Building a RIVERBANK in my aquarium!

Half a year ago I bought a 6ft Waterbox fish tank. I always wanted to take advantage of the peninsula style by creating a cliff face/river bank scape at the base of the tank. However, after many attempts, I still couldn't quite get it right!

A couple of months ago, my friend Nick introduced me to Jason Sulda on a rainbow fish catching trip. Jason has his own channel Australian Biotopes where he documents and creates biotopes of native environments. I was lucky enough to have Jason offer to create the scape I had always wanted for this tank and he did an INCREDIBLE job. In this video I show you exactly how he did it so you can enjoy watching the process and maybe learn a thing or two about aquascaping!

Jason's channel Australian Biotopes:
There may be an issue with the channel link so I have pinned a comment from Jason (Australian Biotopes) which you can click on his channel from, or search Australian Biotopes and it will come up :)

Timestamps:
1:54 - STEP 1 Preparing the tank
2:20 - STEP 2 Adding a geo fabric base
2:53 - STEP 3 Adding drainage cell
4:06 - STEP 4 Filling drainage cell with sand
4:30 - STEP 5 How to layer the scape
5:46 - STEP 6 Choosing natural rocks and driftwood
8:32 - STEP 7 Adding different sizes of rocks
9:52 - STEP 8 Cutting smaller pieces of drainage cell
10:45 - Liquid glue from MAD Aquariums
11:45 - Ornate rainbow fish/Rhads
12:35 - STEP 9 Adding different grades of substrate
14:22 - STEP 10 Adding aquasoil and plants
15:54 - The tank one week later
16:17 - Crimson spotted rainbowfish
16:31 - Adding more plants and roots
17:31 - Glass fish from KeepingFishSimple
18:17 - Before and after of the aquascape!

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You can follow me on Instagram at Kaitys_Cichlids for more regular updates on my fish and pets in general :)

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[australianbiotopes]

You did a wonderful job putting this video together Kaity, this will hopefully show people that you can have a large tank that you can keep simple and still have it looking natural, I have to add after sitting down and talking to you we had to take into consideration that you live a busy lifestyle with a full time job and also with your YouTube channel, not to mention last time you set it up you had to pull it down a couple of months latter, this can be achieved with this scape now, it is easy to clean from all sides and still looks good from every angle but if needed it could be pulled down and put back together in a day, and this is why we didn't get to intricate with the glueing of roots and making it to permanent, the fish love it, the way I have placed the plants should stop the rainbows from jumping as the water flow comes from the back of the tank were I placed the plants it will act as a bit of a barrier as they normally jump towards the water flow to make their way up stream, the val will eventually flow over the tank to give it almost a tunnel look that will look good from all sides, this is something we also had to consider when doing this peninsula aquarium, we also had to keep into consideration even though you wanted a natural stream looking tank, you still had pets you wanted to keep so although this could be a true biotope I know how much you love your pet fish and others would agree if your not doing it for competition you don't have to be a 100% biotope correct your other pet fish will love it to, we had a great day doing this, it's always fun aquascaping 🙂

[alanc]

This is definitely the coolest usage of a peninsula tank I have ever seen.

[BlakesAquatics]

Watching Jason at work is a real treat. Nice upload, beautiful scape

[dinodinosaur]

👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 WOW... Jason has a brilliant talent ... I love the biotope design tanks and Jason & his daughter has delivered your dream design.

[Tom-zixw]

Really like the grading of substrate. I've spent a lot of time in rivers as a fishing guide, and it's something you notice. Big to small when trying to create depth. I've always tried to emulate that in my tanks. Good stuff Kaity.

[jimhunt]

I'm a freshwater bass fisherman on the Macleay river in NSW and I've spent a lot of time with my head underwater looking at snags and river bottom. Your tank is so realistic and bloody marvellous. Top job.

[sydneysangels]

I absolutely love how natural and beautiful this aquarium is. I really enjoyed your video of catching rainbowfish in the wild and this tank encompasses some of the stunning scenes we all got to see in that video. Keep up the amazing work! Love your videos

[bigkeg]

Jason did such a wonderful job, it really does look like a natural stream 👍
You're so lucky to have great friends in the community 😊

[pepsilexi]

Omg what a dream-build. Looked really great before but now it's so natural. 💯

[darrenslater]

This is one of the better tank setups I’ve seen in ages. Love the natural look

[brianp]

Wow Kaity beautiful tank! Love the natural look. He did a great job. I love it

[KevinLB-knmo]

Jason has such a keen eye for detail and makes the result look so natural. Amazing aquascape.

[ihatenuggets]

After trying to convince my wife to do a bigger and tank and get rid of our smaller ones. She immediately approved once seeing this video. It goes to show how talented Jason is when he can take a reluctant non fish keeper, and show them one example of his work and make them want a 6ft tank in their home. Thanks for making the video!

[driftindriftwood]

The scape I have been looking for !! Excellent.

[janezkanoni]

🙏evolvin. Just love a hobby and go on it is refreshing to watch👌

[johnhodges]

Absolutely love this tank well done everyone it looks amazing

[kingterra]

i love the fishtank design! i love river tank designs, specially those tank have fast moving water in them, so fish that tend to stay in streams and rivers with faster moving water as well as plants that flow in the current, id love to see that in more fishtanks

[christinepetersen]

Thank you for this wonderful encouragement. That's exactly what I was looking for. Greetings from northern Germany. 😘😘🥰🥰

[salesby]

One of the best work I’ve witnessed! Bravo

[brianbuczynski]

Breathtaking. I’m speechless. Just gorgeous tank!