Hardscape Natural Stones • Mountains in miniature!

Aquarium Stones Hardscape online Shop - Natural looking stones are considered hardscape par excellence... with beautifully structured stones, perfect Aquascaping projects can be realized in which the illusion of a real mountain landscape is in no way inferior to a real landscape. Stones should not be missing in any aquarium and leave your layout ideas free design options with different types of stones, sizes and colors.

Aquarium Stones Hardscape online Shop - Natural looking stones are considered hardscape par excellence... with beautifully structured stones, perfect Aquascaping projects can be realized in... read more »
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Hardscape Natural Stones • Mountains in miniature!

Aquarium Stones Hardscape online Shop - Natural looking stones are considered hardscape par excellence... with beautifully structured stones, perfect Aquascaping projects can be realized in which the illusion of a real mountain landscape is in no way inferior to a real landscape. Stones should not be missing in any aquarium and leave your layout ideas free design options with different types of stones, sizes and colors.

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Buy Hardscape / Natural stones in the Aquascaping Shop

Stones in the Aquarium

Stones and rocks have always been an important design element in the aquarium. In the past, however, if you had "just had some stones in the aquarium", many aquarists, at least since Takashi Amano with its beautifully designed underwater landscapes, attach great importance to a natural look of the stones used, based on e.g. rugged mountains or impressive canyons.

The choice of stones, the type of stones, shape and color, and of course the arrangement and structure of the hardscape in the aquarium will later determine the overall effect on the viewer of the layout. Many Aquascapers therefore take their time designing the hardscape, set the stones in the still-dry aquarium, arrange back and forth, look at everything in peace and try to imagine the effect of the stone structures in interaction with the later planting.

Nice assortment of Stones in our shop

Stones for aquaristics are available in many colors and shapes, with a rather smooth surface or very jagged. For some types of stone we have small pieces up to 30 kg mainstones, for other types of stone the individual pieces are only in the range of 0.5 - 7 kg. Depending on the type of stone, the weight varies greatly based on the size of the stone: our Iceland lava is relatively light, as it is criss-crossed with thousands of small and tiny bubbles (volcanic foam). It can also be wonderfully edited with a hammer and screwdriver (e.g. provided with holes, in which a plant is then placed). Other types of stone such as Our New Zealand Stone is extremely heavy and massive, so that even smaller pieces can quickly weigh a kilo or two ... but with a very nicely structured stone surface that looks very natural as a rock or mountain landscape. The very popular mini-landscape stone is also suitable for rocky layouts and structures in the aquarium, or for aquascaping due to the beautiful surface structure. For more terrace-like stone structures in the aquarium, pagoda or petrified wood would be recommended, since the horizontal structure of the stones comes very close to the natural stratification of such rock formations.

The Stone constructions in the Aquarium

There are of course no limits to your own ideas when Aquascaping, but often it is based on real landscapes of nature. This can e.g. stony island formations, gorges, canyons or massifs. A very popular variant is certainly the so-called Iwagumi style... a very minimalist layout, in which the stone setting is the dominant layout element in the aquarium. With the Iwagumi, the choice of stones plays a crucial role, both in terms of size, as well as the arrangement and orientation in the aquarium. So there are e.g. a so-called main stone and two, four or six smaller stones that are arranged around the main stone. Often, only a small permanent plant species is used as a type of lawn, e.g. Hemianthis callitrichoides Cuba or needle Gras are used, from which the stones then "grow out". In general, it is advisable to place and try out the stones in the still empty aquarium (only with substrate)... this way you can quickly and easily move the stone structures back and forth, exchange stones and assess the effect from the front. In an aquarium that is already filled with water, this is often significantly more difficult, e.g. whirl up the substrate and cloud the water and you don't have to constantly dry wet hands and arms. If you have very heavy mainstones, you should place a piece of styrofoam or filter mat in the desired location before inserting the substrate, so that the stone sinking into the substrate does not hit the glass pane directly and may cause it to jump. If you want to implement entire structures, stones in the aquarium can also be used with e.g. glue and secure the aquarium silicone so that you don't even accidentally knock the structure over when you take care of the Aquarium tank..

Stones as a design element

What should you pay attention to (not only in Aquascaping)? The basic rules for a beautiful and natural-looking stone formation are quite simple: Always use only one type of stones, if possible set an odd number of stones, do not build up the stones symmetrically, combine different stone sizes. The entire stone structure, or at least the main stone, should not be in the middle of the aquarium... always move it a little to the left or right (so-called golden ratio). For a natural look, it is important to avoid any symmetry, as this practically never occurs in nature... therefore, an odd number of stones look much more natural than a straight number, which may also be in the middle of the aquarium.

Stones and the Water parameters

Something in the back of your head should also have the desired water parameters ​​in the Aquarium when choosing the right type of stones. If you keepingr Bee Shrimp or fish that prefer water that is as soft as possible, it is somewhat counterproductive to decorate the Aquarium with a lot of calcareous stones, as the hardness would be raised again. This is especially true if you are not using e.g. Osmosis water works or at least additionally has soil in the aquarium.

Many stones contain some lime, but the influence on the water values ​​in the Aquarium is not very large and you can safely neglect the point... but if you plan a lot of stones in the Aquarium, you should consider this. With our stones, which we offer for sale in the online shop, we usually have an indication of how the stones behave in relation to the water parameters.

Planting Stones in the Aquarium

Stones in the Aquarium often only look really great when they appear to be "ingrown" and literally grow out of the plants. Many stones have a structured surface that goes well with e.g. planting moss. Simply put small moss cushions in the cracks and crevices... here it grows very quickly on the stone and forms beautiful moss cushions. If you have smaller gaps between the stones themselves, you can fill them up with a bit of soil and you plant directly into them. Of course, so-called epiphytes such as Bucephalandra, Anubias or Java fern can be placed well on stones... either with a special plant glue, with binding wire or you clamp the rhizome of the roots in a corresponding column in the stone.

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