# Your favorite 55



## gforster (Jul 30, 2006)

I have a 55g tank that I tried to make into a paludarium. I'm having problems left and right. Anyway. . . my fallback plan is to have another planted tank. Plan C is an mbuna tank. 55 gallon tanks are notoriously hard to aquascape because of the lack of depth compared to the width of the tank. So, I am looking for ideas. What are your favorite 55 gallon (standard) planted aquascapes?


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## uglybuckling (Jun 28, 2004)

In trying to scape 55s in the past, I've noticed two things: one, a bad headache, and two, that my favorite layouts have actually been at the extremes--either the tank had a lot of negative space with just short lawns covering the gravel, with a few protruding rocks here and there, or it was completely overgrown with really tall stem plants everywhere, with the ones in the foreground being kept a little more trimmed. The kind of thing that works poorly in 55s is (as you pointed out) dutch tanks and things where you need gradations of plant size from front to back--so, in other words, in such a narrow tank, you're pretty much limited to choosing "tall" or "short" plants and sticking with that decision. 

If you're gonna go for driftwood, get the black thin Amano stuff, or some other stick-like kind rather than stump or big chunk types, as these latter ones will take up all your front-to-back space. I would recommend a pair of 2.5 to 3 foot stick-like driftwood pieces at least, for the purpose of hanging some moss from them. These can add a lot to the illusion of depth, and help draw the eyes to where you want them in a relatively-long tank, without taking up a whole lot of your layout space.


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## neonfish3 (Feb 12, 2004)

Your right about the 55 gallon scape, it's hard to get a pleasing layout. That said I've owned a 55 gallon for 20+ years and have tried many different things. Because you have little to no front to back space you have to use your left to right dimension to the greatest effect.

Triangle scape can work:









Heres a mound type layout:









and a concave:









and another:








I just noticed I don't have much of a foreground in any of them,....hmmm
Hope my examples give you some ideas....


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## Roger Miller (Jun 19, 2004)

neonfish3 said:


> I just noticed I don't have much of a foreground in any of them,....hmmm


Dispensing with or reducing the foreground is one way to deal with the lack of front-to-back depth in the tank. Otherwise, uglybuckling and neonfish3 covered the methods I know of for aquascaping in a 55 gallon tank.

The problem can't be too bad, though. The examples that neonfish3 posted are all beautiful aquariums. I think the AGA contest site has other examples of good aquascapes done in 55-gallon tanks. One of my all-time favorite 55-gallon aquascapes was Luis Navarro's Best-of-show entry in the 2002 contest. You can view that entry at:

http://showcase.aquatic-gardeners.org/2002.cgi?&op=showcase&category=0&vol=2&id=88

Roger Miller


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## goalcreas (Nov 20, 2006)

I have seen some 55 gallon tanks that are more of wood scapes, lightly planted, just around the base of the wood where it meets in the substrate, maybe only using plant base substrate where the plants are and white or black sand for the rest of it.
Then attaching mosses and plants that are good to tie to wood and the like. 
Then maybe some small rock formations around the wood, to help anchor it and to attach other plants, mosses, riccia, something that would net or tie onto the rocks.

It sounds a mess, but when done right, I think its great.

If I can find any photo's, then I will try to link you back.

Of course, you need to use manzanita branches and pretty small dia. ones in a 55 tank., the more thin branches in the wood, the better.


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## Chuppy (Aug 5, 2007)

Hreat Scapes.. your 2st pic.. the triangular one is very neat and well... naturall


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