Forest Aquascape Build At Hakkai Aquascape Gallery - San Diego, CA

Forest Aquascapes are worthy of something you'd see during a hike up the mountain trails on a sunrise morning.  Or, if you're like me, it can be nostalgic and remind you of the scene in the movie My Neighbor Totoro where Mei and her sibling Satsuki got lost in the forest and ran into Totoro.

Our teammate Bryan is a very studious aquascaper and forest aquascapes has been something he's constantly working on throughout the years.  Though challenging and time consuming, Bryan perseveres and is diligent in the hardscape selection process.  Find pieces of driftwood to work with on these aquascapes can be painstaking but it may be hard to find that "perfect piece" and Bryan spends good time crafting the pieces himself by trimming and sawing them into complementary "forest trees."  

Though any tank can be used to create a forest style planted tank, the illusion of depth is very critical, especially when the rear part of the tank is crafted to appear as being "far away."  The choice of driftwood sizes can also make an impact on this depth appearance in the aquascape.  Thicker pieces were picked out by Bryan for the front and smaller pieces in the rear part of the tank.  Tom Barr's hand-collected Manzanita Wood is our top choice for many of our planted tanks and exactly what Bryan went with on this UNS 45U tank.  

The great part about this depth is the realistic appearance of the sunrise or sundown coming from the rear of the aquarium.  We don't know about you, but even though we've been aquascapers in the hobby for many many years now, we are still in awe at the the creations we craft through hardscape, aquatic plants, substrate and other natural goodies from Mother Nature.  

Here are some pics from this week's Forest Aquascape tank build here at our aquascape gallery in Point Loma, San Diego, CA.  

And there we have it!  Bryan's face during his serene aquascaping session shows contentment with the results.