I wanted to do something a bit different with this 60cm tank—something that looks wild and natural, is easy to maintain, and is actually doable at home. The whole concept was a “tetra tree”: a chunky, upright piece of wood that fills the water column, then absolutely covered in epiphytes like Anubias, Bucephalandra, Java fern and loads of moss. The twist was the background. I started off thinking “hintiest hint of baby blue”… then immediately remembered I’ve had a shocking success rate painting backgrounds. We went through blue, a failed orange mix that looked like actual poo, and then ended up trying a metallic copper paint—pure experiment, because if it’s bad, you can just scrape it off. Once the lighting was sorted (the ADA light was way too blue for my taste), the copper/orange tone started to make sense with the brown wood and green plants. I built the log outside the tank using super glue gel for the bigger plants and cotton thread for the moss, then pinned the base down with rocks and the tissue + super glue trick (yes, it smokes—walk away). After a tannin-y start and a big water change, it settled in beautifully. I finished it off with black neon tetras and flame tetras, dosed beneficial bacteria, and stayed on top of testing because it’s basically a controlled fish-in cycle. End result: different, natural-toned, and honestly… it grew on me.