help me make my tank pop

BigCountry

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Mar 6, 2009
726
0
0
Charlotte, NC
your in the same boat I was in my friend.....I ran freshwater for 2+ years and the wife hated it. "Ugly" thats all she called it. I got bored with it myself to be honest. there is only so much you can do with cichlids and catfish...

She kept telling me to switch to salt. And you know what, if and when your wife gives you the green light to spend money on your hobby you DO IT lol

I love salt. Soooooo many different directions you can take the tank. Wife actually supports it now lol I will never go back to fresh. Unless it's a 500+ gal tank with rays or something :D
 

kamikaziechameleon

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Sep 23, 2010
2,339
4
68
western hemisphere
Gosh, ok read this article:

http://www.aquahobby.com/articles/e_aquascaping.php

Its for planted tanks but you can extrapolate out to how to work with only hardscape(rocks, dead corals, substrate and driftwood)

As for the back ground, Blue looks best with dim lighting too much light will reflect off the back ground and turn everything in your tank a strange lopsided blue. Blue is also only appealing with while substrate and dark fish. If blue is what you are set on indeed a raised LED light would look best as the simmer playing off the blue back ground is very appealing.

Black is my preferred but I haven't seen your oscars, they'd have to pack some color in them else it won't work out with them as your only fish.

Tanks, are easily broken down into different elements, lighting/color, and hardscape/visual direction (fish feed into both of those). Seeing as you have fish already you will want to reverse engineer these elements to maximize your tank. Oscars are large boisterous fish that will pull and push and dig eventually so your probably going to stay way from plants in the long run weather fake or live unless you can anchor them to drift wood or holly rock or something. I personally find convex design to work best with your type of fish as no matter where they are in the tank they will work with the visual direction of your hardscape.
aquascaping_3.jpg
You can build this with larger rocks and smaller pieces of drift wood or one Large labyrinthine drift wood and or pile of coral and or holey rock. What you choose for hard scape will have to reflect the back ground you settle on and the substrate you choose to use. IMHO crushed coral substrate looks best with blue, or a white sand. Drift wood doesn't look as good in this situation so holly rock and or coral in the center of the tank is best or large rocks piled up like this:



seed how on the right they nest together and point out from a central point, you can probably do better I put that tank together in an hour with no pre meditation about it but you get the idea, large slivers of slate, or any rock for that matter will work. The rocks need not be sharp or even pointed rather just oblong. Center the pile in the relative center or back center of the tank. The idea is to create visual direction with the curves of the rock to guide your eye to the center of your tank and then back out its a real good play with positive and negative space. Plus no matter where your fish are or what they are doing they will fit into this element unlike most of the other layouts where fish shape finnage and behavior figure in more prominently.

Anyway there are more ideas I'm sure you have if you understand the principles above and read about aquascaping and aquarium design you'll develop some of your own. Enjoy and its cool to see someone on here doing more than putting large fish in a bare bottom tank.

aquascaping_3.jpg
 

kamikaziechameleon

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Sep 23, 2010
2,339
4
68
western hemisphere
if you are really concerned about the oscars and their well being, then why arent you concerned about the guppies they are eating? What makes the comfort of the oscars more important than the feeder fish or crawfish fry they are eating?
I don't care about your fish in that tank. I've seen worse for O's even on this site. Assuming you put the filtration in that tank, and they are a very placid fish. They don't need as much room per inch as say a rainbow minnows, let alone other similarly sized fish do. Personally the sheer volume of space this fish takes up eventually makes it visually undesirable for a tank of this size in the long run regardless of needs. At any rate the notion that feed animals suffer the same as the potential mutilation from stunting and other complications of a small living environment and under filtration... In war killing is allowed but torture is banned think about that. They aren't the same. If you don't walk your dog then its going to become a handful. However it won't STUNT! Suffering from its eyes and other soft tissues outpacing the skeletal growth and the growth hormone in the fish is suppressed by ammonia poisoning. Though you don't realize it, the issue people are so paranoid about on here has more in common with someone starving an animal or keeping it in a small closet or kennel for life, not walking it, and only cleaning the kennel once a month. You aren't making fair comparisons there. Eating a dog isn't the same thing as fighting a dog.

At any rate I personally don't care if you keep your fish in a 75 gallon tank I've seen oscars develop in one fine, you just have to realize the demands of such a thing and meet them. If that is your pursuit over filtration doesn't exist, also your aquascape will probably crowd the situation so the decor you have now is about it.

Assuming you are indeed planning a larger tank, enjoy this will be a fun exercise. ;)
 

Rivermud

Candiru
MFK Member
Dec 14, 2007
980
14
48
Idaho
ok piece of driftwood might be nice and I can always pull out one of the rocks so its not cluttered. What do yall think about LED lighting? Would it make a big difference. I currently have a 4 bulb 110W fluorescent. It does a decent job lighting the tank, but to me it looks washed out like everything does under fluorescents.
You can address color issues with different lights.. for instance you could go with a 3000k bulb for warmer colors.. actinic for the blues.. etc.. all of them can go in the same fixture
 

jopheso

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Mar 17, 2012
36
0
6
south louisiana
hired a clean up crew :)
2012-03-28_20-11-04_902.jpg

added a piece of driftwood and a few smooth dark stones.

2012-03-30_21-48-45_996.jpg

Bigcountry wee need to talk man because you are spot on brother. The wife is "OK" with the tank, but she doesnt at all see it as a center piece to the room like I want it to be. She wants salt. At first she hated the tank, but once I got the water right and the sand cleaned up she at least tolerates now. I guess i will have to do research on running salt water with a canister. Whats really holding me back is the fact that if I am going to go salt, I will want a much better stand and possibly a rimless tank. Where are the big price differences between salt and fresh man?

2012-03-28_20-11-04_902.jpg

2012-03-30_21-48-45_996.jpg
 

PDRed302

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Aug 4, 2011
1,521
90
66
Fort Worth Texas

jopheso

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Mar 17, 2012
36
0
6
south louisiana
nice read PD! right now I kind of need the driftwood where it is since I am having to weigh it down. One thing that annoys me is the reflections I get from the tape on black background. will painting eliminate this reflection? If so I will have to figure out how to paint the tank. Also where can I get some nice fake plants?
 

mr.bigglesworth

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jan 22, 2012
2,840
0
0
By SF, Farther Inland, NorCal
your in the same boat I was in my friend.....I ran freshwater for 2+ years and the wife hated it. "Ugly" thats all she called it. I got bored with it myself to be honest. there is only so much you can do with cichlids and catfish...

She kept telling me to switch to salt. And you know what, if and when your wife gives you the green light to spend money on your hobby you DO IT lol

I love salt. Soooooo many different directions you can take the tank. Wife actually supports it now lol I will never go back to fresh. Unless it's a 500+ gal tank with rays or something :D
HA, only so much you can do with CATFISH!! :shocked: I beg to differ:D

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App
 

Psylant

Fire Eel
MFK Member
May 24, 2011
1,079
5
68
Canada
Those snails will get eaten by the Oscars soon... Just in case you didn't know ;). In my opinion I wouldn't use the live rock that you have. More natural looking "freshwater" type rocks will look better than something used for salt water imo.
 

PDRed302

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Aug 4, 2011
1,521
90
66
Fort Worth Texas
As far as the plants go, there's a million different places you can get them, I just picked some up (as well as already have some) from an eBay seller: discountaquatic. Everything I've gotten from him so far has looked great, and isn't too costly.

I also have to agree that using a more natural freshwater rock/rocks would look better than the live rock you have now.

I'm not really sure how to solve the reflection issue you are having because I don't quite understand it; but yes, a painted background would be a lot cleaner and should show no abnormalities.

Good luck on the scaping and keep us posted.
 
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