Heaviliy planted tank planting living or dead?

[Jag1980]

On a tank like pictured below, do the parts of the plant that are toward the bottom, buried beneath all the plants stay alive? I would think the light would be so blocked that what is beneath it all would die?

I don't mean the stuff in the front, I'm talking about the large plants in the back but deep inside close to the substrate.
Or is this just planted this way for show only?

http://www.pfertz.com/images/thumb_heavy_1.jpg



:frog:

[Spewn]

As long as some of the plant grows above or to the canopy, it will survive. If not *all* of the light is blocked, plants will survive. Any parts of the plant that are below the canopy and receiving no light will likely shed their leaves and appear "dead", but the plant itself is still alive.

Really, if you can't see it, does it matter? None of the plants would be totally covered because they would become pointless, so I imagine there's a lot of plants which when pulled out of that scape look half-dead. Put together, they look great.

[KarlTh]

Indeed they do drop their lower leaves. You notice this if you try to rescape and find that a 12" Bacopa only has leaves on the top four inches. Some plants are worse for this than others; Alteranthera is very keen on dropping lower leaves. Unfortunately it sometimes drops so many it can't maintain itself and the whole plant dies, so you have to not plant this too thickly. But I digress.