What are your pet peeves about aquarium 'scaping?

[Hawkman2000]

Puke colored gravel? - YUK!

Fake plants? - As long as they look very real.

Don't like anything like the bubbling treasure chests, scuba divers...Of course some people have kids so... I will admit that I have a ceramic skull. Can't seem to part with it, and all the fish I have had with it loved it. There's nothing creepy about fish breeding in simulated human remains.

Tanks without backgrounds? - Not a fan. I am guilty of this one myself. Until I got some kribs from a guy in DC and saw that he was using black construction trash bags for backdrops...BRILIANT.

Another thing I don't like with backgrounds is pictures of un-natural things. Or pictures of airplants. Currently guilty of this one myself. I just never get around to changing it.

BTW, Dish soap works great for bonding backgrounds. I've tried that seaview stuff. Dish soap works better. I might post a vid on youtube about how I do mine. Never peels or bubbles.

Personally I think that clay pots and PVC pipes make it look like a trash littered waterway, but I guess wee would be hard pressed to find a body of water that was free of human negligence.

Its all up to personal preference really, and of course I can understand if you have large number of tanks. I don't have to live with it. Now if I am a guest in some ones home, I will do my best to fight the urge to say something, and probably try to position myself so that it won't be in my field of vision.

 

[creepyoldguy]

My biggest pet peeve--

1. African tanks w holy rock, lava rock or base rock w actinics. If you wanted a sw setup, just do salt!
2. No background
3. Not so much here but on mfk everyone seems to throw fx5's on everything and preach how you need such a high turnover rate!!

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[Forester]

Anything over 75g needs 1 or more fx5's :-D

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[neut]

3. Not so much here but on mfk everyone seems to throw fx5's on everything and preach how you need such a high turnover rate!!

That one bugs me also. And then you see filtration threads like I'm setting up a 75 gal mbuna tank with two Eheim 2217s an Aquaclear 110 a Fluval 405 and a HOT Magnum 250, is this enough filtration?

...Almost as bad as stocking questions like I have five 2.5 inch severums, four 2 inch red head geos, one 3 inch suriname geo, three 2 inch festae, a 2.5 inch oscar, two 3 inch discus, and a 6 inch albino pleco in my 55, can I add a pair of 2.5 inch green terrors to the mix?

 

[JasonC]

...Almost as bad as stocking questions like I have five 2.5 inch severums, four 2 inch red head geos, one 3 inch suriname geo, three 2 inch festae, a 2.5 inch oscar, two 3 inch discus, and a 6 inch albino pleco in my 55, can I add a pair of 2.5 inch green terrors to the mix?

Nowhere near as bad nor as frequent as the above but with ...and I just added a pair of 2.5 inch green terrors... will there be problems?

 

[ddavila06]

this is a fun fun thread! lol

i hate, wait- HATE tanks with : one guppy, one platy, one cory, one loach, one pacu, one pirana, one angelfish, one mixed african, one feeder goldfish, and a bizillion spongebob ornaments in purple gravel (this is a 10 gal btw)....

i like seeing my fish/tanks/plants/scape..so i prefer stacking the tanks so i can see the whole thing. takes up space but is nicer.

the whole biotope is nice but is just so hard to keep centered in one emvironment..i always start right and end up with plants from 1000 miles away , cant' help it!!!!

i love wood and rockwork. do not mind fake caves as i always try to hide them with plants but hate plastic tubes and stuff...

thats me, some tanks have some of these and look atractive anyways. =)

 

[Yael]

So I'm guilty of some of these but also brave - Here's my new 55gal set up
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...14366312.1073741833.1039614640&type=1&theater
rock pile on the left
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...14366312.1073741833.1039614640&type=1&theater
whole tank
In the old tank I had a black background and my rustys disappeared in front of it so I decided on the graduated blue. The 'ombre' effect is supposed to provide a sense of distance and it also hides and algae growth between cleanings.
The mixed gravel to the left and sand to the right is because I have two forms of filtration 2' of UG filters with an old refugium converted to a large HOB for sponge filter. The pile of rocks has a lot of space in it and all of my fish can actually hide in or behind that pile if they want. Only thing I'm planning on adding is some more taller plants in the back corners to help hide more of the equipment. The big piece of driftwood actually hides a few smaller caves and provides a good grazing spot for many of the fish. Inhabitants are lab, rusty and afra breeding groups plus 3 syno petricola and some apple snails. So what did I do wrong?

 

[hollyfish2000]

Mayim -- remember, tanks are all about personal opinion. But I think you've got way too much open space for mbuna. I like the wood on the right. I have wood in my peacock tank and it works fine with the lace rock IMHO.

This is my mbuna tank. The light rock in the middle was just added for height a few days ago and it should darken up soon. The anubias at each end hide the intakes and the heater. The mistake I made is the white crushed coral sprinkled onbtop of the black substrate. Really wish I hadn't done that.

 

[JLW]

OK, one of my weird pet peeves is vertically pointed flat rocks. You know, where you take a piece of slate and stick it in the gravel so that it is standing "up." I hate it. Hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate it. Or when you use these to make a tee-pee or something similar. Slate occurs only one way in nature, period, and that's more or less flat. Okay, at an angle on top of another rock, sure, or as part of a pile with room under it, yes, but not like that. The only place on earth you find rocks sticking straight up like that is a graveyard.

I'm really often guilty about the lack of background, and I guess I don't mind it too much. I'm focused on the inside of the tank and not what's behind it.

That being said, I have a tank that I need to get some pictures of for you all.... It has two giant fake plastic fish in it, a couple of dragon aerators, a large sunken ship, and a copy of Rodin's Le Penseur, in miniature. It's in a children's hospital, and the dragons, silly fish, etc. get A LOT of attention, sometimes before the fish do. (The fish include 3 Swai, an overgrown eupterus catfish, two parrots, and some silver dollars ... How's that for tacky?

 

[hollyfish2000]

Hey -- any aquarium decor that amuses sick kids in the hospital get a bye from all the rules

 

[mchambers]

A confession: I have a tank with blue and green gravel and a little Sponge Bob.

It was my daughter's choice, years ago, when she decided she wanted to "breed guppies". Now she doesn't care much about fish and I have 10 tanks. I've kept the gravel and Sponge Bob in part because I don't want to offend her and because it reminds me of when she was a little kid.

 

[Yael]

I did the open space on purpose to create a sense of multiple territories since I have 3 breeding groups. The open space makes it hard for any one male to dominate the entire tank. I also wanted a fighting chance to be able to catch fish if need be. My last tank was to full and I practically never saw the fish. There is a low set of rocks along the open area that are really low caves so that the fish can go from one side to the other under cover if they want. The female afras I have seem to like to school some in the open area and that's gotten the other guys to be more willing to spend time in the open.

 

[Yael]

For those with Cyno afra it might be useful to read about their more open water preferences when setting up your tanks http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/thumbi_is_afra.php

 

[londonloco]

What does bug me is mix-and-match rockwork. When I see a rockpile with one piece of slate, one piece of lava, one piece of lace rock, one piece of fieldstone

That drives me nuts, I don't even like to mismatch the color of the rock, never mind the textures....

 

[davidhusker]

I didnt read the whole thread but if I had to pick my biggest pet peeve... it's air stones. Airstones make your aquarium look amateur to me. ESPECIALLY the wall bubbler ones. I appreciate a bunch of O2 in the aquarium, but hide it in the filter/sump or at least put it in a sponge filter

 

[Greengirl]

I didnt read the whole thread but if I had to pick my biggest pet peeve... it's air stones. Airstones make your aquarium look amateur to me. ESPECIALLY the wall bubbler ones. I appreciate a bunch of O2 in the aquarium, but hide it in the filter/sump or at least put it in a sponge filter

Are you against bubbles in general or just seeing the actual airstone? I always thought the wall of bubbles looked really nice. But I always bury my airstones in the substrates.

 

[ddavila06]

Are you against bubbles in general or just seeing the actual airstone? I always thought the wall of bubbles looked really nice. But I always bury my airstones in the substrates.

im guilty!
i am sort of in the middle with airstones. hate the skeleton head that opens with air and releases massive bubbles but i like airstones in generall.. i used to have two long pieces buried in the back of the 120 i had before i did CO2. once i started co2 i got rid of them to avoid loosing the precious gas

 

[AquaStudent]

I can't decide where I stand on bubbles/bubble walls. I've got an airstone in my 55g but I also built a background/aquascape out of foam and cement to cover up the equipment. I put the airstone in the "filter in" rock. The bubbles pop out of the vent letting the water go through the tank and pretty much immediately rise to the top. It's not wall but it's definitely not natural.

As for pet peeves I'm not a fan of betta bowls. They are all too commercially available and stuck in a thick muck of misconception. Betta fish don't enjoy living in a small cup.

I also can't stand plastic plants but then again I've never kept fish that I wanted to keep plants with but couldn't (no Oscars or the like). They have their uses but I prefer the challenge of cellular plants instead of petrochemicals.

 

[TMSB805]

Wow you guys are silly. I really could care less about how someone else has their tank setup. As long as your fish are healthy,press on.

 

[fishology]

everyones petpeeves!!!!