Hi well I've got my 55 gallon lightly planted tank going right now, I am going to either make my 12 gallon JBJ nanocube planted, or a 10 gallon planted. In the tank I don't do planted, it will be a cherry shrimp breeding tank. I was thinking of making the 12 a breeding tank since in that tank its hard to get DIY co2 in it, and since the way the back filtration setup is, theres no way of shrimp getting sucked into the filter and dying. So Instead of having my 10 with cherry's and a sponge filter, just to use the 12. If I do the 10 gallon tank, I was thinking a CF 28watt 6700k system with legs over the 10 gallon. The tank not used for cherry shrimp breeding is going to be a Dwarf puffer tank. I was thinking dwarf hairgrass in the foreground, alot of wood in the midground/background and giant hairgrass as the background. I am thinking of painting the back of the tank black and useing a bag of eco-complete as the subtrate. If the hairgrasses won't grow in the eco-complete, I will do Echinodorus tenellus as the foreground and some type of thick green plant as the background. Any thoughts or ideas? Oh also if the 10 is done planted, I'll have a filter that won't create alot of sufrace aggrigation and that will diffuse the DIY co2. Thanks all and tell me what you would do!

Definitely dwarf hairgrass for the foreground. I tried E. tenelus in my 10gl before. The wild grass look doesn't help creating the depth of the small tank. The fine grass on D. hairgrass really makes your tank looks bigger. I've never grown giant HG though. D.hairgrass can grow fine with E. complete.

Sweet then I will try the dwarf hairgrass. I also have some flourish I can add everynow and then to help some. The thing is, just trying to find giant hairgrass. Do you think it will cover up the background completely? If so then I wont try the x-mas moss wall. thanks.

I'm not really sure. I heard Giant hairgrass gets really tall fast. I've never had them. Another thing is that you need to place some border on how far you want your grass to spread or they'll take over the tank. This is very important in a small tank or you don't have space for anything else. I use hard plastic strips and sticked them into the substrate in my 10gl. I use Wisteria and rotala to cover the whole background completely. But I doubt you could use Rotala if you only use 28watt bulb. In a 10gl, the light spread is really an issue. The back of the tank is usually darker than the front somehow. I use 2x36 PC on it (I know , but this is actually a downgrade. Before it was closer to 9wpg).

hmm.....I am useing wisteria in my 55 as the background plant as you might remember. Do you think jungle val would be to much for this tiny tank?

No way in 10gl you can use vals. The weird thing with this small tank is once you have something blocking the light, the whole tank looks dark. Take a look here (this tank is under re-aquascaping now):
http://www.msnusers.com/webnino/shoebox.msnw?Page=1

The first pic. was under more intense lighting but looks darker than the second one (9wpg vs 7wpg).

The regular hairgrass grows pretty tall and you'll have to trim it if you want to fit it inside a 10-gallon. The same goes for jungle val, it gets to be too big for such a small tank (plus the runners it shoots out is a pain to remove if you have dwarf hairgrass mixed in...). I would leave both of them out, but that's just me.

BTW, nino, that's a nice tank that you have there. That hairgrass is doing a lot for that aquascape. The reason why the 1st picture looks less bright than the second is due to the composition of the plants (also, the difference between 2wpg isn't that noticeable to begin with, at such intensities).

Thanks. The tank is under major overhaul right now But that's the point I was trying to make. plants choice and arrangements make a huge difference in a small tank. I'm a very bad aquascaper myself. I always move plants around instead of planning things in the beginning

cool tank. I'm thinking of breeding excotic finches instead of buying the nice lights for my 55, so i was just thinking of getting some wood from outside, soaking it and stuff, and getting a hairgrass field going (that would be the only plant) and have some wood stickin out of it like an amano style tank. Also it will just be in my 12 since it has some decent lights and is already ready to go and everything. I'm also skipin out on breeding cherry shrimp. All I have to do for my 12 now is get a bag of flourite, 6500k bulb and some dwarf hairgrass. Kool. also the tank will have like 10 neons