Loach Island 2.0 for the river tank

[shari2]

not to change the subject or anything...
have you lost some weight keith?

..............

and now back to your regularly scheduled program.

I've been pondering and pondering and still can't visualize what this will look like in a tank, and if you will ever see the fish!

[chefkeith]

Shari- Yes, I lost a few last year. If it wasn't so cold this Winter, I'd probably try to lose a few more.

[hx]

Shari- Yes, I lost a few last year. If it wasn't so cold this Winter, I'd probably try to lose a few more.

But cold gives a great opportunity to lose weight: nothing burns calories like shivering. So just loose most of the clothes, pounds will melt with them?

[chefkeith]

Yeah, but losing more weight means getting new clothes and that is not a priority of mine right now. 1st I need to get a new job.

[chefkeith]

So far I put 1.5 coats of paint on the island. I put an extra coat of paint on the cemented joints. I still got one more coat of paint to go.

Once again, I'm using Drylok Masonry Sealer to paint this thing. I added a little bit of black coloring that is usually used for cement.

Front View
There should be enough cave entrances for the loaches to zoom in and out of.


Top View
One thing I didn't take pictures of was the lip of concrete that I put around the holes on the top floor. I put it there so that sand won't fall out of the 2nd story. This was a mistake that I made in the 1st Island I built because sand wouldn't stay in it.


Side View
You can see from one end to the other

[Memnoch]

Chef

Awesome mon!!!

Cant wait to see this setup in action!!

[chefkeith]

I was a little curious of what the driftwood looked like again.

So I took a few more pics with the driftwood.


I thought the 1st pic looked too busy so I took a few pieces out. I kind of like this cleaner look better, but I'm still not satisfied with where some of pieces of driftwood are. I'll try some other pieces and remove a few, then take more pics and post them.

[chefkeith]

I'm basically just playing musical chairs with a few pieces.


This is a little better


I think this is what I want. There is one more piece that I might want to add later that goes under the big piece on the left, but I'll have to wait until this is in the tank to decide.

[chefkeith]

This flat black in background isn't cutting it. I think I'm going to try to give it a 3D camouflage type look. Add some dark green leaves with some dark brown twigs and roots, with some dark red and buff highlights here and there.

[Keith Wolcott]

I like the wood that you have on the right side best since it is sitting on the ground and is leaning on another piece. This makes it look more natural. You might try doing more of that. Put pieces and rocks on the ground for other pieces to sit on and lean on. I think that the denser look in your first picture could look good if made to look like they could have fallen into place subject to gravity. Then the black background gets covered more too. Just a thought.

Your project is really nice and it is interesting to follow your updates.

[chefkeith]

Keith- Thanks for the advice, I'll give it a try.

Maybe I also need to give the background some texture so that it looks more like a river bank.
I'm going to try to glue some sand to the island to see how it looks.

Here's a pic of a river bank in Sumatra where clowns are caught.

http://www.bollmoraakvarieklubb.org/art ... 0loach.htm

[chefkeith]

I confess, I've been holding out. I have a few larger pieces of driftwood that I can use instead of the small scraps.

Does this look any better? The wood on the left is still kind of wet, which is why it is darker.


I could still dig out a few more large pieces from the paludarium if needed, but I think I got the best pieces already.

[andyroo]

more structure=reduced flow.
Could shoot the flow along the bottom and mount the roots towards above.

[Tinman]

Turn the wood upside down to keep the mass at the top will keep the flow higher near the bottom to keep the muck picked up in the flow more, looks incredible...........

[chefkeith]

I was thinking that I'd actually get better water flow than what the tank is getting right now. I think the water flow will be diverted to the space in front of the driftwood. It's true that there will be some low flow spots behind the driftwood, but that will be good for fish that want to rest.

There will still be plenty of strong uninterrupted water flow behind the island too. I haven't had any debris problems with my current island set-up, so I'm hoping I'll have the same result. It's the continuous circuit of water flow behind and around the island that makes this method work so well.

Anyway, I've been getting away from natural aspects that I was originally striving for. I got to think more about plants instead of paint. I need to have plants growing on and around the driftwood so that it will be covering the island.