The Flooded Forest aquascape - a miniature underwater world designed to replicate the view of an inundated woodland from beneath the waterline. This is the essence of this charming style that brings a slice of the natural world into your home. Like its cousins the Jungle style and Nature style, the Flooded Forest offers stunning visuals without a stunning amount of work while being flexible enough to make it a great choice for casual hobbyists and seasoned pros alike.
By the time you’re done reading this article, you’ll be well on your way to using IntelliQuarium’s AI-powered aquascape generator to get started on your own one-of-a-kind, centerpiece-worthy aquarium.
Why Start a Flooded Forest Aquascape?
The Flooded Forest style is relatively new (as is the Bonsai style), giving you a chance to be an early adopter. Its comparatively simple layout makes it a good choice for those just starting out in the aquascaping hobby. It's suitable for a variety of low-maintenance plants (such as Hemianthus Callitrichoides, Dwarf Hairgrass, and the many species of aquatic moss), allowing you to spend less time keeping your setup looking its best, and more time enjoying it.
Flooded Forest is a simple style, visually busy but surprisingly straight forward to build. Planning and execution are easy because the range of species one would usually incorporate into this style is relatively small. You can make a little go a long way with your tank here.
Key Characteristics of a Flooded Forest Aquascape
The Flooded Forest is made to mimic just what its name implies – a living terrestrial forest that has been flooded with water. This is a real, natural occurrence usually manifesting as the result of seasonal or catastrophic flooding. Trunks The techniques used to build this style are few and simple. Getting one of these up and running is easier than just about any other aquascaping concept. Keep reading to learn more.
The aesthetic replicates the view of a forest as seen at eye level, where only the trunks of tall trees would be seen. Branches and canopies are generally omitted, with the exception of the use of an occasional "sapling." Compact, green plants are used to fill in for wild, bushy terrestrial growth.
Choosing Your Tree Material
Wide branches are the best choice to stand in as tree trunks. Generally speaking, you should look for ones that are relatively straight and just have that "tree trunk" look. Searching the Internet for something along the lines of "flooded forest aquascape driftwood" is a good place to start and will provide results of vendors with purpose-made pieces. You can reach out to sellers with your generated aquascape and request pieces that will be suitable to build it. Many will be happy to accommodate you in exchange for a sale and a chance for a good review. If someone won’t work with you, keep looking for one who will.
Prepping For Use
Getting your selected trunks ready for use is not hard at all. The only thing that really needs to be done is to ensure your artwork doesn’t try to float away when submerged. There are three good ways to do this:
• Soaking: Simply leave the wood in a water-filled container until it sinks to the bottom. The simplest method, but also the slowest – it can take days to weeks to take effect, depending on the size of the wood.
• Boiling: Leave the wood in a pot of boiling water for at least 90 minutes. Using this method, you can have a piece ready to be used today, instead of days or weeks from now. The only drawback is that it is not as efficient at removing tannins as the pressure cooker technique below.
• Pressure cooker: If your piece is small enough, you can pressure cook it. If you have an Instant Pot, fill the pot with enough water to submerge the piece, run it on “pressure cook” for 15 minutes and allow it to cool on its own without venting (the “natural release” method.) This is the fastest way, reducing the time to sinkability to mere minutes from as long as weeks. As a bonus, this technique will squeeze out most of the tannins, leaving you with one less hassle to deal with. Performing additional cycles will remove even more tannins.
• Plastic canvas sheets: Cut a plastic canvas sheet to a shape that allows for proper placement and is sufficiently large enough to allow the substrate to weigh the piece down. Attach with a nylon screw or fishing line. Put in place before adding the substrate. This method is especially useful because it allows the wood to be placed before it has been treated with any of the methods listed above. You can combine this method with any of those previously mentioned to speed up the treatment process.
• Autoclave: Just kidding. That’s total overkill for what we’re trying to do here. Besides, if you do have one, I’m sure this idea has already occurred to you and you don’t need me to tell you how to use it.
Dealing With Tannins
Fresh driftwood will release tannins that will tint the water brown. While tannin-stained water is harmless to humans, pets and aquarium flora and fauna, you may not like the look it gives your brand-new aquascape. There are two ways to take care of this:
• Water changes (NOT RECOMMENDED!): Performing water changes will indeed remove tannins. However, I don’t advocate this method, except as done at your regular interval. First, frequent water changes create an unstable environment, which is bad for everything in your aquarium. Secondly, they are laborious and time-consuming which means more time working on your aquascape and less time enjoying it. Not cool. It can take weeks, even months, for a piece of driftwood to stop releasing tannins. Please don’t torture yourself or your aquarium by doing extra water changes just to remove tannins.
• Purigen: Fill an appropriately-sized filter media pouch with an amount that you can fit into your filter Pro tip: make two so that you can always have one in the filter while the other one is being cleaned; tannins can fill this stuff up pretty quickly.
Attaching the moss:
There are a few ways to get your moss to grow on hardscape:
• Thread: Wrap gently around the moss and wood, securing it in place. Over time, the thread will dissolve, leaving only the moss.
• Fishing line (2lb-test, or the lowest you can get a hold of): Stiffer than thread and therefore slightly more difficult to work with, but won’t dissolve under water. A good choice for slower-growing mosses like Fissidens Miroshaki that take longer to attach to surfaces. Remove after 2 – 4 weeks.
• Wedging: Mosses can be wedged into cracks and crevices. As long as it remains undisturbed, it will continue to grow in place.
• Aluminum wire: The kind used for sculpting, crafting and terrestrial Bonsai trees. The most versatile option, aluminum wire is soft and flexible, making it easy to wrap around branches. It doesn’t have to be tied into place, won’t dissolve like cotton thread and won't corrode under water. It can also be shaped to conform to uneven surfaces. Twelve gauge is a good general-purpose size. Remove after 2 – 4 weeks
Re-Creating the Title Aquascape
Generate your own Flooded Forest aquascape here
1. Carpeting plants such as Glossostigma Elatinoides, Marsilea Hirsuta and Hemianthus Callitrichoides can be used here. The main factor for choosing the right one will be your tank size - Hemi’s small leaf size makes it an ideal choice for tanks 20 gallons and less while the larger leaf sizes of the other two will better fill out larger setups.
2. To match the moss on the trunks, Fissidens Fotanus’ dark, compact growth is a good choice.
3. Attaching Willow moss to long, branchy twigs will reproduce the growth depicted here.
Recommended background color, extracted directly from the image:
Check out the Duplicating the Background Color section of this article for a guide on how to use it on your own build.
RGB: 237, 91, 0
HEX: ed5b00
Closest off-the-shelf paint match: Home Depot’s Bonfire Night, p200-7d
Plants commonly used in this style that may closely match your generated aquascape:
The above-mentioned carpeting plants can take care of your foreground needs. Of course, there are other carpeting species that can fill that role, but these are the bread and butter.
Grassy types include Blyxa Japonica, Hemianthus Quadricostatus, Dwarf and Giant hairgrass as well as Broadleaf Chainsword. Many Cryptocoryne plants can fill in for the bunches of grass-like growth you’ll probably find in your generated aquascape.
Plants that can be used to replicate the wild, brushy undergrowth look include garden-variety green stem plants such as Moneywort, Pearlweed, Hygrophila Compact, Staurogyne Repens and Juncus Repens. You can improvise and throw in some red plants to break up the long stretches of green – various Ludwigia species color up nicely and will contribute well to the foresty look. Check out Making Your Generated Aquascape a Reality, Part I for tips on how to improvise with your layout.
Don’t forget the moss – Almost any kind of aquatic moss can be used in your Flooded Forest aquascape. All that matters is that it approximates your generated aquascape and/or just looks good to you.
Creating a fantastic Flooded Forest aquascape is within your reach, even if you’re just starting out in the hobby. By understanding the key characteristics, setting up your tank thoughtfully and providing consistent care, you'll cultivate a thriving underwater ecosystem. Embrace the journey and enjoy the learning process. In no time at all, you’ll have a gorgeous, centerpiece aquascape that will be around for years.