Plant Ideas?

[alexyay]

What would be best suited to these tanks?

1. 70L Blue planet tall, 20W bulb, community with 3x bristlenoses, 6x black neon tetras and a male siamese fighter, using flourish excel and Flourish, I'd like some plants nearer to the back corners that fill up a fair amount of space (so a bit "wider" than the current plants) - currently I have

1. Polysperma

2. Ambulia

3. Dwarf Babytears

4. Dwarf Hairgrass (temporary until I get my 31L set up?)

5. ? (leaves are longer, thinner and there's a lot less of them than number 1, so I don't think it's polysperma?)

6. ? (the stems on this plant keep on rotting away? The rest of it is healthy but the stems die, help!)

7. Sword (?)

8. Rosanervig

9. Anubias (?)

+ duckweed (please excuse any plant matter on the top, I need to clean it out)

I was thinking the rosanervig would be temporary until I set up the 31L, but I'm not too sure how it'll fit in

2. 31L, T5-high output (2x 39W bulbs), to be a dwarf puffer tank. (Driftwood yet to be put in)

(that glass is a lot dirtier than I thought, sorry!)

1. Would you recommend microswords or dwarf hairgrass? I'm looking for a lot of space for them to hide in, but I'd rather a more grassy look than the dbts. Or perhaps one type down the front and another on the "hills"?

2. Would it be possible for me to "moss" up the rock on the back? It's vertical and relatively smooth, but would the moss take hold? And what moss type would you recommend?

3. I'm planning on moving the sword (?) from the 70L to that tank, or would perhaps a crypt look better?

4. Again, I'd like something to really fill up that corner, something reasonably large with large leaves like what I want for the 70L - I'm just not really sure what to look for?

I'd rather a more "clumped" forresty look than the stem plants are giving me in the 70L (other than the ambulia which I'm not planning on putting in the 31L because I hate the stuff).

(Oh dear, sorry for that wall of text)

Also, a quick little "what am I?" - I found this growing, it's really thin (so you can't see it in the above picture) -

[SamH]

I'll start with the BP 70L. Whatever is growing well in there now, I'd keep. If you want something to fill the back then I'd go with Ambulia but seeing as you hate it maybe go with polysperma, I assume you know how to trim the plants and replant the cuttings? Then polysperma transitioning from the back to the mid ground with glosso in the foreground. I'd cover that wood in moss and tilt it so it goes from the centre front to one of the back corners.

The 31L, 2x 39w of T5HO lighting on such a small tank is going to be insane, even if you do run CO2 and ferts on it. Also, aren't 39W T5HO tubes 3ft long?! I'm hoping you made an error here or else there's a big issue. The hardscape in this tank lends itself to an iwagumi scape at the moment, I feel that adding too many plants and driftwood would ruin that but it seems you've got another look in mind. That front rock will take away from planting space and get lost so you'd may as well take it out. You need to think about what it'll look like when it's all grown in, a forest would hide that rear rock so a change of hardscape seems to be in order here. You could always make that sword your focal point, hairgrass in front of it and stems behind.

No idea what that mystery plant is sorry.

[alexyay]

Would there be any broader leafed plants that might work?

And yeah, it's 3ft - I'm planning on doing a series of two/three small tanks, and it was cheaper to get a long HO lamp rather than multiple small HO lights (or at least that was recommended to me)

Yeah, I like that kind of scape but I need plants/cover for the fish. The rock is to kind of establish the background from the foreground and holds up the hills in the back, but if it doesn't look right I'll remove it. I'll look into removing the rear rock. Thank you - I'm totally new to aquascaping so I'm not too sure what I'm doing sometimes. (I really want to keep that driftwood piece, though)

[SamH]

Would there be any broader leafed plants that might work?

For the background?

A sketch of what you want might be useful here.

[alexyay]

Ah, ignore that. I think I was thinking of larger swords but I'm mostly just trying to make those back corners look a bit more foresty and full - I'm not really sure how to achieve that - even when the plants populate the area it still looks kinda empty? This is what I'm going for in the corners

http://www.aquascapingworld.com/threads ... capes.281/ (sorry I couldn't cope the photo on my phone - it's the first image)

[SamH]

So you're after a large variety of bushy, healthy stems in the background? Those dutch tanks use high lighting, an intensive fert regime and of course additional CO2. It takes a fair bit of effort and money to go down that road.

[blueether]

That thin 'plant' look like a Nitella sp. and is not a plant but an algae.

[alexyay]

Yep, pretty much. I'd like to get higher lighting but with the blue planet fitting I don't have much in the way of options :c I'd love to get a 100L in place of it but I'm not really sure how to go about moving fish/keeping them elsewhere while setup & cycling.

Nitella looks right, thanks! Not sure what my plan of action is then (whether I remove it or leave it)

Also, any preferences on mosses? Riccia, christmas, java?