Aquascaping & Plant Opinions

[chrism]

Here's a shot of my tank last night, it's 36" x 14" x 18" with just over 2.2wpg and dosing flourish excel every other day...

Fish:
3 x Bolivian Rams,
10 x Cardinal Tetra,
8 x Angels (I know thats too many will trade them back in when either they pair off or get too big)
soon to come 6-8 hatchets and a few otto's

Plants:
Hygrophila polysperma 'Rosanervig' Tropic Sunset,
Microsorum pteropus 'Windeløv' Lace Java Fern,
Microsorum pteropus Java Fern
Aponogeton longiplumulosus
Salvinia natans
Some sort of Crypt i think maybe willisii? not 100% sure, not overly keen on it either!

OK here are my thoughts, planning on bushing out the Tropic Sunset and trying to get a carpet of either dwarf hairgrass or a mircosword of some description. Possibly adding some java moss to the driftwood, and maybe a third Aponogeton longiplumulosus...

any suggestions, what do you think?[/i]

 

[Glenc]

Sound good to me. I used Hemianthus callitrichoides "cuba" as a foreground plant. It spreads fast and is pretty resistant to algea. Micro swords work great to, if you can get them to grow. Mine did well for a month, then started to die off. It' hit and miss. Some plants do well in your tank, some don't. Try everything you can get your hands on, pull out what dosn't grow. Tank looks great!

 

[Lonewolfblue]

I couldn't get my microsword to grow, but my dwarf hairgrass loves the ultra-high light. It's beginning to send out runners and spreading.

 

[chrism]

Lonewolfblue, what do you call ultr-high light? are you adding any CO2?

I'd be interested to know, i'm bidding on some hairgrass at the mo on ebay only £0.99 at the mo so thought i'd try it for that price! If i need to upgrade my lighting i'd consider it, if i thought i could grow hairgrass

oh and thanks Glen, i think i'll be checking out the barter n trade section as i don't know where else to get that, looks good from pics i've seen

 

[Lonewolfblue]

If you are new to planted tanks, I wouldn't recommend it right off the bat. I'm finally starting to get the hang of it, but takes a lot of work.

What I mean by ultra-high lighting, I'm talking well over 5w/g. Look at my sig. I have 390W CF over a 75G, as well as 130W actinics. It's been a roller-coaster ride for sure, but now I think I'm beginning to get things under control.

As for dwarf hairgrass, I think it would do well with just over 2w/g. But you don't want any other plants shading it. Mine's in the open, with one of my fixtures directly above it. And it's doing pretty well. I'm running 260W in the back (combination of 6400k and 12000k bulbs) and have 130W (12000k bulbs) up front for the foreground, and actinics in the middle.

 

[chrism]

wow that is ultra-high i kept it before pretty much right off the bat and it didn't do so well, started to spread a little, but was covered in algae and died pretty quick, if i win this stuff for £0.99 i'll give it a go see how it goes, wont hold my breath tho...

anyone had any good experienceses with microswords?

 

[Lonewolfblue]

As for the microswords I had, they were definite algae magnets. Couldn't keep the algae away from them, and they deteriorated. There's some algae on my hairgrass, but not a lot.