Adjusting the aquascaping in your aquarium isn’t always the funnest part of aquarium keeping, especially if the aquarium is already up and running. That’s why it’s important to get it right the first time, when the aquarium is devoid of water and delicate corals that break off easily. For some, the layout of the rock structure only amounts to piling rocks as high as possible along the back wall, but for others it’s more like working on a piece of art. To get the perfect layout takes a lot of time and patience, and more often than not you will tear down everything you’ve assembled only to start over multiple times. It can take several hours to get the layout just the way you want it, and sometimes just turning one item can make all the difference in the world.
To further emphasize my points on aquascaping, Jeff Senske of Aquarium Design Group shows the painstaking process of “hardscaping” an amazing discus aquarium in the video above. The clip has obviously been edited due to time constraints, but it goes to show just how important that perfect landscape can be and what all it takes to achieve it. Jeff places several driftwood pieces into the tank, turning and stacking each in a number of different orientations. After the piece is put in an ideal spot, the aquarium builder steps back to see how it looks, which then results in further adjustments to make it more visually appealing. About a minute into the video, Jeff stops the aquascaping and tears it all out. While the decision to start over had us scratching our heads initially (it looked beautiful), the reassembly showed us why that route was taken (the second layout looked much better).
