Unexpected project (29g)

[Steve]

Well I had no plans to do yet another tank but while on vacation I got this 29g with multiple lights, multiple hoods, multiple heaters and multiple air pumps all for free so no way I could pass it up. It was a mess though that's for sure, I spent the better part of 2 hours scraping the hard water stains off with a razor blade. Here is the start of it...

Basic idea is to do a somewhat planted tank but a mix of low tech live plants and silk fake ones to make it easy to maintain. Going for kind of a visual old world/Lord of the rings style scene. The background is a 3D one I just started and it will be a valley with a road/path of white sand that cuts through all black sand and goes between two rock hills like a path that cuts through the said of a hill. The wood will look like an old dead tree with some java moss hanging down from the branches over the road. Going to do some fading colors for the sky in the open section of the background as well as elevating the "road" as it gets closer to the back of the tank all to give it the illusion of depth.

Far as stocking, not 100% sure yet but I am kind of leaning towards something like a big shoal of neons with a beta or something along those lines. Will decide that later.

Here's the start of it for now...

[linuxrulesusa]

I really like the concept...how do you plan to keep the two sand types from mixing?

[Steve]

Still thinking on that one. Got a few ideas though. Best one I can think of so far is I'm thinking about using thin strips of stryo painted black and siliconing them to the tank floor so they act as mini-dividers that would be pretty much unseen.

[linuxrulesusa]

Still thinking on that one. Got a few ideas though. Best one I can think of so far is I'm thinking about using thin strips of stryo painted black and siliconing them to the tank floor so they act as mini-dividers that would be pretty much unseen.

Good plan.  They could be the 'walls' for the road.  Only headache will be to avoid making a sandstorm during WCs.  Can't wait to see how it turns out.

[Steve]

Spent the day working on this tank today. With all the work I had been doing fixing storm damage the past week I needed a day to simply do something relaxing for myself. Once I got the two background sections carved out and drylok coated then I decided to do this one a bit different than the last and worked my way from the darkest color to the lightest so started by painting the sections black.


Then using some tinted drylok as well as some Krylon fusion paint I worked on the shading and highlights (This picture is before the final step of white highlights)


Here it is with the background mocked up in the tank with the final white shading done as well. To get the look I wanted with the sunset I did that with fading paint colors (yellow/white/light blue/dark blue) then backed with white and a 60w CFL light illuminating the yellow sun over the hill which will help to give it more depth.  Still more to do but it's coming along well so far for a used and abused free tank set .

[RichE]

once again amazing

[Loon36cf]

Looks awesome so far steve

[Steve]

Thanks guys. Got the "path" figured out and done now in the last few hours. Dunno why I didn't think of this to start with. Rather than mess with trying to mess with two color sands and using white sand as a path/road I decided to sculp the path just like the rock background. Not only will it make it look more realistic but it will also save me huge headaches at water change/cleaning time. By making the path this way I was able to make it 3/4" tall so the black sand will now work well by keeping it just slightly lower than the path.

I also ordered a gnarly looking little oak taproot/tree from that guy online that sells to planted aquarium guys. I bought some java moss so when that little "tree" gets here I plan to put that to the left of the path and tie a bunch of java moss to it to make it look like a scale version of a scary middle earth tree.

This is the one I bought which is about 10" tall



Then here is the path with a couple "boulders" I also made all installed in the tank now and drying.

Carved
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Painted/shaded
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[linuxrulesusa]

Great idea on the path.  Should be much less of a headache.

[atmagoulick]

Looks good

[Somethingsfishy]

Wow!  Your fish will be swimming in style!

[djlamonica]

The stuff you do is just mind blowing.  Great work once again.

[Steve]

Managed to free up a little time today to do some more work on this one. Tree is in, I made a patch of plants on the right side of the tank with some silk plants which I cut down and threaded through some foam that way I could make them the height I wanted. So pretty much all that is left now is to wait for my java moss to get here (should be hopefully tomorrow) then I can tie the java moss onto the tree so it will look like a real/green tree canopy, pick uo a few low tech live plants, then finish making the cover for the filter motor, sand and poly the stand, fill with water and seed the filter and should be ready for fish shortly.
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[Loon36cf]

Looks awesome man even just like that with out fish can't wait to see the lighting and fish in it

[Steve]

Tank is pretty much finished now. I was going to make a cover to hide the intake, but since this is just a tank for the basement work shop I decided to not worry about hiding the intake at all. I just finished tying all the java moss that finally came the other day to the tree. Really like the effect it gives to the tank now. Also checked water parm's and it is now fully cycled so I "might" start stocking a few fish in it as soon as maybe tomorrow.