60cm Mr. Aqua tank

[pleurothallid]

This is my first attempt at an aquascape, many thanks to a few generous donations (and some purchases), I was able to get this going. It's only been planted a few days, and I'm not 100% satisfied at all yet. I am enjoying the process quite a bit though and eager to play with it more. There's some DIY magic done with the light stand and some other playing with things to make it on a budget. I'm using CO2 injection via a 5 lb tank and glass diffuser, my first time ever. My apologies for the large photos, I'm not much of a photo-poster on forums. If someone can make them more reasonable, I'd appreciate it. Also, the wood and stone comes directly from the Mississippi River, I'm very grateful to have easy access to it.

[krisw]

You did a great job for your first time aquascaping! You planted densely which is perfect. The main thing that jumps out at me are the rocks, and how you can easily see the seams between them. You may want to try repositioning them, or jamming some moss in the cracks to make it less noticeable. Is that a single piece of wood? It's really nice! If it's multiple, see what it looks like if you remove the horizontal piece to the left altogether. That might draw more attention to the big tree that you've built....

[pleurothallid]

Thanks for the comments. The driftwood is one big piece, straight from the Mississippi. My one regret is that I sort of built this tank around that piece of wood, not vice-versa, but I'm hoping I can pull it off. As for the space between the rocks, I've got a bit of extra moss ready, but which rocks in particular do you think there's too much space between? I'll try to fix that. The whole thing was planted only around 4 days in those photos. I'm eager to have things grow in much more to fill in.

[krisw]

Gotcha on the wood. No worries. As for the rocks, I was referring to the ones that are stacked on top of one another. Generally, it's good to try to create the illusion of one big rock formation, rather than a pile of rocks... That's where the moss comes in handy!

[Judi]

Wedging some anubias into the gaps between rocks is another option to make those seams less noticeable.

I like the wood. Very dramatic.

[marydotson]

Very pretty--good job! Personally, I don't mind the cracks between the rocks, really--it reminds me of talus piles on mountains. I think the real question is how it feels to you. You could always experiment with Judi's ideas...

BTW--I find it easier around here to just save the photo in a smaller size (many photo programs have a "save for web" or "export to web" function to make this easier).