I dont trust my taste in plant placement. Suggestions?

[Atxpunx]

If your plant are new, they'll thicken up. The back stem plants keep them together, when they get too tall cut them down some and stick the newly cut pieces next to or in front of the stem plants of the same type. Cut every other tall plant when they grow too tall and that will create another effect. If that is hornwort back there in the right side of your tank, just keep it floating and it will grow like crazy. Patience is key when creating a new planted tank. Success is measured in the long term.

 

[heyheyitsrae]

Okay, so I removed the white rocks, got a new bulb (just one, thus the dark side of the tank, they only had one... Lol), tied some java moss to the drift wood, and that's it... What else?

 

[Atxpunx]

Nice! Well what do you want achieve with the tank? Do you like that new bulb?

 

[heyheyitsrae]

I want it to look kinda like the picture, with a nice densely planted background and side and then an area in the center that's open

 

[Atxpunx]

Well you should get some better pics of the plants in the back that you have right now. Once we ID them then we could see what can be done as far as the background. The java moss could be used as a mid-ground plant covering up the bottom of the background plants (they tend to lose their bottom leaves when planted close together) and for a foreground plant you cloud buy a new plant or leave it open.

 

[Smcoyle87]

Yeah you need a fluorescent bulb or else your plants will surely die. The type of bulb you have (incandescent) does not emit UV rays like the sun does. Fluorescent bulbs do. Google "aquarium plant lighting" for more info.
You can simply buy one at petsmart or petco.

 

[Atxpunx]

Yeah you need a fluorescent bulb or else your plants will surely die. The type of bulb you have (incandescent) does not emit UV rays like the sun does. Fluorescent bulbs do. Google "aquarium plant lighting" for more info.
You can simply buy one at petsmart or petco.

The op just upgraded half of the tank lighting to compact fluorescent. They only had one left in stock.

 

[Smcoyle87]

Oh word. Cool

 

[heyheyitsrae]

It's really hard to describe what I want. I dot want it QUITE as dense as the picture, nor that many different kinds of plants, but kind of like in finding nemo when there were all those underwater bomb balloons and they were spaced just dense enough that you could see the "trees from the forest" but you could still tell it was supposed to be a "forest". Haha, two different metaphors just to describe what I want. But I definitely will use the java moss as a foreground plant, I'm just worried my tank isn't tall enough and I'd have to trim it down a bunch.

Does anyone understand kinda what I want? This must be so confusing.

 

[heyheyitsrae]

(1st picture) my floating plant (hornwort?) has attached itself to my java. Before it was doing a lot of barrel rolls so that gives it some stability. But should I unhook it or leave it be? Does it matter?

(2nd picture) So when I first bought my anubias a few days ago there was a new leaf coming in. The one right below my serpae tetra (its light green, because youre looking at the underside) is that new leaf now. It's grown a lot!

(3rd picture) what's that one? I moved it to the foreground today. The long leaves don't look that healthy and are being ripped off an pulled into my filter.

 

[heyheyitsrae]

Did some major changes today (including the second bulb!). I still don't like it.

 

[Atxpunx]

It looks pretty good. If you don't like it, maybe you should buy different plants? In my opinion, I don't like java moss as a foreground plant. I use it more as a midground and a filler of spaces.

 

[heyheyitsrae]

It looks pretty good. If you don't like it, maybe you should buy different plants? In my opinion, I don't like java moss as a foreground plant. I use it more as a midground and a filler of spaces.

I'm fine with the plants, it's the placement I don't like. I've been tweaking it a bit since that picture, maybe I'll push the java moss back a few inches. And I need to take the crypto (front right, beneath the white rocks) out of the plastic pot. But do i take out the peat moss or whatever it's roots are in?

 

[Atxpunx]

Yeah take it out. Its rockwool, if its a crypt, be careful removing the rockwool of of the roots. Being careless with crypt roots will cause the plant to melt, I THINK. I've never owned a crypt and am only speaking from information I've read.

 

[heyheyitsrae]

I think I almost have it how I like it. I just gotta wait for the dust to settle and think it over.

 

[heyheyitsrae]

I think I'm done!