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Here is the last layout I created before taking some time off this year due to a new job and the craziness of Dad life.

The concept and intent of this layout is centered around a flowing river, with smooth stones, and a more dense planting scheme. I wanted to include some emerged plants to create a river bank feel at some of the edges and upper column areas. I did do this but ended up moving those plants around before removing most of them all together.

I am averse to using a lot of glue during the hardscape phase. One reason is due to the fact that I have some kind of allergy to the stuff (I get headcold and flu like symptoms for two days). More importantly, I have the opinion that hardscape heavy layouts take us away from dense, plant heavy layouts that I believe are the truest form of the hobby. When I see an amazing mountain hardscape, I wonder, what room was left for the plants? I tried to keep this in mind as I began gluing stones together so the round stones wouldn't slip and fall. It was unbelievably difficult to get them to stay in the form I created. They wanted to roll forward, and did many times. The 45cm of depth, with hardscape banked extremely vertical became difficult to work with and I probably came pretty close to shattering the front glass. I ended up gluing some of the hardscape to the side panels but when I broke down the tank the glue came off no problem, surprisingly!

This hardscape left little room for aquasoil and to make matters worse, I used entirely too much sand within the stone work. I did this because whenever I use less aquasoil I usually have less algae issues, probably due to less ammonia spike in the water column. I knew right away with the hardscape and sand to soil ratio I was going to have a problem with root feeders and the type of plants I wanted to add, even if I added root tabs.

For a layout like this, the 45cm depth is less than advantageous to say the least. I wanted the the river to have a depth vertically, meaning the river is deep, as well as depth in terms of perspective, toward the back of the layout. My intention was to create a shoreline feel at the back, with a bank of emerged plants and grasses. The layout has a flattness, to it due to the wood arrangement, final planting scheme, and abandoning of the top back that I think I could have done a better job with.

The final two photos in this series aren't too bad but it totally missed the mark for me in terms of what I was going for. Right after those photos, I gave the layout what was supposed to be the final trim. I then went to get some fish, but could not find the right fish for this layout after visiting 3 stores. I have fish in the tank but you can't see them. I wanted to get some very red fish (like a cherry barb). Unfortunately, I was up against a very hard stop. We had a trip to Europe planned. It was now or never to find fish, take a photo, and submit, but when I looked at the tank after the trim, I realized it needed to recover more. I decided to withdraw the scape from competition entry because I didn't have a final photo with fish and dense growth.

Other smaller issues were things like bad emerged plant health, wonky stone work, and BGA issues. Some layouts surprise you with how easy they go in terms of algae, others really challenge you.

I want to come back to this concept with a new aquarium I have on the way that has deeper dimensions. It won't be the next layout I go for, but I definitely want to revisit it. I have plans for next year's contest already. Anyways I hope you enjoy a look at this and happy scaping.