Is hardscaping pointless sometimes?

[AquaticJim]

Is hardscaping pointless sometimes? Do we get too hung up initially on hardscaping a tank?

I see so many posts on plant forums of people rescaping and spending hours and hours on their hardscapes tweaking them, to in their own eyes, perfection. Yes they do look great, but later photos of the same tank 3-6-12 months down the track.....there's VERY little to be seen of the original hardscape. It's all hidden by the growth of plants.

Of course this doesn't apply to Amano type setups that are religiously pruned and trimmed, but from my years on plant forums, by and large most rocks and wood end up getting totally obscured eventually.

I think then that large rocks etc just end up as detritus/mulm trap build up areas that have much reduced flow (sometimes total dead flow areas) that stop the flow of nutrients to plants that are behind them.

Also if the rocks are taking up X amount of surface area of the square of the tank bed and can't be seen, wouldnt that area be better either open? or better again planted out?

 

[SuperColey1]

You pretty much answer the question yourself

If the hardscape is thought about at the beginning then it will be planned to work with the plants. Sometimes this may mean it is meant to be 'swallowed' up by the plants, other times it is meant to be visible and in harmony with the plants. All to to do with the initial vision and what the scaper intends to do. After that the scaper needs to keep on top of things to complete their vision

Hardscape is never pointless though. If it seems that way then it will be due to laziness on the scaper's part, or poor vision, bad planning or sometimes a change of direction mid scape where the initial plan has changed.

Andy