Aquascaping a 50 Gallon Tank

Hello,

I was rescaping my 50G tank this week-end and thought about posting it .

Here are the tank specs.

Tank : 3 x 1.5 x 1.5  –>  8 mm glass   on a custom made wooden stand

Light : 2 x 36 W PLL Aquazonic fixture

Filter: Dolphin Internal Powerhead Filter

Had this tank running from the past 3 years,  so had to empty the tank first.  Moved the fish to my  4 footer while emptying the tank.  Here is how the empty tank set looks.

Wanted to aquascape it using the driftwood I had collected at Srirangapatana. ( Did not want to spend a lot on buying drift wood J ). Here are the pieces of drift wood I had in stock. The bigger one would be my main piece.

Thought of dividing the setup into 2 portions. A left bunch ( bigger & main view ) and a right bunch ( smaller view) . While the tank was being emptied, I tried the placement on the table. Picked up the below placement as the better  one among the various combinations I tried. Wifey gave the thumbs up too J

Decided on using Laterite as the base.  Would have loved to use ADA Amazonia, but Could not afford it  L Here is about 40 kg of laterite going into the tank…….

Wanted to give an elevation to the left, where the bigger and main view would be. A slighter ramp to the right where the smaller view would be……… Here is how it looked after it was shaped.

Tried to put the driftwood exactly as I had setup on the table overnight…… though had to change it slightly. The tank with the wood in place.

The plants that will go in. Had some plants from my old setup.

The tank after the ferns and moss went in…………….

Then The crypts ……………………..

Started filling the tank………… The flow from the pipe moved the gravel a bit from the front, but was able to set it back as before.

This is how it looked after filling it with water………..

Final inspection and seal of approval from my 1 year old kid……

Setup the CO2 at 1 bubble per sec….. This is how the tank looks after 1 day ….

Currently cycling it with 1 Black mollie, 1 red-flame gaurami, 1 swordtail and 1 Ram.

Comments, criticism, suggestions………….all are welcome.

Regards

Prabhu M

Update : Here is the tank after 1 month of setup, as of May 1st week.

Tank as of Aug 2012 :