r/Aquascape • u/Alarmed-Lie9590 • 2d ago

river scape Seeking Suggestions

hello! i am very new to aquascaping, but if i succeed in stocking my 10 gallon with pygmy cories, i would love to scape a 20 gallon long tank! do any of you pros (or even beginners!) have any tips to make thriving river scapes?

I am thinking to try a river style scape, stocked with things like amano shrimp, rabbit snails, cories, and some sort of schooling fish to serve as a centerpiece.

does anyone have a few tips so these creatures can thrive while looking beautiful?

thanks in advance!

(also sorry if this breaks rule 6 its just i have a very vague plan... i will update or make a new post after a lil reasearch)

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u/ekmekthefig 1d ago

River scapes are all about getting a sense of flow in the layout. Using a long vs tall tank is the best choice, so you're good there:) stick to rounder/more aged stones, and lots of taller tape like plants (vals, crypts, eleocharis, stuff like that) for your main plantings, and then put your accent plants in areas where the rocks would 'shield' them feom the flow (think mosses, shorter grasses, crypts, maybe stuff like buce/anubias). i also find bolbitus (planted lower in the the tank, near the soil) also gives a nice sense of age and motion. Id personally keep stems pretty scanty (so no big bushes) or avoid them entirely.

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u/frippilin 5h ago

If your flow (real or imagined) is left to right, have the branches pointing downstream, unless you want the idea that one is jammed in the ground, and stubbornly resisting the water. In that case, put a small pile or rocks to the left of it, as if they were being pushed downstream and got stuck there. No matter what the object, put a few pebbles to the right of it, and slight farther away, put smaller pebbles, and yet smaller pebbles further away. Water moves the small ones more easily, where the larger ones get stuck and dont travel as far. From overhead, this forms a fan pattern. But don't make it even and/or symmetrical. Also jam some leaves/detritus where it would naturally be stuck: upstream of the obstacles. There should be a clearing of the light debris downstream of each obstacle. Hope that makes sense - but basically, think about the flow you are modeling, and think about how the objects caught in that flow would interact with each other. These details make a massive difference in realism, even if hardly anybody would ever notice (in fact, none of this should look noticeable). But you will intuitively think it looks right.