some noob aquascaping questions

Hey guys
I thought my tank was starting to look ok until i saw this:
Top 20 Aquascaping and the Reason I Envy Fish
Now I'm re-planing the entire tank.
At the moment I have white river pebbles ( around 2cm diameter) and coarse gravel (around 1cm diameter) as substrate.
I want to add some hills in there and a bit of a river bead with pool filter sand.
Can I use polystyrene boards stacked on top of each other to create the height of my hills without adding weight?
What are the cons to doing this as apposed to just lots of sand?
If I eventually cover my entire pebble floor with moss, how would I clean the floor?
The tank is 250l and has 6 guppies, 8 danios, 8 mollies and 5 endlers in there at the moment.
I have another 100l tank with a goldie in and a empty 50l tank.
Should I move the 27 small fish and the filter to the empty 50l tank while I re-scape, or should I move them to my goldie tank, and put the goldie in the 50l?
I'll make sure the water temp is the same before I move them, but what else should I look out for?
I have some black bamboo in my garden and was thinking of planting a few stems in my tank. Anyone else done this before?
The bamboo is phyllostachys nigra.
Thanks for reading
Varkie

 

Wont they just float or will u glue them down? And if u glue, how will u clean?

 

Throw the goldie into the 50L as a temporary setup and the other fish into the 100L. You can use polystyrene and use silicone to glue it to the tank and each other. Don't just use one block but rather make steps with several pieces. The moss will take a while to grow over the entire base of the tank unless you start with a lot. Cleaning it, you could just sweep a gravel-vac over it sucking up debris.

 

Hi, your plan sounds really interesting! I'll try and give my opinion on each question as you wrote them:
Can you use polystyrene? Definitely, as long as you silicone it down well. Use layers like you said. @RaD, if he glues them down well there shouldn't be space for dirt to get underneath, especially since the whole thing will be under a layer of sand/gravel.
Cons? Well, if you don't glue them tight enough they might decide to pop to the surface one day, taking your entire scape with them. If you go this route, make sure you silicone them in place properly. Also, the sand/gravel might slip off and the polystyrene stick through and look bad. To counter this you could cover the polystyrene with a final layer of silicone and then sprinkle on sand/gravel/whatever you're going to put over it.
Cleaning the floor? Like @Firefly said. Shouldn't be a problem.
Where should you put what fish? I'm really not sure what would be best, though I don't see a problem with the 27 small fish in the 50 litre tank, especially if it's only temporary.
What else should you look out for? Hmm, ammonia spikes? Do extra water changes while they're in there.
Black bamboo? Well, this is what really made me want to comment. Your bamboo won't of course actually grow under water, so this is what you do. You cut pieces that will reach from the bottom of your tank to the top. You wash them nicely, and decide how you want to arrange them. I think you could get a pretty cool "forest" effect by putting thicker pieces near the front and thinner ones at the back. Or however you want to do it. But before you "plant" them in your substrate, you buy some pieces of Java fern and tie them, using black cotton, to the nodes of your bamboo so that they look like growing bamboo leaves. Then you plant the bamboo pieces.

 

Thanks guys!!!
I was hoping to do all this work with the tank still half full of water.
I have allot of fry hiding in my pebbles, and I thought the bacteria on my gravel would cope better this way.
I suppose silicon won't stick under water?
@PsyXe I've heard that the bamboo will grow under water as long as the stem is cut higher than the water surface.
Ihaven't tried this yet so I'm not sure.
Putting the 27 small fish in the 50l tank sounds like less work to me.
If I go this route, should I add some of the gravel to the 50l?
I'm planning on doing this over 2 to 3 days, but I don't want to loose fish in the process.
My Danios have been a bit aggressive in the past, so I'm worried about this in a much smaller tank.
I'll keep you guys posted on this.
Thanks for the input!!

 

Hey! Maybe it will grow - I guess I just assumed it wouldn't. The "bamboo" they sell growing in water in glass tubes is actually a species of Dracaena; maybe that could work too.

Yeah, I don't think silicon would stick if you still have water in there. I think if you move the gravel to the tank where you'll be keeping the fish the bacteria will be OK. Or you could rescape with half the water still in there; just build up your high areas using only gravel instead of going the polystyrene/silicone route.

 

The tank should be dry when you use the silicone. Give it 24 hours to cure properly.

 

if you want a cheap way to make slopes, use poolfiltersand in stockings to form your slopes

 

@Ryno Nice idea, but I'm more worried about weight than price
I've already cracked 1 tank bottom, and that was only 50l.
I don't want to take any chances with 250l of water
Maybe I'll do a combo of sand in stockings and polystyrene.

 

Or egg ceate covered with stocking

 

hhmmm, where do you get that stuff from, and does this not cause pockets of bad water under the substrate? (sorry for my lack of terminology.. I am just starting to learn about all this stuff

 

Most people use eggcrate if they use hige amounts of rock and marine people. Somebody in your area can give you advice where to get it.

 

Ok so I decided against the bamboo and the polystyrene.
My final scape was not as dramatic as I had initially planed.
Just a simple river bed. I'm hoping to cover almost everything in this tank with Java moss.
Here is the first layer of sand and plant friendly substrate

and here is the final layout.



As soon as my sump is up and running, I will take the heater and filter out and do a gradient background.

 

That actually is an awesome scape dude. Can I have the freedom to give one crit... the big rocks in the middle I would personally change to much smaller rocks so that they balance nicely with the co rock feature you have on the right.

But otherwise I actually really like the layout and design you have going there.

 

Looked again closer... just change the brown rocks to smaller black ones. The big black ones are perfect.

 

Hey thanks for the crit @Zoom.
I'll post better pics later. These made the rocks look a bit more black than they are in real life.
So there is brown in almost all the rocks except the big one on the right.
I hope to have just the tips of the rocks showing through the moss eventually.
Problem is I can't seem to find moss. I got some from @woerman but I'll need about a checkers bag full to cover everything

 

Looks like Dory Pets is getting some in soon. Chat to @ivan

 

Here is a better photo.

I got some more moss and a few other plants from someone here on the forum.
I think it is starting to look like something
Now I can add some more fish.

 

nice!! is that a "floating island"that u have made there?

 

I am liking the look, but the only thing I would change is the red rocks to dark grey or black ones. Or maybe a nice branchy piece of wood that will extend over the pathway, you can put some moss on it.