Rescaping My 15 Gallon- Suggestions and Cautions Welcome

[MuddyWaters]

I have a 15 gallon Fluval Flex that I've had for a couple of years. It was a nice community tank, but the fish were hiding all the time behind all the plants & hardscape, so I moved the fish (magically they started swimming all over) and changed it to a shrimp tank.

I have recently added 6 sunshine neon tetra. I was not going to add more tetra- I have neon, green fire, glowlight, glofish, and ember tetra already. However, I saw these little guys in the LFS shrimp tank and fell in love. They are a whitish pink with a powder blue "neon" stripe down the sides. They just look fabulous in the softly lit tank with a black background and are great tank mates for the shrimp.

However, they, like the others love to hang out in between plants and under the big (ugly) hardscape box-looking-thing I have in there. They aren't as bad about it as my others were, but it's just easy for them to hang there and I don't get to see them as much.

On top of that, I'm tired of the look in the tank and want to change it. I want to pull out the ginormous amazon sword in the right corner, pull out the boxy hardscape thing and add in a "branch" (some roots) that I had in my other tank. I might add some pretty buce plants and maybe some tall, but thin plants for the back. Not sure.

I'd like some suggestions on what I might do.
Tank inhabitants:
- cherry shrimp - several
- 1 otocinclus
- 3 amano shrimp
- a few ghost shrimp
- 6 sunshine neon tetra

The light is LED that came with the tank. The intensity is medium. No CO2.

What would you do with it?

ALSO- I want to make sure I don't mess up the environment for the fauna while pullling out and replacing a lot of the flora. The filter has good bio media and has been around a long time, so I don't think I'll have a bacteria problem, but not sure what else I might need to consider when I do this.

See picture of what it looks like now- I'm willing to pretty much do anything with it, but I think I can keep some of what's in there- maybe move a couple of the anubias to the branch that I have...maybe do something with the pile of moss in the front, etc. but open to anything, really.
thanks!!!

 

[Seisage]

So, I'm not a professional aquascaper by a LONG shot, but I have done some reading and research on general tips. I think the biggest one that I've employed for my current tank and plans for future tanks is to have varying substrate depth. Instead of just having a flat layer, move it around or add more to bring in varying levels of depth to the tank. The general advice is to push substrate and hardscape up towards the back, so things slope down towards the front of the tank.

I would do that, and/or get some larger rocks to stack up in a corner and have them trailing down towards the opposite corner, and then contrast that with wood slanting up the opposite way. Something like this, plus maybe some smaller carpeting plants, but I don't like the options Scape It has for those types.

 

[MuddyWaters]

So, I'm not a professional aquascaper by a LONG shot, but I have done some reading and research on general tips. I think the biggest one that I've employed for my current tank and plans for future tanks is to have varying substrate depth. Instead of just having a flat layer, move it around or add more to bring in varying levels of depth to the tank. The general advice is to push substrate and hardscape up towards the back, so things slope down towards the front of the tank.

I would do that, and/or get some larger rocks to stack up in a corner and have them trailing down towards the opposite corner, and then contrast that with wood slanting up the opposite way. Something like this, plus maybe some smaller carpeting plants, but I don't like the options Scape It has for those types.

View attachment 336452

Thanks Seisage! That looks good. I forgot about Scape IT! I can see a few hours in my very near future LOL. I started that tank with a sloping substrate- from the back right corner (facing) to the front left. Over time I inadvertently flattened it out, and there wasn't really hardscape to accentuate or work with the slope, so it didn't add much at the time. The first aquascape I had in that tank was nicer than what I have now, but I let it get out of hand and had to yank it all out.

I bought that square thing to give the fish something to hide in after I yanked out all the plants, and then ended up just planting on and around it as things recovered. So, there wasn't much rhyme or reason to it- just sticking plants in here and there.

This time I'm going to do it with some more planning and forethought - hopefully it'll come out better. Heck, if the shrimp/fish are thriving and the water is clear, I can hardly go wrong, honestlly.

 

[MuddyWaters]

UPDATE-

Well, I took out the Amazon sword on the right side of the tank and replaced it with a root that I had pulled from my larger aquarium. I tied the anubias to the "tree" root and got rid of the ugly square thing I had in there.

This is just to get going. I will update it and move more stuff around, remove some, add some.

I also bought Bolbitis Heudelotii Difformis at the AAAA club meeting auction today and had enough to split the rhizome and put half in the big tank and half in the small. Right now it's just floating back there- not sure where I'll put it.

OH! I also got 3 pair of black bar endlers and 6 fry for $20 at the club meeting. I LOVE my aquarium club! Not just for the great fish & plants at auction, but it sure is a great plus. I'm guessing I'll be taking some back to the club to auction when they start breeding

Here's the tank after pulling out the amazon sword (still cloudy after pulling it out)

Here it is after the additions. You can see the root/tree with the anubias' on it in the back right and the new bolbitis floating mid-back. You can see a couple of the male endlers in the front right (if you zoom in). Those fish are super pretty- I didn't know much about them until very recently. Wait....I still don't know much about them, but looking forward to finding out!!!

 

[MuddyWaters]

I couldn't throw the sword plant away- it was so big and pretty- I moved it to the big tank- hoping it won't melt. Put a couple of tabs under the subtrate, cut the roots back a bit and planted it. I had to remove some water wisteria to make room, but that stuff is growing all over, so no biggy. Took the pic from the side.