Most plants are attached to the wood/ hardscape surfaces.
Indonesian style aquascapes are characterised by rigorous wood hardscape (often heavily textured roots) that take the form of dense jungles. These aquascapes are constructed dry, with wood pieces shaped, layered and glued onto each other, in a process quite similar to miniature model building. Complex scapes fit together hundreds of smaller branches and rocks to produce structures such as trees, cliffs and over-hanging rock formations. A common feature is the creation of a dramatic sense of perspective, often in the form of a distant horizon line where smaller branches are used to create the illusion of details far away. This technique uses larger hardscape elements closer to the front and smaller elements at the rear. This is the very opposite of the ‘big at the back, small at the front’ approach used in most tanks, but achieves a tremendous sense of scale and perspective. Indonesian style aquascapes often look densely planted, but only a very small percentage of plants are grown in the substrate. Most plants are attached to the wood/ hardscape surfaces. Ironically, while immensely time-consuming to set up, these aquascapes are not hard to maintain in the long run, as the plants used are mostly mosses and slow growing, hardy, shade-tolerant species.