Hardscape

Right, we still have a glass box, only now it has bits of sand and rock in it. Not terribly exciting. But now we come to the first section which will actually look good - the hardscape. The hardscape is the material that will give your aquascape shape (along with your substrate). It usually consists of various kinds of rock or wood.

The first thing that you absolutely have to have is a patient audience with the ability to balance on the edge of a really thin board. This is Friendly Cat.

The easiest wood to get seems to be Mopane wood. There are a few pieces in most aquarium shops, but I found that Pet Adventure has by far the biggest selection. I'm sure that I must have thoroughly annoyed them by shifting the entire heap of driftwood out from under the shelves to get at the best pieces.

The easiest rock to find in Cape Town seems to be sandstone, which you can pick up all over the place. Just be sure you're permitted to take it away.

Try to get several pieces of hardscape, because you want to be able to set up different combinations and arrangements until you find one that you like. Usually either wood OR rock is used - it is very hard to create a good design with both. I started out hoping to do an iwagumi tank, but I didn't really "feel" my arrangements. Possibly my substrate should have been much deeper for this type of design, or perhaps I just need more practice. In an iwagumi tank you always have an odd number of rocks and you always use the same type of rock throughout the design.

Next I tried out the driftwood, with much more satisfactory results. The general idea is inspired by the mound design in Nature Aquarium, where the aquascape builds up towards the center of the tank. I chose driftwood with thin ends to point outwards and heavier sections to weigh down the base. Ideally, you should soak the wood for a few weeks before using it. If you don't, the water will be yellow for a long time due to the tannins in the wood. This does no harm to your tank, and I actually don't mind this look. It reminds of the water in streams such as those found in Kirstenbosch. The other reason to soak your wood is that if you don't, you will inevitably get some "floaters" which will actually seem sentient in their single-minded determination to destroy you carefully planned design. I was in too much of a hurry to do this, so I just plonked the wood in and weighed it down with a bag of flat smooth stones which I got from Atlantic Pebbles. Luckily I had only one really persistent floater.

When your design is done, you might feel that this looks pretty good all by itself. However, it has the potential to look much better once it is planted. Hopefully I won't regret proceeding....