Building a 360° Walkaround Aquarium | Lava Stone Mountains Underwater

Hello everyone! I got the chance again to build one of our walk-around tanks in the gallery. And I had a great idea of building a jungle with lots of immersed plants above. And then the idea was gone. So I realized we have quite a few big lava stones, which we usually don't. And an old ADA tank popped into my mind. So that was the project. The challenge is building it looking nice from four sides. That's what we're going to do today. Just like every other build, the project started with choosing the hardscape. The most important part was to find the big pieces of lava stones to use in the scape. The original tank is big. This is obviously a lot smaller. So that's going to be a challenge. And of course, using the cube, which is not a cube, I know. But I will always refer to it as a cube. It's visible all around. That's always the biggest problem or challenge to overcome. Let's see how it turns out. Let's get to it. These stones are, well, quite heavy. My back is bad as always and a bit worse than usual. So that's going to be fun. Okay, so I actually want to decide on which side I use here on the floor and then lift it in like that. So I'm going to start to just turn this around. Look at all the possibilities. This has a really nice texture on it. And also this part I like a lot. So I wouldn't want to hide it, if I don't have to. The ugliest side goes on the bottom. Here's a spider having fun. Today actually, I don't want the rocks to stick out too much. This one is my second favorite. I hate this sound. It is crazy that I can build some perspective, that the original tank doesn't have. Biggest problem is balazs. In a previous build, he destroyed these. He glued on some sand. So I believe that's the one I should hide the most. And the other three are the ones that are going to be used. Because we have an Eheim 2080 underneath, which of course has one outlet and two inlets. Don't be fooled by the color difference. Some of these stones, especially the really big ones, were kept outside and it's been raining this morning. And some of them were kept inside the shop. And those are dry, so the colors won't be the same. Yes, I'm trying to avoid having straight lines looking from anywhere. My biggest challenge at the moment is, if you look at the original picture, those stones seem like they are thin pieces. They're actually not, but it's a huge tank. Now these are... Well, this is good, it's not too wide. But this one is a bit too bulky for that. Break it? No, you don't break this. This is beautiful. If I'm going on the Shenzhen Iwagumi logic, I need a rock here, that's about this big. Okay, so this is a really nice stone. It's a really nice stone, which I'm gonna actually put aside, because I might want to replace that one with this. This might work. Okay, so what I don't have at the moment, which I wanted, is this third tip coming out. This side, it looks better, but all the other sides, it's worse. This won't be the one. And also, I can't forget that I'm gonna need one more rock somewhere, somehow. It doesn't need to be big, but now I have four. That's the general rule of not having even numbers. Yeah, so even the inspiration is three islands, and it's a tank much bigger than this. Okay, so let's try with three. It's like a reverse perspective at the moment. So don't lie, this is the lowest, the middle, and the highest. It doesn't look good from here. It can't be correct all around, I've just realized. This is like a really strong view now. Shouldn't I have this view from there? It's time to f*** it all up. Actually, I didn't turn this one, but if I look at that view that you have, it's really good as it is. Now I need to build around them, the smaller ones. If I follow Homma-san's teachings, where does the flow go in this? I couldn't... If you don't understand all this flow talk, check out our video about Homma-san's seminar at the ADA headquarters we did a few months ago. He explained this in a way that I'm still trying to force myself to implement in the way I build. And it's really difficult. Do I glue, or do I tie? Gluing is a lot faster, but I'm not sure how nice it's going to look in about two weeks. Oh, that one! I need to take care of that one. I'm going to drill a hole that's big enough for the cap to fit in a small rock and just put it on top. The amount of glue that Balazs has used for the sand completely ruined the screwy part. Do you want to come and clean it for me? Actually, I could drill it all the way through. That would be the simplest to do. Then I can just cover it with moss. Or just put it like this and forget about it. No, we should do this just for the fun of it. And we should get Laurie to do it, just for the fun of it. Where's Laurie? So, we couldn't find Laurie, but we found Gary. So yeah, I'm going to ask him to do the drilling. This video is sponsored by Tropica. They have sent the plants for me. And when I send them the list, I want 48 parts of Pinot de Fida and I think about 20 parts of spiky moss and 20 parts of Barbieri moss, or Bogor moss it's called now. They asked back what the hell I'm doing. So I need to make them proud. This hole should be perfect. Okay, it's actually fine for me like that. And all the smaller stones that I will add will go on the sand. So these will stay on the glass, as they are right now. I'm actually going to brush some of the sand underneath the rocks, or just to the bottom of them and that's going to make them more stable. I want it really thin, especially on the edges. I decided I'm going to glue. I'm way too lazy to pick out rocks, tie on the moss, put them back on. And besides the moss, I'm going to use Hygrophila Pinot de Fida. Before I start making a mess with cutting up moss, I'm gonna open this. This is a new product from ADA. It's called the Suikei sheet. I've seen it in action in Japan. And we finally have it ourselves. And I can try it. These actually create a wall all around. So whatever I'm doing here, water doesn't come out of it. The pieces of plants are gonna probably stay in it. And I'm gonna start working on the bigger surfaces with the Bogo moss. I'm gonna 50% implement what we've learned from Josh Sim. I'm gonna cut up the moss into very small pieces and I'm gonna apply it like that. Of course, Josh ties them. Nice and fresh from Tropica. You can see that it is made out of these lines of moss. By cutting this up into small pieces, I actually force it to start growing into different directions. Take it apart into smaller pieces, so it's not tied in together. Don't care where the bottom or the top is, doesn't matter. I don't want to hide everything. So if you look at the inspirational image as well, bits here and there are visible on the hardscape. So like an area like this, but probably I'm gonna have plants here, but I want to leave this open. I'm gonna put a line and then spread it out and then put the moss on. And actually, I'm gonna try to rub in the moss into the surface of the rock, as much as I can. While I'm doing this, covering the first big one, which takes forever, Vicky actually started to help me with covering the small rock pieces in spiky moss. I've chosen spiky and Barbieria bogomoss for this build for the exact reason that these are the mosses that cling on hardscape the most. The bogomoss is gonna be flat as it grows. It's gonna be much closer to the original surface of the hardscape. So I want to use that on these big higher areas. Spiky moss is gonna stick out more. I want to use that on the lower part. They both need a lot of trimming, if you want to keep them in a nice shape, because they're quick. So it turns out Vicky is not as lazy as I am. So she's actually tying the moss on the small rocks and not gluing. I want most of this stuff visible, because it's really nice, this reddish tone in here. What I'm gonna do on the top is I'm gonna use big patches of moss as they come, because obviously outside the water, they're gonna grow slower, they're gonna grow a completely different shape. It's the quick way, that's gonna be perfectly fine above water. I need it to go underwater, to be able to suck up water, to keep itself humid. We still have the spider here, still enjoying life. Now we have some extra help. Again, besides Vicky, Richie is also here, cutting the moss for us. I think I'm gonna need to like spray this, that's already glued on, to make sure it doesn't die, because we are quite far off being finished. While Richie is preparing more moss for me, I'm gonna start putting in the small ones, that Vicky has tied. It's good that I have sand on the bottom, because it's gonna be really easy to clean after fill-up. I have a lot of moss that's falling down on the sand, that we're gonna clean up after the tank is filled up, which is gonna suck those out. But by the time we get there, some of the moss will get into small cracks of the rocks. And after some time, moss will start to appear in places, where I didn't do it. And normally, that would make me go crazy. In here, it's just gonna make things much more natural. Yeah, that's it for the small stones. Okay, I don't need any more. Now I just need to put all the leftover moss. I think I'm gonna mix the two. And I'm gonna start putting moss on the smaller stones. Some of it visible, some of it covered. That's it. Aiming for the nice heavier textures to be visible. Vicky is gonna start preparing the Pinnatifida. Luckily, it's in vitro and it's the liquid type, so it shouldn't be too big of a job. And then we start applying the big chunks of Pinnatifida all around. What we're going for is using them like this, as bunches. And we're gonna do complete lines. It's gonna be a lot of work trimming this tank and keeping it in shape. Whenever you see a leaf that's too big or a new shoot that's too high, you just trim it off. And then the plant gets used to this behavior and it tries to be smaller and smaller. Around the big green areas, I think it's gonna look like a nice contrast. I'm gonna have three colors. I'm gonna have the black of the rock, I'm gonna have the lush green of the moss and reddish tint on the Pinnatifida. So this is actually quite a long one. It took about five hours, even with the help I got. As mentioned before, the plants were sponsored by Tropica. And I tend to go a bit overboard with the plants, when I plan out how much I need. But this time, I've actually used all the plants. This is the type of scape, that if you build it at home, you could use about five portions of moss, if you have patience. I think it still achieved the minimalistic look I was going for. It's not an actual replica of the tank that I took as inspiration, because that's all it was, inspiration. To this day, one of my favorite tanks. This is it. Let's see how it looks in a few weeks' time. So here we are a few weeks later. And well, the tank on one hand looks almost finished, matured. On the other hand, it's far from it. And the reason is, the plants need quite some time and quite some trimming to get to the effect, that I wanted to give. If you look at the tank, it all looks really nice. The plants have grown a lot. Actually, the Hygrophilopinnatifida has reached a point, which should be already trimmed. But it doesn't give the reddish colors, that I want. The reason for it is that the red colors gonna start coming after trimming, trimming, trimming multiple times. And well, this tank hasn't seen a scissor since it's been started. The moss has started to overgrow a bit as well. I think we're gonna trim it in one or two days' time. Get it flat again, get it growing once again. As you trim the moss, these sticking out leaf-like bits just go away. It just gets bushy, bushy, bushy. And it's gonna make a more unified surface or look. While it looks almost finished, it still needs time for what I want it to achieve. But that's the beauty of aquascaping. Even in a simple setup like this, it's gonna evolve and it's gonna change over the months to come. As for the moss on the immersed part, I was a bit afraid if they would dry. But what we actually do is whenever someone from the staff walks by this tank, they just come and do this. Just splash on the moss and that's it, that helps a lot. As for fish, well, I've gone for one of my favorite combinations, which I've been banned to use for years in the gallery, because I've used it too much. And that combination is Amber Tetras and Cubotyrus bores. I love this combination, the fish look almost identical shape-wise. Obviously, Amber Tetras are orange-colored, while Cubotyrus are green. And they usually tend to swim in different areas. So usually the Amber Tetras swim in the middle and the Cubotyrus swim on the top. But since this is quite a shallow tank, they almost swim in the same area. And they are really good in pulling each other. And for a walk-around tank, that's really important. This way, the fish are swimming around and around all the time, which is well, of course, a nice addition for the gallery. I've seen some children running around following the fish the other day. So that effect is achieved. That's it for today, I'm really happy. I think it's really close to the inspirational image I had. I think I've managed to make a nice look from all around, all four sides. But you're gonna be the judge of that. Please let me know in the comments, if you like it. And see you next time, goodbye!