6gal flame moss tree tank

[chubky]

I was talking about aquascaping at work and one of my co-workers mentioned that he had a small tank laying around in his garage and offered to bring it in so I could have a tank at work. I ended up trying to grow a moss tree.

Here is what I have in there now:
- ADA amazonia substrate
- Dwarf hair grass
- Marsilea quadrifolia (four leaf clovers)
- Flame Moss

I now kind of wish I went with Christmas moss since it spreads better rather than upwards, but I'm still excited to see how this turns out.

I tried to choose low light plants and hopefully low maintenance (PLEASE correct me if I'm mistaken). I heard the Clover grow extremely slow, so I thought it would be a good choice since I won't need to trim it or anything.

I wanted to only have the hairgrass only on the back left corner of the tank near the base of the DW, but decided that I'd just let the hairgrass grow where it wanted to so I didn't put in barriers under the substrate. The gal at the LFS said it could survive in low lighted and that it just wont carpet as quickly, we'll see what happens.

I did have some issues when putting the tank together. Other than trying to plant the Clovers under the tree, when I started to fill the tank with water, I for some reason watered the moss and it got top heavy and tipped over. I just had the DW tied to a rock and buried it under the substrate. I read about hardscapes collapsing without supports, but some reason totally overlooked it. Anyways, I ended up having to move my rocks around and put one over the base rock to add a little more weight. Hopefully this will be enough.

I'll be injecting the tank with excel and the Flourish macro ferts.

The questions I have are:
- Does what I have seem like it will be ok in the low light?
- Is there a chance that the DW will tip over?
- Is there anything else that I can do to help my plants strive under these conditions? (remember it's at work)
- Will root tablets help my Clovers and hairgrass?
- The flame moss already attached to some netting, will it still be able to attach to the DW?
- This maybe a dumb question, but will the flame moss only grow upwards? I wasn't able to completely cover the DW and was hoping it might spread a little bit over time to cover up the areas that aren't covered yet.

Hope you guys like it. Comments and suggestions would be appreciated





I got lucky, the flame moss came on metal plates with netting, so it wasn't too bad filling in the gap.

[chubky]

I also need something to cover the back, any suggestions?

[PeterN1986]

You might have been best off dry starting this tank instead of flooding it right away. I just started that for the 5.5g on my desk at work (see journal in my sig). What light do you have? I'm also going low tech on mine, going to dose Excel and dry ferts like you are. I have some root tabs that I plan on pushing into my substrate once the roots get a little deeper, so adding them doesn't hurt.

An all-white background might be good, or all-black, depends on the look you want. I'm probably going to go all-white on mine.

[chubky]

Originally Posted by PeterN1986

You might have been best off dry starting this tank instead of flooding it right away. I just started that for the 5.5g on my desk at work (see journal in my sig). What light do you have? I'm also going low tech on mine, going to dose Excel and dry ferts like you are. I have some root tabs that I plan on pushing into my substrate once the roots get a little deeper, so adding them doesn't hurt.

An all-white background might be good, or all-black, depends on the look you want. I'm probably going to go all-white on mine.

I think I might go with baby blue or a light color, but we'll see. I saw a tank the other day with a baby blue background and I liked it a lot.

I'm not that familiar with dry starts, but looking at your thread, it seems like it would have been a good idea..sigh..things are growing soooo slow. Your tank looks awesome, I'm interested to see how it turns outs. I have some extra root tabs, I'll add them this weekend when I do my water change. I'll be dosing with Excel as well and have been adding liquid ferts. My tank should be done cycling within a week or two, so at least I can add some fish soon.

I have a 10" T5 bulb that came with the tank and added a TrueLumen 10 Inch 4 x 12,000K Aquatic LED Strip. With the two lights it still seems pretty dim, do you think that'll be enough light? I'm not too thrilled about my lighting situation, both the T5 and LED add a lot of heat. I actually unplugged the heater in the tank to cool it down. Do you have any lighting suggestions?

Man, I totally wish that guy brought in a glass tank. This plastic is scratched and makes my water look like its cloudy