At any given point during the day, I have two to five aquascape ideas floating through my mind. They can range anywhere from 10-gallon filterless tanks to 100-gallon high-flow tanks. Obviously, I can’t set each one up the moment it comes to me, otherwise I’d be broke and I’d have no time for work or writing these blogs.

But there has been one idea that’s stuck with me over the course of this year that I’ve finally decided to pull the trigger on. So the goal of this article is to show you my process for setting up brand new tanks – from design to cycling the aquarium itself.

This could be helpful for you if you’re thinking about setting up a new tank, but you want to make sure that it looks the way you want, that you’re not blowing all your money unnecessarily, or maybe you’re just wanting some inspiration.

Today, I’ll show you how I set up my 40-Gallon Cichlid Tank.

Observe Things Around You

For this 40-Gallon tank, I really wanted the hardscape to look like a branch underwater that had been bent over by the current of the water. If you’ve been in or around rivers, you know that trees and branches fall in all the time.

But they don’t sit exactly where they fell in. They get pushed downstream until they get snagged on something. And in most cases, those pieces of wood will bend over in the direction of the current, creating a wave or arc look.

My goal for the aquascape was to replicate that look. Once I pictured it in my head, I put it on paper, which is my second step in this process.

Put Your Ideas On Paper (Or A Screen)

There are lots of great digital aquascaping software out there, like scape-it.io, which allows you to digitally create your ideas.

I prefer pen and paper, so my second step in setting up a scape is drawing a rough sketch of my idea, as I did below.

This doesn’t have to be perfect or that detailed. All that’s important is making sure your inspiration has a physical place to live.

Plan And List Out Your Ingredients

Then, after you’ve drawn out your idea, it’s time to flesh it out more. In this step, I brainstorm some of the plant and stocking options for the tank. I love Anubias Nana Petite, so I wanted to plant a lot of it in this aquarium.

Since its leaves are very small and round-ish, I also wanted to have some longer, broader leaves and leaves of similar shape, just scaled up some.

So in the end, my plant list was:

• Anubias Nana Petite
• Java Fern
• Java Moss
• Anubias Golden Leaf
• Anubias Nana
• Anubias Barteri Round (Golden Coin)

Order Your Ingredients (Plants Come Last)

Now, once you have your design and stocking options, it’s time to start ordering everything. There are two things I want you to remember when placing your orders.

1. Order your plants last. Living items like plants and fish typically ship faster than equipment like filters and lights. If you order everything at the same time, your live goods might arrive before your tank is ready for them.
2. Order a little more plants than you think you’ll need. For this 40-gallon tank, I ordered 3 pots of Anubias Nana Petite, 2 pots of each of the other Anubias, and 5 pots of Java Fern. I still ended up transferring Java Fern from one of my other tanks to get the plant density I wanted.

I’m not saying double the size of your order, but adding an extra pot or two can help you avoid underplanting a brand new tank.

Use Your Template To Guide You

Once you have everything you need – plants, hardscape, and equipment – it’s time to set everything up.

In this 40-gallon, I started with the sand first, then set up my hardscape using my drawing as a template to guide me. I got the wood facing the way I wanted, added some detail pieces, and then started planting.

I wouldn’t recommend planting unless you’re 100% satisfied with the way your hardscape looks. Spend as much time as you want tinkering with things until it feels right.

Note: This wood ended up floating overnight and messed everything up, despite soaking it for four weeks prior. I’d recommend either gluing it down with silicone or aquarium-safe glue or temporarily weighing it down with a rock.

Let It Cycle

This is technically still part of the setup process. It’s very important that you cycle your new aquarium before adding fish or shrimp.

Related: The Nitrogen Cycle for Beginners.

Bonus Step: Use Fertilizers From The Beginning

This is what my tank looked like after four months of being set up:

Four months is more than enough time for plants to grow and look healthy, but that wasn’t the case in my tank. I started dosing an all-in-one liquid fertilizer with heavy potassium, and within one month this is what the same tank looked like:

That’s a huge difference. So in addition to weekly 40% water changes in the beginning, I recommend dosing fertilizers early on.

That’s all I do when setting up new aquascapes. The examples I used in this article are for a tank that’s been running for almost two years now, and it’s doing great.

The new tank in the pipeline is different, but I plan for it to be fully cycled by the winter. I hope this helped you plan out your next tank, and I hope you enjoyed it.

Happy scaping,

Dom