I did a photoshoot of my 33g this weekend. Normally, I pull out my go-to 24-70mm lens for the majority of my shots, but unfortunately, this weekend that lens was in the shop, necessitating that I experiment with some other options. In doing so, I was amazed at how the exact same aquascape can look radically different based on the focal length of the lens used to shoot it.

33G Aquascape – Photographed with 11mm lens

Take the first shot above as an example. This was start with a super wide-angle lens at just 11mm. Of all of the shots, I love how dramatic it makes the hill look, with so much depth it’s amazing. However, if you submitted this to an aquascaping contest, you’d likely get points knocked off for too much distortion. Just look at the silicon line on the back left — it’s not even remotely a straight line like it should be.

33G Aquascape – Photographed with 13mm lens

Dialing it back a bit only 2mm to 13mm makes a lot of difference. You can see the distortion is not quite so profound

, albeit still present, and the warping of the hill itself is less so. Whether or not this is a good thing or not is up to you.

33G Aquascape – Photographed with 17mm lens

Now, jumping to 17mm the lines are much more natural but you still get a good amount of depth. Notice how there’s less and less reflection as the angle gets narrower. In the first shot, you get nearly the entire grouping of Rotala rotundifolia whereas as 17mm we only see the tops.

33G Aquascape – Photographed with 50mm lens

Finally, jumping all the way up to 50mm it almost looks like a totally different aquascape compared to the 11mm shot. There’s barely a foreground to speak of and the mound itself is compressed. The lack of depth is profound. This further demonstrates how important the photography aspect of aquascaping to ensure that you’re capturing the right version of the scape that you want to share with the world. I’d be very interested to hear what you’re personal favorite is of the photos above in the comment section.

The 33G Aquascape continues to do well. Since my June update, I’ve added some Bucephalandra motleyana from Aquaflora , which I think add a nice alternative to the usually Anubias barterii var. nana that have been used for years in these kinds of scapes. The weeping moss is doing a nice job consuming the wood/rocks just enough to cover up the gaps.

I’ve reduced the amount of Riccia fluitans as it can kind of go crazy. I’m going back and forth between leaving a more erratic grouping of Rotala rotundifola like in the picture above , versus trimming it in a more manicured way. I kind of like the chaotic look. Your comments are invited!

I snapped another quick photo of my 33G aquarium this week, and wanted to share. As you can see, the Rotala rotundifolia is growing in, as are all of the other plants. The Riccia is staying put, although I’m not 100% sold on its placement. Ignore the moss ball in the upper-left — I’m just stashing a mound of weeping moss there temporarily. Comments welcome!

This weekend I started to rescape my 33g aquarium. This is my Green Leaf Aquarium tank that’s exactly half of a standard 75g tank. So far, I’ve only completed the hardscape, that you can see below.

I use my camera phone to take pictures of the hardscape as I go. This allows me to very easily see if I like the positioning of the rocks/wood

, and make adjustments on the fly. The GIF below shows a demonstration of how things changed as I moved along. Before I even started, I did a prototype on the floor in front of the tank to try and work out what kind of hardscape layout I would aim for.

You can see that I used a mixture of rosewood and ohko stone, sometimes referred to as dragonstone. I was inspired by many of the cliffs and elements on the U.S. West Coast at the Olympic and Mount Rainier National Parks near Seattle, Washington. There, many trees grow out of amazing rock faces, and I was hoping to capture some element of that in this scape.

I’m also doing a dry start for this aquascape, which is something I do not usually do. I wanted to try George Farmer’s suggestion of blending moss with Greek yogurt and painting on the millions of tiny fronds that result.

I got my wife’s permission to use the Vitamix to blend the moss, and the result was this soupy mixture below. I literally used a paintbrush to apply the moss to the wood. You can see the result of that in the close-up above.

Now, the tank is sealed off with plastic wrap, and I’ll mist it each day for the next few weeks. With luck, the moss will begin to attach to the wood, and I’ll be able to continue with the full planting and filling of the tank. Comments welcome!

I previously posted pictures of my 33G and 50G aquascapes. Both are growing in pretty nicely. The 50G started to get some BBA on the wood, but a combination of peroxide treatment and adding additional algae eaters seems to have eliminated most of that problem. It did

, however, harm some of the foreground Monte Carlo plant, slowing it’s growth. I’m sure that it will rebound.

I’m still figuring out the exact amounts to dose this aquarium, slowly increasing the dosage as the plants have been growing in. The LED lights are quite bright and are actually dialed back slightly to slow things down.

Two weeks in, the 33G cube (above) is doing okay as well. I have been getting some algae on the Blyxa japonica especially

, but I think that it’s just a matter of all of the bacterial colonies stabilizing to help me with some of the organics. The foreground is starting to grow, but definitely has a ways to go. The most prolific plant thus far is the North American native, Heteranthera dubia, which is growing up behind the peak of the hill. Comments/critiques welcome!