GC11's 29-Gallon South American Invasion (56K)

The DIY reactor is hideous, I agree. I think it looks like a gun or an underwater torpedo LOL. I actually removed the powerhead (since it was SOOOO darn ugly) and now just have the gravel vacuum head helping the air line float at an angle so I get a better release of CO2. It's so weird to watch - little tiny tiny bubbles come up less than every second. And if you shake the producer bottle, it's just like an air stone (really heavy stream). I plan to get a CO2 ladder at some point. I might get a canister filter if I can find a cheap one.

Yes, I do need a background. Haven't gotten around to purchasing one. I'm used to making them out of paper for my smaller tanks, so the whole pasting process of vinyl backgrounds baffles me. I heard you can use vinegar and then you press any air bubbles out with a credit card?

The plants have quite a rough past. I got them when I thought I'd make a DIY CO2 system, which ended up being put off for about 3 months... BSA took over the leaves. When I replanted, I actually could peel a "leaf" off the leaves of BSA. Disgusting? You bet! If they don't grow within a month or two, I might get new plants. Just wanna see how it goes. I dose once a month with Tetra FloraGro. What do you think about dosing with Flourish Excel?

But why would I need more light? I have about 2.5 watts per gallon. I thought that was a good, average amount for growing a nice number of plants?

I was going for a trailing/optical center kinda technique with the hard scape. The piece on the far left (which is carved stone) was the cheapest root-like driftwood I could find. Under all the aging it's a beautiful orangy color with dark brown splashes. What plants do you think I should add? I was thinking about some stargrass to put behind the little sword in the left front. I know it grows big, so I was thinking of trimming it to eventually plant around the left driftwood to making it look like the plants were sloping to engulf it, just like a root sloping into the water.

I agree it needs more plants, but once those swords start taking off, they will stuff a 29gl to the max if you let them. Some of those plants look to be on their last leg, forum members here send out high quality plants usually in large quantities, look for "trim time" threads in the swap and shop. You have plenty of light, all you need now is pressurized CO2 to get the most out of your light.

I have to admire any S.American tank, I do the same given the parameters of my local water, now using reconstituted RO/DI. Some of your plants aren't S.American as pointed out, but I think you know that. I've reached a point where there are certain non region specific plants I will use as an exception, purely based on my own aesthetic reasoning, like Val nana rather than V.americana, it's more pleasing to my eye and a tank with any type of val is going to look S.American if the rest of the theme is there. In all actuality, if our SA tanks were true to most of the Amazon biotopes, we'd have an ugly tank full of mud and dead leaves with a few sticks laying around.