The Final Scape?

by Alan Cole · Published Saturday, February 21st, 2015 · Updated Saturday, February 21st, 2015

Back to the fish tank and my ‘aquascaping’ project I’m afraid!

There was a slight hiccup the other day when the cool RGB LED light strip that I had stuck to the back of the cabinet decided to come unstuck. Naturally gravity took over – it has a nasty habit of doing that – and they ended up on the floor behind the tank. I did manage to retrieve them but they had come unplugged from the little control box. The little control box had been neatly glued to the side of the cabinet and was no inaccessible. If you look at the photo below you can just see the IR receiver from the control box poking out at the right hand side of the cabinet. The control box is in behind that.

Aquarium

There was only one thing for it, I was going to have to empty out the cupboard next to the tank (again) and try to shift the entire aquarium, cabinet and my carefully placed hardscape to the left slightly to give me access to the control box. With some help from Anna and the odd grunt we managed it. My next task was to devise a contraption to mount the LED strip lights in such a way that they could defy gravity. I came up with the idea of attaching a piece of wood to some fishing line, glueing the strip lights to the top of the wood and lowering it down behind the tank. That way the LEDs would be sitting on top of the wood and therefore shouldn’t fall off, and I should be able to raise them with the fishing line should I need too.

LED Shelf Backlighting for Aquarium

In the end whilst looking for some bits of wood to achieve this I found a metre long piece of rectangular, white, plastic tubing in the shed that looked perfect for the task. It was lightweight, wider than the bits of wood and already the correct length. It was also white so would fit in well with the cabinet should it be seen. I soon had the LEDS attached and the new contraption in place.

: LED Strips

: LED Strips

: Backlighting Rig

As you can see, I managed to fit four strips of the LEDS along its surface too which meant that with all of these facing upwards the backlighting effect was now brighter. It is still drowned out by the overhead LEDs though. What I might do is get a controller for the main LED lights that gradually increases and decreases the intensity over the course of an hour as they come on and off, and then set the backlights to come on just before this hour, but go off during the main photo-period. That way I’ll have a nice sunrise and sunset effect as the lights come on and off, but won’t have the LED backlight effect on during the day.

With the tank back in place I made a few more tweaks to the hardscaping in preparation for a bit of a shopping trip at the weekend for some plants. I’ve added a few more rocks here and there as I’m worried that they’ll all be completely obscured by the plants. I still thank that’s the case, but that of course assume that the plants actually grow! I really wanted to build the hardscaping up higher and give it more majesty but doing so was more difficult than I’d expected. No doubt I’ll be changing it all around one day anyway, so will be able to try something different then. If I’ve learnt one thing, its the fact that your ‘aquascape’ is never finished!

The Final (?) Hardscape

With that in place, it was time to start thinking about the planting. I’m hopefully going to get some Eleocharis sp. mini for the foreground and lower slopes. This should form a low carpet of green, giving the impression of grass-covered slopes. I’d like some Heliathium tenellus for the triangular area between the sloping slabs and filter box on the RHS, again another fairly low-growing carpeting plant. I might put a clump of Staurogyne repens in here as well to give the impression of a hillside forest!

I’ll probably also get some stem plants for the back RHS to hide the filter box a little and also provide some cover for the fish, in addition to a more ‘leafy’ plant for the front RHS – one that can poke out from the bottom right of the large rock.

I’m also thinking of trying the Dry Start Method for growing the carpeting plants. The idea with this is that you only partly fill the tank with water – just up to the level of the lowest substrate and then plant into this wet substrate. The plants then grow emersed for a few weeks. This gives them access to unlimited CO2 from the air and the chance to get established in a perfect humid environment. Hopefully with virtually unlimited resources in respect to nutrients, CO2, light and warmth they grow like made, put down some healthy roots and throw out runners so spreading over the area I want covered. Once they are established you then flood the tank and hopefully they continue to grow in an immersed state. At this stage, the flooded plants become starved to a certain extent of CO2 as it isn’t so readily available from the water as it is from the air. In high-tech set ups, supplemental CO2 is injected into the water and many people turn this up really high at this stage. So high that it would kill any fish so livestock isn’t added until a later date. The CO2 levels are then gradually reduced so as to allow the plants to become accustomed to growing in this immersed state. Only then are livestock in the form of fish and shrimps added to the aquarium.

I’ve yet to decided whether I’ll be adding supplemental CO2 to the tank yet, but I might give the dry start method a go anyway. I’ve never tried it before so it’ll be something new, and if it doesn’t work I’ll just have to start over with the planting. There is however plenty of room in my nice tidy and well organised cabinet for a CO2 cylinder. Although I might quite like an external filter in there as well so that I can get rid of the big black filter box in the tank!