Thoughts, opinions, and advice needed

[Anomaly]

My wife and I are considering entering our 20g long planted tank in the upcoming AGA contest. We have a few months before the entry deadline to allow everything to grow in a bit more .

Here is our tank now:

[Only Registered Users Can See Links.]

Of course, the filter intake pipes will be removed before the final photos are taken for entry. Aside from that, I'd love to hear any opinions, thoughts, or advice regarding the tank and how to make it better. Thanks!

Jason

[mac]

My wife and I are considering entering our 20g long planted tank in the upcoming AGA contest. We have a few months before the entry deadline to allow everything to grow in a bit more .

Here is our tank now:

[Only Registered Users Can See Links.]

Of course, the filter intake pipes will be removed before the final photos are taken for entry. Aside from that, I'd love to hear any opinions, thoughts, or advice regarding the tank and how to make it better. Thanks!

Jason

Great looking tank. IMO I would try and get a black background. Fits better IMO and IME. As for the plants it looks great. Thought I would add a few fine leaved plants to it, just to give more definition. What I mean is tall fine leaved plants of similar color to what you have already [red]. Then it would look great. Just filling it out in other words.

Another thing maybe a few more pecies Java Fern on the logs, or a mixture of Fern and Moss.

Good luck,

mac

[Sarkazmo]

Sweet tank. Yeah, I think I'd go for a black BG as well. Experiment, see how it looks. That hair grass is really nice, what did you do to get it to spread out so much? Did you start with 100 hair grass clumps or what? Good luck in the contest!

Sark

[rich311k]

Very nice tank I think you need to trim the stems to get them to fill in. I would add a couple of mid size plants in front of them to add more depth.

[Anomaly]

Thanks for the advice and compliments Mac and Sarkazmo! thumbs2: My wife and I debated quite a bit whether to go with black, blue, or white before deciding to try blue. Might give black a go and see how it looks since it would be easy enough to just flip the background around.

That hair grass is really nice, what did you do to get it to spread out so much? Did you start with 100 hair grass clumps or what? Good luck in the contest!

Exactly . . . probably more than 100 clumps of hair grass . . . planting that hair grass was a very time consuming and back-breaking project, but we're quite pleased with how it turned out. Thanks again!

[Anomaly]

Very nice tank I think you need to trim the stems to get them to fill in. I would add a couple of mid size plants in front of them to add more depth.

Good points! Thanks much!

[mac]

IMO a few plants like Red Cabomba, and Yellow Cobomba. Other than that
a few medium type plants for the mid foreground, like Cryptocoryne undulata, would suit great, and fill out and spread out great.

mac

[Anomaly]

IMO a few plants like Red Cabomba, and Yellow Cobomba. Other than that
a few medium type plants for the mid foreground, like Cryptocoryne undulata, would suit great, and fill out and spread out great.

mac

Thanks for those suggestions, mac! :22:

[Red]

LOL, I would give you suggestions, but you wouldn't want to listen to me! If you want to stock it, and need suggestions, then I could help :) But awesome tank!

[Anomaly]

LOL, I would give you suggestions, but you wouldn't want to listen to me! If you want to stock it, and need suggestions, then I could help :) But awesome tank!

Thanks for the compliments, Sev! :ssmile:

[Red]

I want to add, this is one of my fav tank setups I have ever seen on AC, no lie.

[Anomaly]

I want to add, this is one of my fav tank setups I have ever seen on AC, no lie.

Wow . . . I don't know what to say. That means a lot, Sev. Thank you very much! :shappy:

[NanoTankGuy]

Here is our tank now:


Other than getting an underwater lawn mower ;) nothing to add - impressive lawn, though, seriously, great job :)

[Anomaly]

Other than getting an underwater lawn mower ;) nothing to add - impressive lawn, though, seriously, great job :)

LOL, yeah, that hair grass can grow pretty quick when under the right conditions. I'm really pleased with how it looks at the moment, but I'll be curious to see how tall it gets before it needs a trim. Thank you very much for your compliments! :22:

[MonkeyPox]

Very nice looking setup. Love those scarlets.

[mac]

IME the hairy grass grows quite fast. And tall very fast.

As for trimming it, the best way is to make sure you don't do it like a lawn. Looks far from natural. Try to make it a bit staggered. Well that is IMO.

Good luck,
mac

[Anomaly]

IME the hairy grass grows quite fast. And tall very fast.

As for trimming it, the best way is to make sure you don't do it like a lawn. Looks far from natural. Try to make it a bit staggered. Well that is IMO.

Good luck,
mac

Awesome! Thanks for the great advice. I just finished trimming the bottoms off most of the scarlet temple and replanting the tops. Hopefully, it'll grow in more full than it was when I bought it. Thanks again!

[Fishesses]

Nice grass.

Did you get the hair grass as a pot or more as singular grass plants? I mean, did you have to pull it apart from a 2" pot worth?

We got ours in a 2" slotted pot and it was grown in some sort of cotton like fabric medium. I tried pulling out individual grass plants but, that wasn't working. Just tearing it all up. Wound up sort of teasing apart the medium some and planting it like that. It's a clump.

Also, does yours have little seed head looking oval pods at the ends of the grass blades? We got our Dwarf Hair Grass (Eleocharis acicularis) from aquarium plants . com and it has little seed head looking oval pods at the ends of the grass blades. I see many pictures of it online that do not.

[Anomaly]

Very nice looking setup. Love those scarlets.

Thanks MonkeyPox! :-)

Fishesses,

Thanks! Yes, we bought 7 2" pots of dwarf hairgrass and ended up planting 5 of them. As a sidenote, we started the hairgrass off emersed in a terrarium-like setup to allow the root system to become established before flooding the tank. I can only imagine what a headache it would be to plant bunches and blades of hairgrass with the tank full of water. It can be done but not easily.

We set up a couple of water bowls and then removed the rock wool containing the hairgrass from the pots. We let them soak for a bit in water, which helped loosen up the wool. You have to be very gentle removing the wool as to not damage the roots too much. I basically just broke the wool up the best I could and worked it off around the roots very carefully. It's nearly impossible to not damage the roots some doing this, but as long as part of the roots are there, you're in good shape.

Using tweezers, we planted in small bunches about an inch apart. Preferrably, one should plant each individual blade seperately, but that would be a nightmare! We tried to limit the size of our bunches to about 10 - 20 blades of grass at the very most.

After we had all the bunches planted, we trimmed the grass down to about 1/2 inch above the substrate. Planting in seperate bunches and trimming promotes the hairgrass to develop a good root system and send out runners.

The little pods on your hairgrass indicate that it was grown emersed. That's the case with almost all purchased hairgrass including ours. That was another reason we decided to go with the emersed terrarium-like setup first so the hairgrass wouldn't have to try and transition to its submersed form while trying to develop a good root system.

Hope that helps!

[Sarkazmo]

That's great info on the DHG. Thanks a lot!

Sark

[rookie]

wow that is incredible i love it. i have been trying to think of a plant scheme for my 50g that i am getting next month. love the grass mabe i will try to do that myself. good luck thumbs2:

[Demi ^_^]

Lovely tank. I lack the genes needed for planted tanks :hmm3grin2orange: :hmm3grin2orange: :hmm3grin2orange:

[Anomaly]

Lovely tank. I lack the genes needed for planted tanks :hmm3grin2orange: :hmm3grin2orange: :hmm3grin2orange:

You're welcome, Sark, and thanks rookie and Demi!:ssmile:

[Fishesses]

Tanks a lot. :22:

So that's rock wool. Heard of it. Never saw it though. Rock wool is
a man made fiber made from molten rock, sand and/or chalk. It used as a plant growing medium and as insulation in buildings.

[Anomaly]

Tanks a lot. :22:

So that's rock wool. Heard of it. Never saw it though. Rock wool is
a man made fiber made from molten rock, sand and/or chalk. It used as a plant growing medium and as insulation in buildings.

You're welcome! Wow . . . that's something I didn't know about rock wool. I just knew what it was called, had no idea how it was made. I guess the "rock" part of it should've been a give-a-way, eh? LOL Thanks for the info!thumbs2: