Aquarium conversion
I've picked this aquarium up for £5, which I'm very excited about. I had initially thought of landscaping the floor but leaving the back bare of this aquarium, but now I've been seeing what this aquarium has, like very convenient ledges for me to place a pump, and create a waterfall, I'm considering going full on and using foam to scape a back.
I have some led light strips (6500k) to use and plan to grow Dracula and Masdevallia in here primarily. The gap at the top will be very convenient for adding a cheap computer fan to aid movement, which I doubt I'll need 2 for such a small tank (12"h x 12"w x 9"d).
The plan is to have a bottom layer of LECA in a capillary matting and create a bag that will hold it all, hide the LECA substrate and wick water whilst hopefully inhibiting algae growth. This matting will be glued to some aquarium wood and have live Sphagnum Moss growing on it, with orchids attached the moss and wood. The wood is pretty thin, 2 inches wide max, a circumference of about 5".
The back will be sculpted out of Polyurethane foam, and I'll attach some Coir to it as it dries, perhaps strips of capillary matting going up the foam also to water the back as I may want to attach plants to the back also. In the top left is where the waterfall will come down, and it'll stay mostly on the back left corner. I'll shape the LECA bag to have a dip in it to create a pool, the pump water extractor will be in the bottom right corner, behind the foam, and suck it to the top and through the black plastic tray holder thing.
I've also attached a VERY rough sketch (drawing and writing is truly a weak point of mine). The LECA substrate will be 2" deep, the planned waterline will be 1", maybe 1.5" if the pump struggles. Ignore the bottom pump, that's where the pipe will extract water from. The waterfall will be 1.5" in from the left (that's where the aquarium pump hole is, and be 2" wide, I may have a rock where it splits into 2 streams if my designing skills allow it. The foam will be 2.5" thick as to not lose too much space for plants, with coir and naturalised ledges it'll peak at perhaps 3".
The bottom will be covered with orchid bark to hide the capillary matting.
Any thoughts, better materials to use or obvious design flaws to anyone would be appreciated!
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