# Mountainscape



## zig

Hi everyone

This is the newest layout in my small tank.

54L 60x30x30cm tank 
Eheim 2211 filter
3x24Watt T5s @ 8 hours per day
ADA Aqausoil amazonia
Mini landscape rocks

Plants and fish.
HC, Hemianthus callitrichoides ''Cuba''
Lampeye killifish

50% Water changes every 3-4 days and I dosed 2ml Tropica plant nutrition+ daily.
CO2 1bps

I grew this out without a heater in the tank and then added the fish later.

Thanks for looking


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## Jimbo205

Amazing!


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## mistergreen

nice.. What kind of rock and where did you get it?


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## irish

Very impressive. Good work.

Irish


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## Paul Munro

Really like the layout, that's a lot of water changes for this tank, do you think this is excessive?


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## aquaquang

I like your rock work, it's like walking in a mystery valley of...
Beautiful aquascape!

For the fish choice of color, I think it would look better 
if you add cardinal/neon tetra or harquelin instead. 
But it's just a though  

how much gallon is that tank?


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## gf225

Nice work, Peter! 

Great balance and excecution. I think the fish choice is perfect too.


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## chester

Great hardscape! On of the best "mountain" scapes I've ever seen. How long is the tank running?


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## manini

Good looking tank.


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## Ultimbow

real nice


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## Jumbo

Beautiful aquascape! 
How long did it take for HC to grow like these?
More pictures please.


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## hedson_25

more pics of the layout and mounting...


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## Intros

Since I visited Ireland I can understand the very natural vision of your greeny hills near the mountains in your scape. Great job!


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## zig

Hey thanks everyone for all the great comments and interest in this tank, I will try and answer the questions as best I can.



mistergreen said:


> nice.. What kind of rock and where did you get it?


mistergreen the rock is seiryu rock, I think that's the correct spelling, in Europe it is sold as Mini landscape rock. There are a couple of sources to buy it online , I would need to do some digging to find the links for you though, but if you want them just pm me or maybe someone else can provide them more readily. Thanks man.



Paul Munro said:


> Really like the layout, that's a lot of water changes for this tank, do you think this is excessive?


Thanks Paul, I didn't really think it was excessive tbh, I was using over 5WPG so I thought water changes would be a good idea, I didn't want to drive the tank too hard, so I limited the light period for 8 hours per day and used the water changes as a type of brake. Its only a couple of bucketfuls of water every few days to change out anyway, I didn't have any problems at all with algae at any stage with this layout, Im sure the water chages helped someway towards that result.



aquaquang said:


> For the fish choice of color, I think it would look better
> if you add cardinal/neon tetra or harquelin instead.
> But it's just a though
> 
> how much gallon is that tank?


Thanks aquaguang, the tank is 13-14 us gallon (I think)

The fish choice was really determined by availability tbh, I knew I wanted some sort of small almost micro fish but they are hard to come by over here, we have some very good LFS but most fish they sell are too big for this type of scape, so choice was limited. If I find something more colourful and suitable I may swop them out, but I do like them, they school well and are a really good size for this tank/scape.



gf225 said:


> Nice work, Peter!
> 
> Great balance and excecution. I think the fish choice is perfect too.


Hey thanks George, I like the fish as well but if I can find an alternative!!! (which probably won't happen but I do like them)



chester said:


> Great hardscape! On of the best "mountain" scapes I've ever seen. How long is the tank running?


Hey chester, some of your scapes are pretty cool as well man, the tank is running since the 15th of November, so 6 weeks or thereabouts. Thanks.



Jumbo said:


> Beautiful aquascape!
> How long did it take for HC to grow like these?
> More pictures please.


Hey Jumbo welcome to APC, HC does not take long to grow and fully carpet a tank, maybe 4 weeks or thereabouts, provided you add the right ingredients of course!

Thanks very much everyone, I will do another post and add some more pictures.


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## zig

This is how the tank was put together, these shots are poor usually after moving rocks around so the water is muddy etc.

Humble beginnings here, this was the original rock hardscape with the bare bones for this layout, there were a good few changes as I went along mainly to rocks at the back of the scape so they weren't to difficult to swop out, so I pretty much built it up over a few weeks as HC grew in. The front rock section stayed pretty much untouched for the duration as this is what is really holding the whole thing up.










This shot is taken about a week in you can see some rock changes already.










More changes










This is the cool morning mist effect you can get by using muddy aquasoil:heh: actually this was quite a problem with this scape, large rocks and wet aquasoil definitely don't mix










Thanks again everyone here's a better shot to finish


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## FazTeAoMar

Hello.

I must say that this is one of the most skilful and well done layouts I have ever seen! It is trully a work of art, made in such a small tank. I like the way how you managed your space in there to build the layout with so many rocks. The substracte sloaps, the placement of the rocks, the sand pathway following the golden rule, the choice of plants and fish... As I said before, very skilful.

The photography is also good and helps us enjoy even more the aquascape.

I must " reward" this layout with 5 stars as it is one of my favourites.

Congratulations!


Regards,
André


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## bijoon

How did you get the aquasoil to slope so steeply? From the picture it looks finer than the finest type of aquasoil. That is a great tank, I love the HC and the slopes.


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## aquaquang

Your last picture taken is very impressive. Your HC grow really well, still having problem to grow mine. 
how do you create flow effect in water surface?


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## Jumbo

Great job !!! I like it very much and i think i will copy you  
Can we see some closer shots ?


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## gf225

5 stars mate.


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## houseofcards

That's a really nice scape. Shows that when you use great rocks and positioning there is plenty of interest even without many plants. I love that mist effect. It seems so fitting for the scape. Now if you can keep that muddy mist low and the rest of the tank clear and think your really on to something.


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## Supercoley1

Wht I like about this tank is until you read it is quite small you do assume it is a very large tank.

It reminds me of pictures of New Zealand when you see the mountains jutting out of the forests which grow down the slopes and the tiny HC does give the impression of thousands of small trees looking from many many miles away.

A very impressive scape by all accounts and certainly deserving of a competition entry in the near future. Maybe you can bring a prize to the British Isles for a change. lol

Keep it up Zig.

Andy


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## zig

Everyone thanks for taking the time to post in the thread sorry for not getting back a bit sooner today.



FazTeAoMar said:


> Hello.
> 
> I must say that this is one of the most skilful and well done layouts I have ever seen! It is trully a work of art, made in such a small tank. I like the way how you managed your space in there to build the layout with so many rocks. The substrate sloaps, the placement of the rocks, the sand pathway following the golden rule, the choice of plants and fish... As I said before, very skilful.
> 
> The photography is also good and helps us enjoy even more the aquascape.
> 
> I must " reward" this layout with 5 stars as it is one of my favourites.
> 
> Congratulations!
> 
> Regards,
> André


FazTeAoMar coming from the guy who created the aquascape "um pedaco de sintra" I take this as a great compliment from you, I can't find the link with a search I know the pictures are on here somewhere, but I have the pictures on file, when I saw that scape for the first time I was blown away, it is a great piece of work, so thank you Andre thats quite something , I have a lot of respect for your scaping ability so that is really nice to hear



bijoon said:


> How did you get the aquasoil to slope so steeply? From the picture it looks finer than the finest type of aquasoil. That is a great tank, I love the HC and the slopes.


Hey bijoon, the aquasoil is used aquasoil, it has been used in a few rock scapes already that I have done and it is pretty beaten up at this stage, I mixed it with a gritty type sand to give it more volume, I would say about a third is sand and the rest is aquasoil. It worked really well for this because I realised I would need to pack the mud/soil around the rocks very tightly to make them stay in position, I doubt I could have gotten the hardscape to stay so tight over time (and high) without ruining good aquasoil so I went with this instead. It was only a hassle when I filled the tank from empty and it would cloud up, but I only did that once or twice, the rest of the time I never emptied the tank and just did 50% water changes so it wasn't really a major problem, when i did rock changes/moves I would just do a 50% water change afterwards and the water would clear by morning. There were no fish in this tank which made it easy to play around.



aquaquang said:


> Your last picture taken is very impressive. Your HC grow really well, still having problem to grow mine.
> how do you create flow effect in water surface?


aquaguang, the ripple on the water effect is done with a hairdryer.



Jumbo said:


> Great job !!! I like it very much and i think i will copy you
> Can we see some closer shots ?


Jumbo, the light that Im using for the photos has packed in so there is a technical problem as they say, so I need to get another one, I have an external flash but Im having a problem with that as well, so I need to fix up both to get some more photos, sorry man, I have some fishy shots I might post up later in the week.



gf225 said:


> 5 stars mate.


Hey thanks George



houseofcards said:


> That's a really nice scape. Shows that when you use great rocks and positioning there is plenty of interest even without many plants. I love that mist effect. It seems so fitting for the scape. Now if you can keep that muddy mist low and the rest of the tank clear and think your really on to something.


Houseofcards, thank you, bottles of smoke eh, or mist in this case, I could sell them on the forum!! Irish mist, has a familiar ring to it!!! The mist was pretty cool actually, just keep the filter switched off and it hung low like that for ages without dissipating. You could then get some airline hosing and suck it out of the tank like a hoover and then the water would be clear again except for a little clouding. You could be right though

@Andy, I hadn't even thought of that, thanks for the kind words

Thanks everyone.


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## lildark185

I actually like the misty look.  GREAT tank by the way!


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## rich311k

Amazing tank, it is picturesque. Very nicely arranged and planted.


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## Blue_Dolphinvn

I love your rock style!
Please give me some infor about the conditions to get a HC carpet like that (temp, fertilizer, lighting...)
Thanks!


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## natural_expect

impressed, it show that U love the nature and comprehend the way of naturalgrowth. to bring the nature to home. congra


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## Amazon_Replica

looks great, like being stranded on a raft and seeing an island in the distance. Stirs the imagination, great job


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## Steven_Chong

Fantastic job dude-- I was touched!


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## gbbudd

I have to give your igwami 10 stars though i have seen many not to many made me stop and say hey now thats something. well your tank is something the rock layout and sloping couldn't be any better take a look at some of amano's igwamis im sorry but i think you get first place there bud.


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## valice

I love the creation of the depth with the appropriate use of the stones... It made the whole tank looked so big!
5 stars from me as well.


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## apistaeasy

Good job, excellent use of texture. I love your interpretation of the mountains.


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## EdTheEdge

Simply amazing! I like it more and more everythime I look at it.


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## chadly

I love it, the fish look like birds soaring over the canyon


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## andrew__

great scape, looks so much bigger than it actually is and those fish work really well in there :-D


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## arowanaman

simply amazing rock scape, looks like a real mountain scape envious and inspirational work well done.


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## BlackTop_Kings

Great scape- i lovethe rock work- the jagged look is sinister...very cool


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## MATTHEW MAHLING

THIS GREAT! My favorite scape of all time on the site.


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## orlando

Very inspirational, makes me want to go ride my MTB. Excellent.


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## TFMBIGDOG99

lovely


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## kakkoii

I want those rocks!!!!!!!! where did you get them?????


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## dirrtybirdy

very very nice tank


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## gotcheaprice

Oh wow, great tank! That's the 60P right? I'm gonna start one soon and this was actually what I was hoping to do! I always liked either the foresty areas or mountains and if I could create something close, I would be amazed xD

And yeah, where did you get those rocks how much did you get?


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## lonepeace

Vert nice.... 

Those rocks really made the scape strong~~~


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## rashev

Successful aquascape!


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## zig

Hey everyone sorry with the late updates, I cant believe there are so many replies!!



Blue_Dolphinvn said:


> I love your rock style!
> Please give me some infor about the conditions to get a HC carpet like that (temp, fertilizer, lighting...)
> Thanks!


Hi blue_Dolphinvn, HC is pretty easy for me anyway, temp was about 18 degrees, for fertiliser I dosed 2ml of Tropica plant nutrition+ daily along with 1BPS CO2, so dosing would have been a little bit lean. AFAIK each 5ml dose of Tropica plant nutrition+ adds about 6ppm NO3 and about .04ppm PO4, so you would need to work that out lighting was 5WPG to try and keep the HC as compact as I could.



kakkoii said:


> I want those rocks!!!!!!!! where did you get them?????


Kakkoii, the rocks I picked up online from a couple of different sources here in Europe

http://www.aquaessentials.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=11_239&products_id=1437

http://www.aquaristic.net/shop.php/sid/6de183f36f917205ae601f1f07a6c664/cl/details/cnid/cd346f163840b1125.72668532/anid/363140/Mini%20Landscape%20-%20per%20Kilo/

In the US, Im pretty sure Aquarium Design Group and Aqua Forest Aquarium supply them, both are sponsors on this site, so check those guys out in the sponsors section.

I will add that I used a hammer and chisel if none of the rocks that I had in my possession fitted my idea for the scape, so I would break some until they did



gotcheaprice said:


> Oh wow, great tank! That's the 60P right? I'm gonna start one soon and this was actually what I was hoping to do! I always liked either the foresty areas or mountains and if I could create something close, I would be amazed xD
> 
> And yeah, where did you get those rocks how much did you get?


gotcheaprice, the tank is 60x30x30, a 60P would be 60x30x36, so a bit taller than this one.

And many thanks to everyone else that has replied to this thread, I very much appreciate it

I only have one new picture for this layout of the lampeye killifish. The light that I use to photograph this tank is still not fixed










On a different note entirely

Heres a couple of pictures of an Iwagumi layout that was in this tank just immediately before I did the mountainscape aquascape.

Its just a very simple 5 stone Iwagumi layout mainly emphasising the rocks, I was trying to envisage a rock outcrop that you may find along a beach area where the shore meets the greener landscape.

Plants are HC and Eleocharis parvula. The spec is the same as this tank otherwise.

The fish in this scape are young White cloud mountain minnows, they now live happily in a larger tank that I have.

This is how this one started out, I changed a couple of rocks after this shot but this was the initial idea which didn't really change very much, I wanted the emphasis on the rock layout more than anything else because I thought it was a strong visual.




























Just thought I would post it up here anyway.

Thanks again to everyone


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## Fiki

Zig, I'm speechless. Your setup is definitely the one of my favorites. Awesome!!!

Thanks for sharing.

Regards,


Filip


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## andrew__

Amazing!


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## gotcheaprice

Haha, wow, you must've used A LOT of rocks to create that D: How much kgs/lbs did you buy exactly though? It seems like it'd be like 2x 3x tanks your size would normally use xD


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## zig

gotcheaprice said:


> Haha, wow, you must've used A LOT of rocks to create that D: How much kgs/lbs did you buy exactly though? It seems like it'd be like 2x 3x tanks your size would normally use xD


Thanks guys!

gotcheaprice I'd say I have about 20-25kgs of rocks in total, so not that many really, they all fit in a large box that I can carry (just about) I'm buying these without seeing them over the internet so that's why I have more than you would normally buy if you could see them in person. Some of the pieces are poor though, that's the thing about buying rocks this way, half of the rocks you receive are junk. I couldn't ever see myself using some of them so that's why I started breaking them up, it works good, I would recommend it for any junk seiryu rocks in your collection, just smash them up and see what you get

In the mountainscape tank I would guess there is about 15kg of rock used, in the second tank that I posted some of those rocks are used in the mountainscape aquascape as well.

Somebody posted this up on planted tank before so I didn't feel so bad about having that many rocks in the tank.

From YouTube "How many rocks can I put in my tank":mrgreen:


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## UG Dude!

Awesome setups, Zig...


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## gotcheaprice

Haha, wow, nice video xD

So that's about 30 lbs of rocks used. 

Too bad though, I think they stopped mining seiryu stone, so I can't use that for my new tank


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## wrkucera

very cool. by the way, how do you create the water rippling effect in your photos? I have noticed this effect in other tanks photos as well.


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## messy_da_legend

It's usually done using a hairdryer


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## Augus

Old post, but got to bump it up for very nice rock scape.


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## El Exorcisto

For future reference, if you want to get rid of muddy cloud quickly, pick up a Vortex DE (diatomaceous earth) filter. They really are a wonder to behold, taking a mud puddle tank and turning it crystal within an hour.


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## Mark1

That is an excellent layout!!! 5 stars are minimum!

Regards,
Mark.


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## E.niddleton

Great looking tank.


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## Akaizhar

A-M-A-Z-I-N-G

Thats all the information I'm willing to divulge that this time.


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## DevUK

I believe this scape, or at least a modified version of it placed 15th in the ADA contest this year! Congrats Zig! I haven't seen the winning scape but I'm reliably informed this is the case over on UKAPS.


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## stewy098

best tank ever


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## zig

Surprised to see this bumped back up, it must have been buried real deep I'm really busy right now with work, away from home a lot as well, so don't check back here that often, so not as much time for the planted forums as I would like lately still keeping the aquascaping hand in though with a low light tank I have running

DevUK is correct I did another aquascape based on this tank that I entered into this years ADA competition and It placed 15th position, so happy days for me. Maybe you will watch out for that one, ADA I'm guessing will post the pictures up after this years IAPLC party which is held on the 13th September this year, so unfortunately I cannot post an update on this thread.

Thankyou all for the great comments hopefully you will like the new layout Mountainscape V2.

PS El Exorcisto you cannot buy diatom filters here in Europe, they were never marketed over here for some reason, the clouding was not that much an issue anyhow.

Thanks everyone

Regards to you all
Peter Kirwan


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## Mark1

Congratulation, your tank took 15th place in ADA 2008!!! Great!!!

Just realized of course you already knew ...but still an acceptable goal you ´ve reached.

Regards,
Mark.


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