I am never good at making decisions!

In fact.....I will pop to my local garden centre and maidenhead aquatics this afternoon before i order...just in case 🙂
 
I'm good at over thinking and taking ages before I buy things too! Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and go for it 🙂 If you have a Dobbies garden centre near you, they sell Dragon Stone, but they called it "Brown Holey Stone". They only sell it in large pieces at £2.99 per piece, but I bought a few bits from there which I am using whole and a few other bits that I broke up in to smaller pieces. Dragon stone splits quite easily, I used a masonry chisel and hammer. I also picked up some additional smaller bits from my LFS where I paid by the KG for it.
 
I don't have a dobbies nearby unfortunately. But the garden centre with maidenhead aquatics is pretty good, so will check it out.

If not, I think I will just order this pack. Like I say its £40 delivered. It doesn't seem particularly cheap, bit not a total rip off? I am hoping I can haggle them down to £35 for the whole pack. They already agreed £35 if i don't have one of the larger rocks.

Anyways. I will pop out in a bit and have a look and come back and update the thread.
 
I think ordering any stone online is not going to be cheap due to the shipping of that much weight, but at least Dragon Stone is quite light. My LFS sells Dragon Stone for £4.50 per KG, which is expensive compared to some places, but no shipping costs for me. Hope you find something good on your shopping trip!
 
Just back. The garden centre only had slate and rockery boulders. Maidenhead Aquatics had some (not dragon stone), but the rocks were very small and expensive. The wood selection was also pretty small, and again expensive. I bought the Unipac Limpopo sand though, as they seem cheaper than most other places.

So....I think I am just going to with this pack and see if I can haggle a better deal.
 
If I am feeling brave, I will do 🙂

As its an Xmas present for the wife and my girls (not for me of course 😉 ) I wont be playing with this until the end of the month, I am just getting everything ready so I can crack on then. I will then be needing help with plants and the layout!
 
superdon101 said:
Just back. The garden centre only had slate and rockery boulders.
Click to expand...

I felt horrible the other weekend. I wanted some small pieces of slate for a rework of my small tank, I collected a paper bag full of small slate pieces/slate chippings and then took it to the till..............
























45 pence!! 😀
 
Well got the lot for £35 delivered in the end, so not too bad and will have plenty to play with.
 
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