First larger sized tank...

[matt_zak]

What's your thoughts on these?

http://www.designsbynature.net/products-page/background-panels/bj391a/

http://www.designsbynature.net/products-page/background-panels/bj331a/

http://www.designsbynature.net/products-page/background-panels/kome/

I'm leaning towards the kome. Any of the three should look good with the black sand I'm thinking.

 

[Byron Amazonas]

What's your thoughts on these?

http://www.designsbynature.net/products-page/background-panels/bj391a/

http://www.designsbynature.net/products-page/background-panels/bj331a/

http://www.designsbynature.net/products-page/background-panels/kome/

I'm leaning towards the kome. Any of the three should look good with the black sand I'm thinking.

Those are much different from what I was thinking of previously which were more "photos." Do these panels go inside the tank, or attach outside? If inside, they should add some depth by being 3-D.

I would want to see each "live" if I were deciding, so I won't say which I might prefer. But aside from possible colour issues like you mentioned, I would think these to be good backdrops.

 

[matt_zak]

They go inside the tank Byron. You use aquarium safe silicone to attach.

If I do go with one of those then I would only have to trim a little off of the width. It'll need cut in half also to fit inside the tank since it has the center brace. The height is actually 2.25" too short. It should be ok though since I need to attach the spray bar above it and I would need room for the suction cups.

 

[matt_zak]

Update: I ended up getting a Universal Rocks background at my LFS. It was too good of a deal to pass up. The only issue I'm running into is the magnet's don't want to hold the top left corner. So tomorrow I will have to run to the hardware store to find some clips to hold the top of the background. The substrate, driftwood and rocks where put in today. Tomorrow once the background is taken care of I plan on priming the filter and filling the tank.

Here are a couple crappy pics:





I feel like I need some height to the aqua scape. So eventually I will find a tall piece to put on the right side.

Matt

 

[Byron Amazonas]

Update: I ended up getting a Universal Rocks background at my LFS. It was too good of a deal to pass up. The only issue I'm running into is the magnet's don't want to hold the top left corner. So tomorrow I will have to run to the hardware store to find some clips to hold the top of the background. The substrate, driftwood and rocks where put in today. Tomorrow once the background is taken care of I plan on priming the filter and filling the tank.

I feel like I need some height to the aqua scape. So eventually I will find a tall piece to put on the right side.

Matt

If I may make a couple suggestions... first, I would try grouping the rocks more together. With rocks, individual pieces that stand somewhat upright tend to look artificial; if they are flat rocks, that is different as they can be representative of the bedrock being exposed here and there. But when height is involved, it is better to group them together. Keep the same type of rock together; mixes again look artificial, unless one is dealing with river rock boulders and pebbles.

For height, what works well are chunks of bogwood that are fairly straight, and placed on end to represent standing tree trunks. I use this in most of my tanks, so here is a photo to illustrate; I did some re-aquascaping on this tank last month, and the newly added wood is still bare, whereas the other is covered in moss which I periodically trim. This is Malaysian Driftwood, available in some stores and online. To get what you want, buy it from a store, because each piece being natural is different and online retailers generally sell it as "large" etc and you never know what you're getting.

 

[matt_zak]

So, this is how she looked before I added water:



This is after lol:



It's starting to clear up. The filter is running and I've added Prime to the water and I'm trying Stability from Seachem also. Will give it a week to see how it does. If it's not working then I'll try something else for the cycle.

The filter has been running for about 30mins and it's already clearing up.

Can't wait to see how she looks when I get up.

 

[matt_zak]

This is how it looks this morning:



It's clearing up nice!

Matt

 

[Kannan Fodder]

Looks nice!!!

 

[matt_zak]

Picked-up 5 Tiger barbs today. They're doing fine and exploring the tank. I'll take some pictures tomorrow with my good camera. The cellphone pics turned out like crap.

For convenience sake I want to stick with our local tap water. It is very hard, kH is 9,gH is 13 and pH is 7.6. It looks like I'm going to go with these barbs, african cichlids (still need to decide on the ones I want), cory's and maybe a pleco.

 

[Owensdad74]

Wow, that tank is a work of art! Very nice!

If I may make a couple suggestions... first, I would try grouping the rocks more together. With rocks, individual pieces that stand somewhat upright tend to look artificial; if they are flat rocks, that is different as they can be representative of the bedrock being exposed here and there. But when height is involved, it is better to group them together. Keep the same type of rock together; mixes again look artificial, unless one is dealing with river rock boulders and pebbles.

For height, what works well are chunks of bogwood that are fairly straight, and placed on end to represent standing tree trunks. I use this in most of my tanks, so here is a photo to illustrate; I did some re-aquascaping on this tank last month, and the newly added wood is still bare, whereas the other is covered in moss which I periodically trim. This is Malaysian Driftwood, available in some stores and online. To get what you want, buy it from a store, because each piece being natural is different and online retailers generally sell it as "large" etc and you never know what you're getting.