Not my cup of tea

[Fray]

Hi.

I too think it looks great but I do see what jaylach means. And his idea of some tall plants, water wisteria, blue stricta, at the back is spot on.

Sit with it a bit, but one thing is true, if you are not happy with it, it will bug you no end! Every time you walk past the tank you will stop and go....Hmmm. And if like me, you'll start fiddling with a rock here, a plant there, till you get discouraged and put it back as it was!

Till the day, however long after, when plants have established, and fish are happily swimming around, that you decide....Nope, I don't want it like that, never did, and now it's going to change!!

Said from experience!

 

[jaylach]

Here is what I mean by balance. The below image is just my little 20 gallon cube which is basically total chaos. It is a 'free form' jungle but it does have balance. There is a 'slope from the tall left hand back plants to the solid fake tree trunk cave system to the spider wood. Left over on the right is an open 'swimming' area with a decent current supplied by the output of my built in sponge filter pushing 93 gallons per hour. The bright white stuff is actually bubbles from my under gravel filtration which are aimed to counter balance the outflow from the sponge filter causing a fairly calm area in the tall plants on the left.

Both my cichlids and rope fish like the tank being heavily planted hence the abundance of lower level plants. The rope fish, Clyde, especially likes the lower plants to weave around in. Clyde is at the bottom center and near right that looks like a snake but is actually a fish.

I'm not saying that you should do your tank as have I, I'm really not. I'm just showing an example where I was able to setup three different types of water flow and environment even in a little 20 gallon cube that is a happy place for my fish.

One must remember that, while it is important that we like our tanks, it is just as important, if not more so, that the fish like it.

 

[sharkweek178]

Sometimes it takes a little time to figure out what you want.
Maybe try this approach. When you look at the tank, try to figure out what one thing specifically bothers you. Don't try to fix the whole tank. Just fix one thing at a time. Make a change and then sit with it for a bit.
You'll get there. You might be surprised at how big a difference small changes can make.