[Mastertech]

I'm starting my first planted tank, (lots of experience with saltwater). I have a 10 gallon, Eco complete, DIY co2, planing on supplements/ferts, and some celestial pearls. was just looking for some input/suggestions/critiques for my new tank.
If you would, please plant this tank from front to rear and side to side.
I was thinking of starting with an elatine hydropiper, moving to a marsilea minuta (or similar)' then moving to a baby tear and then some sort of rotala in the far back. What would you do?

 

[Mastertech]

Top view, can't figure out how to post many pics on one post

 

[Mastertech]

Side

 

[Sean W.]

S. Repens between the rocks
dwarf baby tears mid and forground
Alternanthera reineckii 'Mini'in the right back and a few stems in the top left

 

[OVT]

$20?


v3

 

[HUNTER]

Like the scape.

 

[Mastertech]

Thanks guy, keep em' coming, OVT? Does that mean you like?!! You like?!!

 

[Mastertech]

I a stuck on 4 plants, Monte Carlo, HC, marsilea minuta and fissidens.

 

[Bananableps]

Fill it to the top with moss balls.

 

[Mastertech]

Nice.....

 

[Bananableps]

No but really, it's a very nice looking hardscape.

I personally would avoid HC in a tank like that. Putting cuba on that hardscape would just be formulaic iwagami style. Mix it up a bit! If you made your carpet out of microsword, glosso, or hair grass, you could afford to plant stem plants which would normally create too much shade for an HC carpet to thrive. I regret planting my tank with HC because of this limitation.

Of course, none of those are incredibly original plants for a setup like this either. I like the stauragyne repens idea, but I would worry that planting such a large leaf (but totally gorgeous) plant in between those rocks would cover up the lovely formation you've constructed.

For a real original look, consider moss. There are tons of new mosses entering the hobby, and I've only seen about half of them attempted for a carpet.

 

[jcgilmore2]

Looks nice. Can't wait till this grows in

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

 

[Mastertech]

Your right, there are lots of really sweet looking mosses. Now I'm leaning toward fissidens geppi, mini pellia, rose Moss, marsilea minuta, and maybe a rotala pearl mini.

 

[Mastertech]

Ordered
2x2 dwarf baby tears
2x2 Monte Carlo
40 nodes MM.
2x2 fissidens geppi
5 stems rotala pearl mini.

 

[talontsiawd]

I know you already picked but I strongly suggest HC and HC only. Two reasons for this...first, it's a 10 gallon and it's hard to find anything better that fits the scale. Second, it's got so little space for planting that mixing it up may become problematic pretty quickly. Pair that with with the space around the rocks, or lack of it and it may become a trimming nightmare.

On a more "literal" note, it's a mountain scape, to me, so anything larger than HC has to scale to the size of a mountain. HC itself is probably to big but it's going to be the smallest besides possibly fissidens.


That said, I feel your scape is amazing and don't let my ideas get in the way of your vision. I only have one complaint about the hard scape and that is the fact it's not in a rimless tank. Amazing work, very jealous.

 

[starfire12]

I would do the dwarf baby tears all around the front, with the rotala mini behind the rocks, s repens between the rocks, fissidens geppi on some of the taller rocks. Maybe add a lighter colored sand to the right side.

 

[Mastertech]

Thanks for the input fellas, i appreciate it. I've ordered so many for a couple reasons.
First I anticipate something will not make it.
Second I'm addicted..... So it's a disease I'm battling! Lol
Third I've never really seem a scene in nature that was only one plant spread over the who area. so honestly I wanted to mix it up a little. Thinking the HC, MM, and Monte Carlo will be similarly sized. Just may need trimming. The rotala mini may stay in a shot glass until I exaluate it's scale in the tank. The other three are pretty small plants.
This is my first so I'm going to learn a lot. My next tank will be a 1980's console TV conversion. Around 35 gallons so if this gets crazy they will be transplanted soon.
Decided to do pressurized co2 also, got the aqua tech mini from amazon.

 

[Mastertech]

Planted

 

[talontsiawd]

Looks great.

 

[aquafella]

how is it now?

Planted

this was last year, how is the tank doing now? any recent pics?