Non-Traditional decor?

[pauliedanger]

Hey everybody. I'm in the early stages of putting a 30 gal back online. Cycled it, and I have my first batch of fish (4 tiger barbs, 2 corys and 2 plecos). I want to go for a real natural look, but I want something more than drift wood, plastic plants and slate. Any ideas? I've seen some pics with terra cotta planters, and that looks really cool. But aside from castles & deep sea divers, what do you guys decorate your tanks with?

 

[JDogg]

Hey everybody. I'm in the early stages of putting a 30 gal back online. Cycled it, and I have my first batch of fish (4 tiger barbs, 2 corys and 2 plecos). I want to go for a real natural look, but I want something more than drift wood, plastic plants and slate. Any ideas? I've seen some pics with terra cotta planters, and that looks really cool. But aside from castles & deep sea divers, what do you guys decorate your tanks with?

live plants

 

[pauliedanger]

Tried it, JDogg. I have worse luck keeping live plants than I do girlfriends.

 

[JDogg]

Tried it, JDogg. I have worse luck keeping live plants than I do girlfriends.

just like girls you have to study, research and understand what they need and want

 

[cbrkid11]

im in the same boat with decor...

im undecided what exactly i want to put in my tank, im tired of all the same old stuff at the LFS.

i have a low light tank and im no where near ready to do live plants.

but then again i have blue colord gravel, so it would look stupid if i put live plants in there..

i should of done some research before and went with brown stone or sand.

 

[pauliedanger]

I made the same mistake. I forget why, but I got blue gravel. When I broke down my tank that was the first (well, last, but most important thing) to go. Now it's black, and I've got some tall fake plants hiding the in-tank hardware. But all the other stuff, like the roman columns, castles, all that stuff looks lame (in my opinion). I mean, what kind of genetic freak platy is as big as a broken down side of the Roman Colliseum?

 

[cbrkid11]

i want to redo the gravel allready but im afraid of messing up my tank as well as my tank going through a cycle again..

 

[richiestang_78]

Actually fake coral and anemones look kinda nice and different in freshwater. Im about to redo my 30gal with slate. I was thinking about putting a LED under a quartz rock thats in my 10gal and make it glow for something alittle different.

 

[Zagz]

Driftwood, pool filter sand, and plant, both live and silk. Lava rock, tufa rock and slate.

 

[zenkatydid]

if you want to do something different, and go non-natural, there's heaps of fun ideas i've wanted to try. like getting some chopsticks and sushi plates and sticking them in the gravel at odd angles. or old plastic dolls heads and bodies. computer equipment. obviously you'd need to coat anything that wasn't safe with polyurethane or something, but you can have heaps of fun with non-traditional decorations

 

[supermazz9]

if you want to swap out your substrate cause you think blue sucks (what, isn't blue a natural looking environment?), just don't do it all at once. Take out a quarter add a quarter. Wait a week. Repeat until you're done.

 

[pauliedanger]

Driftwood, pool filter sand, and plant, both live and silk. Lava rock, tufa rock and slate.

I saw a pic here of a guy who had a corner garden in his tank. Built up with some rocks up front and sand, then som eplants. My concern are for the corys'. I know that TMS is murder on their digestive system. Is there another kind of sand I can use that they don't have problems with? And how do I get sand down to the bottom of an established tank?

 

[drobertson]

You do not need to use sand, in my 10gal planted, I used a natural looking gravel on the high side of my wall, and the rest is a basic black. My cories seem to like playing in the wall and different levels.

 

[SeanMurphy]

I know that TMS is murder on their digestive system. Is there another kind of sand I can use that they don't have problems with?

What is TMS? I've got cories and pool filter sand, and they seem quite happy sifting through it for food.