# Manzanita driftwood arrangement. Comments/suggestions?



## orion2001 (Mar 20, 2008)

Hey everyone,

I'm in the process of setting up my very first 10g planted tank (low-med light and Excel for carbon). I bought some excellent Manzanita driftwood from fishandturtlejunkie a couple of days back and I just received it. I'm still waiting for my substrate to come in. In the mean time I tried arranging the branches and stumpy pieces to form a nice arrangement. Here is what I came up with:

Front View:









Top View:









Angled View:









What do you guys think? I'd love to get some feedback and also get some suggestions/changes I could consider making.

My tank is going to house a Betta sorority so I plan to plant it heavily with lots of places for the girls to hide in. I'm also open to aquascaping ideas in terms of what plants to go for and where to consider placing them. Right now I have dwarf hairgrass for the foreground carpet and Anubias Barteri along with java fern which will probably be attached to the main driftwood stump. I guess I'll also have some moss on some of the branches (Christmas moss maybe?). Background plants would be Crypts and Vals (although not too sure about excel and Vallisneria Spiralis). Initially I guess I'll start off with some fast growing stem plants to keep the algae at bay. I'm open to suggestions on what plants might look good along with where I could place them. Also, I'd prefer a natural look and not something like the Amano style (not that I have anything against it...I just didn't want that look for this tank  )


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## redstrat (Apr 3, 2006)

I like what you have so far but as for the placement in your tank i have a couple suggestions. 
First off, I have to tell you, try to keep your wood from touching the vertical glass, this will help with maintenance in the long run and developing a better sense of space in your tank. I think most scapers will agree with this statement. 

second I know your wood is made up of several peices but I think the overall effect of the wood arrangement you have right now might come across even more if you were to flip the whole thing over, keep it on the same side of the tank just flip it over rotating it front to back, if you know what i mean. just a thought. It might not work ot like I imagine but if it does you might be suprised.

anyway good luck with your tank I really look forward to seeing it planted. 


oh yeah you wanted some plant suggestions too. sounds like your off to a great start, I think you will probably have problems with vals and excel thats normally a big no no. you could try some of the sag. varieties, take a look in the plant finder if you haven't allready, you could also try some smaller stems like HM or some of the rotalas might look nice here with the other plants you mentioned. by the way Anubias Barterii, gets huge, maybe your talking about var. nana or one of the smaller anubias but the straight up barterii outgrew my 75gallon tank, I think its the biggest one in the aquarium trade, just givin you a heads up


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## bratyboy2 (Feb 5, 2008)

looks good to me!!!! you have some good areas to plant for you foreground and your mid as well. if your planting behind the branches i would tell you to make some more room it just seems cramped. other then that i really like it whats going to be living in the lovely place?


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## orion2001 (Mar 20, 2008)

Thanks a lot for the comments Redstrat and Bratyboy.

@ Redstrat
I did read somewhere about it being good practice to keep around an inch of space between the driftwood and the glass. I will definitely try to do that once I zip tie the pieces together. Thanks for that suggestion.

Regarding flipping it, I'm not sure if I understood you correctly. Did you mean flip it up on its head? ie, make it upside down to its current orientation? Or did you mean flip it around by 180 degrees as if I was viewing it from the back wall in the current setup? I'll definitely try to play with some orientations and see how things look. 

As for the plants, sorry I meant anubias nana . I didn't realize how small a 10g tank is after seeing all the 70+ gallon tanks that are regularly posted here! I was initally planning on getting a lot more plants but after putting the driftwood in, I'm realising that I'm better off picking a few and doing a good job with the scaping. I like your suggestion of the sags and I'm thinking of going with Dwarf Sags. I had a question though, what would you plant, if anything in the area under the driftwood stumps (the tunnel like part). I'm thinking of tying some java ferns on the driftwood and also having some anubia nana in the midground around the driftwood. Would you plant anything under or just let the hairgrass carpet that area if it can?

@Bratyboy2
Thanks a lot man. I will keep your advice in mind and clear up some space for plants if I do plant things in the back. I just wish my 10G tank could magically expand a little to give me more planting space . I really love the driftwood and I don't want to remove chunks of it just to accomodate more plants. Besides Bettas tend to like lots of hiding spots and tunnel like areas to swim through so they would probably appreciate the drift wood branches.


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## djarmstrong (Feb 12, 2008)

Really nice ,

If i was doing this i would have a sand base with the diftwood just like that and some peices of slate arranged under neath the wood too , also place a couple of tall bushy plants at the back and then with some carpeting plants at the front of the tank . 

Fish - Some small Tetras and a a couple of Corys .


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## orion2001 (Mar 20, 2008)

Hey djarmstrong. Thanks for your suggestions. I do like them and I would have been tempted to go that way with the scaping but I will be having a group of 6 betta girls in there. (I already have them in individual quarantine tanks for now). Bettas need plant cover/tunnels to feel safe and also let them each have their own territories. For this reason I'm going to plant it heavily to give them a lot of places to hide in. I do have another spare 10G tank which I might scape in a similar manner to what you have suggested.


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## djarmstrong (Feb 12, 2008)

orion2001 said:


> Hey djarmstrong. Thanks for your suggestions. I do like them and I would have been tempted to go that way with the scaping but I will be having a group of 6 betta girls in there. (I already have them in individual quarantine tanks for now). Bettas need plant cover/tunnels to feel safe and also let them each have their own territories. For this reason I'm going to plant it heavily to give them a lot of places to hide in. I do have another spare 10G tank which I might scape in a similar manner to what you have suggested.


Yer , i will be doing some thing just like want i said with my 2 foot tank when the baby gold fish are out of it and in the pond , but with a peice of bogwood not the drift wood type you have got .


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## redstrat (Apr 3, 2006)

as for flipping I meant flip it on its head not rotate 180, I guess it just seems backwards to me, but that could be the tall peice on the left. it might not quite turn out how I'm imagining but it could be pretty cool. ultimately its up to you though. 

as far as under the stumps, the hairgrass will grow where it can, and eventually fill the entire area that it can possibly survive, so given enough time yes it will fill in completely, you wont have to worry about underneath the wood because you wont see it anymore.


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## orion2001 (Mar 20, 2008)

Ah ok, I see what you're saying. I'll definitely try it out once I have the tank setup and filled with gravel. I think the upside down arrangement is hard to try out on flat glass as it wont be stable at all (atleast not with zipties, etc). I'll post pics when I set it up. Tha manzanita is already sinking after 3 days of soaking


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## dirrtybirdy (May 22, 2007)

i like the arrangement but its hard to tell cause when you add substrate its going to look totally different.


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