AquaScaping

As I read on the internet and look at other pictures of planted tanks on the internet, I realize to make there is more to making the aquarium look good then simply placing plants in a tank and making them grow. You must be an element of design to it. Just like in landscaping, there are two elements to aquascaping. First there is the gardening part, knowing the needs of a plant and making it grow. This is a fairly simple straight forward part of aquascaping. Then there is the much harder part. Arranging the plants and features such as driftwood and rock to make a visually appealing aquarium. This will be a fairly Large post so here is how it will be organized.

Intro
Parts of an AquaScape 
Plants
Substrate
Hard scape
The Focal Point
Rules of Aquascaping
The Four types of Aquascapes
The Dutch Garden
The Natural
The Jungle
The Biotope
Layouts within AquaScapes
The Mountain
The Hill
The Valley
The Slope

Parts of an Aquascape
To be able to understand and set up an aquascape you first have to know the parts. The are several basic parts to an aquascape. Hard scape, plants, substrate and the focal point.

The first thing to consider when setting up an aquascape is the gravel or substrate. It is a good idea to chose a neutral colour of substrate like white or black as colours like red (which I have) can wash out the colour of red plants and fish as well as drawing attention to itself. You also want a substrate that will support the plant such as Eco-Complete or Flourite. Also it is important to have enough substrate to be able to form hills and valleys as well as enough depth that you can plant into it.

Next you must figure out what you will use for hard scape, which is mainly branches of wood and rocks. It is a good idea to use only one neutral colour of rock as well as to have lots of them in different sizes. One rock on its own looks very out of place while a group of them will add to the scene. Also get several pieces of wood if you wish to add to the scene. It is easiest to add hard scape before a tank has water or plants in it.

Next we come to plants. For plants design why's any ways you want mainly small leafed plants with a few large leaf plants. Also it is good to have some ground cover like Java moss that you can attach to rocks with string. The string will eventually dissolve and the moss will have attached itself to the rock.

Last and the most overlooked is the focal point. The focal point can be anything, the highest rock, a group of interesting plants, but there a few important rules to follow with it. First, keep it off centred, it looks far more natural then a centred focal point. Second, only have one focal point, other why's the eyes can not decide which focal point to settle on. Third, if you are going to have red plants that are not your focal point you must have several of them or people will be drawn to them as well.

Rules of AquaScaping


Here are a few basic rule of aquascaping
1. Have only one focal point.
2. Add elevation with rocks and branches
3. Use small leaved plants
4. If your are using red make multiple groups
5.Use only one colour of rock
6.Use neutral colours for the substrate and rocks.

The Four Types of AquaScapes


There are four basic types of Aquascapes each with there own style. They are the Dutch Garden, The Natural, The Jungle and The Biotope which is a subsection of the jungle.

The Dutch Garden
The Dutch Garden was the first style of Aquascaping. It involves grouping bunches of plants together and putting them in orderly rows. Less common then it once was it can still be a very impressive display. They only sometimes include fish. 

The Natural
The Natural is a new style of Aquascaping pioneered by Takishi Amono. It involves using few plants and few types of plants to create a scene from nature like a mountain or a meadow. This type is becoming more popular now and can be very impressive and often has fish as well.

The Jungle
Probably the easiest  aquascape to do and very popular amongst beginners the jungle involves using many types of densely packed plants to create a jungle effect. Can be very impressive and over growness can add to the effect so trimming is not as necessary.

The Biotope
The Biotope is like the jungle except it uses plants from only one area.

A few Aquascape layouts
 Aquascapes can take any form but there are a few common layouts, the hill, the valley, the mountain and the slope.

The Hill
The hill is high in the middle and low on the sides. it is a very flexible layout and can incorporate lots of swimming space for fish, as well as caves for them to hide in. 

The Valley
 The valley is the opposite of the hill, high on the edges and low in the middle. I personally am trying to decide whether to do this or the mountain.

The Mountain
The mountain is a steep collection of rocks with only a small amount of plants, which are mainly moss and other small foreground plants.

The slope
The slope slopes up from one side to the top on the other side. Needs lots of gravel and rock to do this. It can be made to look like the side of a river bank. Driftwood works very well in this set-up.