Scaping your hardscape!

[Jdinh04]

While aquascaping your planted aquarium can be fun, one of the important factors that make an Aquascape beautiful is by its hardscape.

While using hardscape materials, which do you like better? using just rocks? driftwood only? or both?

Looking forward to hearing your opinions!

[Rastaman]

I like to use both, but there is no rules for me. Choice of hardscape materials mainly depends of place in nature what I try to recreate.

[Anti-Pjerrot]

I mostly use driftwood as decoration, and stones as base for moss, anubias or ferns. Trying to hide them with plants seems to work best for me.

Im gonna try using more dominant stones in the future.

[goalcreas]

I have in the past used mostly wood and only use rocks as Anti-pjerrot suggests, but I am starting to go more with rocks with wood accents, mostly because I think my scapes with only wood lacked something and I have found wood to present a constant battle with BBA, no matter how little light or high light, when all things are optimum, I still always notice it's presence on the wood in some amount.
Also, I now prefer the mixing of the two,
and Though wood has a million character qualities,
I find that Rocks can have a billion
and then the two combined can have a trillion

Just IMO

[Pat7676]

I love the looks or both rocks and driftwood. I have only had driftwood myself though. I can never find any good rocks around here.

[Hoppy]

I use both off and on, but like goalcreas, I don't like the battle with BBA on wood. Rocks seem to just get a patina of GSA, which doesn't annoy me as much. On the other hand, a nice piece of wood does provide a lot of interesting places for certain plants to grow.

I notice that when I use wood, it is just a matter of time before most of the wood is hidden in the plants. Rocks seem to be visible longer, but they too tend to eventually be overwhelmed by plants. My next scaping effort will likely include neither wood nor rocks.

[trenac]

I do prefer wood over rock. Although I really admire the Iguami style aquascapes. I guess one reason is that nice wood is more easily come by then nice rock around here. Even when wood is used as a hardscape it eventually gets covered with the attached plants & is no longer visable, like with my current 50G tank. I think with my next scape I'm going to try Mopani wood with no attached plants. Hopefully with good results! I do however like using local collected peebles around the edges of plants, like a border.

[Roy Deki]

I will either use both or just rocks. I have never tried just wood only.

[John N.]

I like to use wood because of less algae growing on it. Usually it's just some sort of slime and fuzz that grows on my manzanita branches.

For rocks, Shou stones (the brown stone with porous areas) always gets green spot algae on it, even though there's nothing on the glass. Sometimes it adds a natural feel to it, but overall I would love it get rid of the algae, and the only way to do that is to toss the rock as well.

-John N.

[goalcreas]

Seems like you could take them out and bleach the rocks.
Scrub a little, then rinse them and put them back.

The fuzz, BBA, on the wood is what I hate, sometimes it looks kind of neat, but if and when it spreads to plants, I hate that.

[jeff120]

I have used just rocks, rocks and wood, but dont think I have even done just wood, maybe in my earlier scaping days. I like to have rocks to wedge plants in between, tie moss or anubias to and add a little more dimension to the scape.

[AnneMarie]

I enjoy using both, although I find myself collecting rocks that are too big for the aquarium. I am trying a scape that is mainly wood and rocks, I want it to look like a stream bed. It is not quite there yet though.

[Vojs]

I prefer driftwoods, whit only small rocks used just separate some plants and gaining contrast.

I have planed to do iwagumi several times, but unil now I have always done driftwood hardscaping, maybe because I am Forestry engeneer, and wood is my profesional deformation....

[John7429]

A lot of fauna need/like wood

[iam_koi]

petrified woods are excellent..sometimes they do look like rocks, depending on the rough surfaces that it has.

[thief]

Well I have not a lot of experience with wood. I would like to get some nice pieces but I need to work on positioning skills. But for rocks I can just picture the layout much easier and I find rocks to be very natural looking in my tank.

[plantbrain]

I like both and use them singly or together.
Some types really work together, some are best alone.

Both can be used to terrace without really being shown(eg covered and shadowed by plants, or wood, or wood being covers and shadowed etc).

Are there other types of things ou can use in hardscapes besides wood and rock? There are many many species of wood available also.

Regards,
Tom Barr

[dirrtybirdy]

i use both, but never together. next tank will incorporate both

[chillaquaplants]

I have always used one or the other in each tank, never a combination. In the scape that I am currently planning, I would like to do both.

[torpedobarb]

I have both in my hardscaping.. it think it looks natural.