Random Planting Strategy..

As the title says really. I have changed the substrate a number of different plants, and once i figure out what works and looks ok, i guess i can rip out the rest and add some more of the good ones..

Here is one blurry picture from a camera phone.



Anyone else use any kind of strategy...



Squid

Yip, i did.

I didn't plan my plant stocking, i just went to the LFS (who stocks Tropica, lucky me) and picked a few plants that i liked. Multiply that by about 3 - 4 months worth of visits and now it looks like this.

I pretty much did the same random planting,bought a load from greenline & on my latest one I nipped up to the lfs and just picked out the best looking(some of their plants were awful, rotting and everything), knew they were fast / easy to grow and I'm gonna take it from there.

I'll probably swap things around a bit as I've done the same with all my tanks really, just stuck anything in to grow until I figure out what I like / what I can grow well, I do really like hygro siamensis & straight vallis, I have elodea in a few tanks, I hate that plant but it's staying until I buy / grow some replacements. Pics / vid of my tanks can be found on my new journal

Backtotropical.. seems to have worked nicely for you.

Azaezl.. im off to look at the journal ( i used greenline as well)

EDIT: looking good azaezl, my favourite is the little hex tank - looks healthy and lush green too.

Cheers
Squid

Yep on my tank I didnt have a clue what most of the stuff grew like. I tried to go by the distiptions I found of each plant but ended up with some background plants in the front and some plants that where just way to big for the tank. The end result is a tank with quite a lot of very healthy plants but not real aquascaping to speak of

My goal for this tank though was always just to learn about planted tanks. My next one will be put together with the finished landscape in mind.

xxBarneyxx said:

Yep on my tank I didnt have a clue what most of the stuff grew like. I tried to go by the distiptions I found of each plant but ended up with some background plants in the front and some plants that where just way to big for the tank. The end result is a tank with quite a lot of very healthy plants but not real aquascaping to speak of

My goal for this tank though was always just to learn about planted tanks. My next one will be put together with the finished landscape in mind.

Click to expand...

agree with that!

One of the hardest things i found when ordering plants online is to know how many of each to order. But now i have ordered a variety, it makes it easier the next time I order. I wish i had ordered more dwarf sags, these look nice in the dark substrate.

BTW... i have been keeping an eye on your orca tank. I saw them for sale at one of my local LFS, and was interested to see if it is any good. Seems like a good value little bit of kit.

Squid

Squid said:

Azaezl.. im off to look at the journal ( i used greenline as well)

EDIT: looking good azaezl, my favourite is the little hex tank - looks healthy and lush green too.

Cheers
Squid

Click to expand...

Thanks, looks healthy at the moment because it's so new, I'm hoping this time to keep it looking healthy, the other tanks are just thrown together, I'm not doing it seriously with them as they are all being moved around in a few weeks when I get my new tanks in...then the serious planting, E.I etc will begin

xxBarneyxx said:

My goal for this tank though was always just to learn about planted tanks. My next one will be put together with the finished landscape in mind.

Click to expand...

Same here, I'm very new to planting and just want to get a feel for it all, when I first read about E.I I was very confused, it sounded so complicated but I guess it's like anything else, you gotta learn / practice it to fully understand it. A bit like html / php..when I first started messing about with all that I hadn't a clue and it seemed so complicated and made me cry lol but now it's a breeze..well most of the time anyway

I said species of plants in the title.. err.. that's not right is it? doh

The orca tank is nice but the main reason I got it was because it was the only tank I could find to fit into the little bit of space I had for it

Its not bad but the skimmer has issues (loud pump which doesnt provide enough water cirulation and you have to modifiy the back panels to stop loads of microbubbles going into the tank). The LED moonlights on myine are tempromental (sometimes they work, sometimes they dont and sometimes they just randomly turn on and off) and the cooling fans are loud.

All that being said though it looks very nice and does the trick. I'm going to cut out all the back panels in mine at some point and put a submersible light and macro algae in there (and a better skimmer if I can find one that fits).

i started the same way, but quickly learned i need a better light. I've had good luck with wysteria, corkscrew vilaria, ludwigia, java fern and of course hornwart but i've taken most of that out.