1st Annual World Rescape Collective (starting 2/25/07)

Ok, so for those that know me this will be no suprise, for those that don't:

I want to rescape my 20 gal, I am VERY open to ideas hence the thread. I have many plants and pieces of driftwood to chose from and am willing to purchuse items I don't have.

Currant pic of 20 gal I want to rescape




Tank - 20 US Gal 24 X 12 X 16
Lighting - Jebo 2 X 55 watt 10000k bulbs (5.5wpg)
CO2 - Nutrafin ladder and canister (pinned mixture 25-30 bubbles per min) - changed weekly
ferts - Seachum forlish - recommend dose 2 x weekly, root tabs 1 time per month
Substate - 2" sand over 1" gravel
Filter - Whisper 20 with Fuval cermaoc media
Heater - 150 wall topfin

I do weekly water changes of 20 - 30 %

I also have a 55 gal which has the plants from this list which arn't shown in currant 20 gal set up

Plants ( these are what I have currently between both tanks)

20 X - Hygrophila difformis (water wistera) 15â€￾ - 25â€￾
6 bunches X - Microsorium pteroptus (java fern) 5â€￾ attached to driftwood
1 square foot X - Vesicularia dubyana (java moss) attached to driftwood
1 X - Anubias Nana attached to driftwood
2 X - Anubias barteri v Caladiifolia attached to driftwood
3 X - Ammannia gracilis 15â€￾
4 X - Alternanthera reineckii (2) 14â€￾ (2) 5â€￾
15 X - Myriophyllum matogrossensis 15â€￾
1 X - Cryptocoryne wendtii
5 X - Crinum thaianum (Onion Plant) 27â€￾
1 X - Echinodorus bleheri (Amazon Sword Plant) 17â€￾

8 X Driftwood - (2) large stumps (4) Med straight (3) twigs – All twigs and med straight pieces have Microsorium pteroptus and Vesicularia dubyana attached.


Ok so here is the fun part. I want to gather as many ideas as ppl have as to what plants should be in this tank (including buying some) to create a great scape. I am extememly tried of the Hygrophila difformis in this tank as it frows so qickly that it rarely looks good for more then a week then it takes over. I have been really toying with the idea of a ground cover, but am open to ideas. No idea is to small and all plants in question are very healtly. As the suggestions get posted and veted I will use photoshop to the best of my abilty to implant the ideas into a photo for clarification and comments.

I NEED the worlds help here, lets have some fun...................

I will use this thread for all updates incluing the finished product when we get there. Just think oh masters out there he is a chance to make the 1st ever TFF collective aquascape, our opitions are WIDE open.

15 views and no advice, c'mon ppl lets change this tank together

Well.. I'm no expert but maybe you could take out the plants in front of teh driftwood and put some moss on the front of teh drifwood and make it kind of like a cliff face with maybe some small leafed carpeting plants.

Looks good already! I would maybe add some floating plants and scatter some small pieces of gravel over the sand.

timmystood said:

Looks good already! I would maybe add some floating plants and scatter some small pieces of gravel over the sand.

Click to expand...

The only problem with floating plants is they tend to cut down the light in the tank, and with such a small tank that could be bad for some of the other plants becuase they need high light.

If I would to do, I would change some of the plants. I would remove the plant in the middle (red-leaf), and replace with some short plants there or may be a red tiger lotus.

I would trim the plants at the back and may be replace some with vallis.

Just my slight idea.

Hey,

V impressed with your tank, I have just started a planted tank

I am a Newb, to aquascaping but have a art and design backround,

When i look at your tanks current compostion my eyes are immediately drawn to the central large reddish plant focal point,

And from their my eyes are led by the assosiation with red plant in the bottom right corner and the path of the wood, and then the rocks back to the central plant, again, my eyes keep making this path (see area 1),

Hence i spend no time looking at area 2,

This may just be because i have completed a lot of poster work in the past. Others may not agree...

But by moving the either the large plant to the left or the small red plant perhaps more central or further back, you could make more use of area 2.

See attatched image to see what i mean!

Good luck with the rescape, as others have said already looks great, you have a fantastic start for a rescape v jelouse!

So what if I mpved the tall red plant (Alternanthera reineckii) to the back of "section 2" replacing the Hygrophila difformis. Then I could look into replaceing the other large section of Hygrophila difformis in section 1 with val's of some sort.

I will see if I can throw together a PS of that idea tonight when I get home from work

If you are short of ideas for the tank, have a look at the 2006 AGA contest page, there are lots of amazing tanks on there so something is sure to take your fancy. The trouble with giving advice on layouts is that first off everyone has a different opinion (quite rightly) and that your asking for some very wide ranging advice. Its better to ask specific questions about the tank, for example 'would plant x or y be better in location z?' I could quite easily tell you want I would do with the tank but that's no fun and its not my tank so I you're the one that's going to have to look at it everyday.

Sam

Themuleous said:

If you are short of ideas for the tank, have a look at the 2006 AGA contest page, there are lots of amazing tanks on there so something is sure to take your fancy. The trouble with giving advice on layouts is that first off everyone has a different opinion (quite rightly) and that your asking for some very wide ranging advice. Its better to ask specific questions about the tank, for example 'would plant x or y be better in location z?' I could quite easily tell you want I would do with the tank but that's no fun and its not my tank so I you're the one that's going to have to look at it everyday.

Sam

Click to expand...

Sam's suggestion of looking at contest entries is great. Another thing to try is to check out some of the 20g journals here. You've got a 20g high, same as Sam and I, and some others here as well. It's a popular tank size.

Another way to freshen up a scape is to use plants in untraditional ways. For example. You're tired of H. difformis, but did you know that if you plant the stems horizontally, in your substrate, H. difformis would become an extremely cool foreground plant? It would require pinching to keep the height small, and to encourage horizontal growth and smaller leaves. You can't beat the leaf shape, it creates a fern-like effect, like ferns on the forest floor, which may work well with your wood pieces.

Another thing to consider is a slope of the same plant species, but vary the size quite a bit. This creates a very textured look to the tank, and can look very lovely. A. reineckii and H. difformis are excellent plants to try this "sloping" effect with.

A final suggestion is to perhaps group your anubias. A larger cluster of these plants, can often create a good focal point. Something to consider for where the tall A. reineckii is now. The dark green of the anubias will contrast with the light green of the H. difformis should you adopt this as a foreground.

Ultimately, it's up to you. Do you want a more structured tank, or a more casual look?

llj

I see what both of you masters are saying. And ultamitely you are both right and I will need to decide what i will do with the tank. However I was more doing this to get ideas, and to vet through some of them getting a discussion going. I have already seen some good ideas, but I want to take a little more time to think about these changes (like the hd vertical WHO KNEW?) great idea. So if for nothing else hummer me and tell me what you would do in YOUR tank.

Here are my thoughts if it was my tank.

It is 20 USG which means it is a small tank. To give a sense of scale that makes the tank appear larger I would concentrate on small leafed stem plants. Something like Rotala Rotundifolia at the back alongside Ludwigia Arcuata. Both of these blush an orangey red when they near the water`s surface.

The midground could possibly consist of shorter stems of Rotala that would remain 100% green if it is pruned shorter than the background. Wooden branches and twigs would be interspersed in this area, with one or two branches at substrate level reaching in to the foreground. Didiplis Diandra would be an alternative, but is a slightly more difficult plant to grow.

The foreground would be Hemianthus Callitrichoides.

Animals would be several Amano Shrimp, a small group of Otos and a shoal of Microrasbora.

Cheers, Dave.

A Question about planting H. difformis stems horizontally, How do you keep it growing like that and not just growing verticaly.

Maybe some of you masters can now help me out with the H. difformis issue. IT GROWS TO DAMN FAST


Look at the pic in the begining of this thread that was Sunday 2/25/07, here we are 3 days later and look



The light is having a hard time even getting through the darn stuff.

It needs to go, I was considering putting it on it's side and maybe I will in my other tank but this stuff NEEDS to be replaced. I am going to move the Alternanthera reineckii (tall stems) to the back left corner behind the driftwood, and I will trim the yellow plant( I don't remember the name right now) but what is a semi-tall slow growing background plant that can behind the other driftwood on the right side of the tank

And if anyone wants to TRADE for a heap of H. difformis I would love that

iroc said:

A Question about planting H. difformis stems horizontally, How do you keep it growing like that and not just growing verticaly.

Click to expand...

Like most plants, you pinch the tops of the stems. This encourages branchier, smaller growth that stays closer to the ground. Too bad you're getting rid of it, it would be an interesting thing to try.

llj