Thanks everyone for the ideas, you really planted some thoughts in my mind, by all means anyone else with suggestion or ideas please post. I will take pics when completed. Thanks again.
How bout tieing some tiny cinder blocks to the feet of a little plastic skeleton? Maybe a 40's or 50's era hotwheels car for a gangster era effect.
Add some peat water or amazon extract as mentioned before for a safely tinted polluted effect.
I have a couple Red Stripe beer bottles in my tank(the labels are painted on, as well as a bunch of plastic skulls and stuff(less than an inch long) in my 30G and they look great. I've had lots of different action figures in my tanks, though mostly Spawn ones like this one:
How about a car on cinder blocks? Oh, thats in the alleys not the river.
The trouble you might have is making everything to scale if you want to get into that much detail. For example, if you put in a pop can, its likely to be bigger than a plastic car or similar toy. How much of a real look are you after?
I think it can still look good though. There are lots of possiblities. Lets see some pics when your done.
We have a lfs here that has plastic "broken bottles" from Tetra that look like a real beer bottle. Try checking with some stores locally and see if they can come up with one.
Everyone beat me to the blackwater/peat idea. How about using a piece of pvc tube to return the water from the filter? You could use some safe paint/dye to make it look rusty and nasty. I envision it half submerged so you see the bottom poking into the tank.
all the items are readily avaliable via model shops if you are willing to do the work of painting them your self. If you are attempting to keep to scale. otherwise pipe, and cannon and cannonballs are made readily for aquaria via some shops. I would consider the shovel handels, and bottles as really cool idea with some small freshwater fish from NYC area as a really cool idea, or even with tetras which could swim in and out of the pop bottles.
:OT:
wish I could buy bawls locally still only shop that carried it in this part of state stopped when new ownership took over :mad2
You might also consider going to a hobby shop and checking out some of the model railroading stuff. Instead of bottles, cans, and debri, you could go for the scrap yard look by using plastic cars, trucks, miniature 55 gallon drums, etc. They are usually made out of plastic and some brands look convincingly real. You could epoxy them together in heaps and attatch them to a tupperware lid with substrate layered over top. A friend of mine did this back in college and it looked pretty cool.
