mellowvision
Seafood Lover
looks like you've done a good job of presoaking, and got some pretty clean cork... hopefully that allows for slower, more steady leeching down the line. I used 2 or 3 times as much cork in my 20 gallon tank, and had a fair amount of tint to the water, even a year later. Waste water from that tank is still a little less clear than from other tanks, although there's really no tint to the tank itself.
For a viney, trailing plant to climb, you might try some HM. I've never used it this way, but think it may work well, if you just tuck 1" pieces of it in cracks and crevices, and let it settle on it's own. It has short roots that don't seem to hold too well in sand, which makes me wonder if it would prefer to grip something more firm. It roots into the tops of the cork structures in my 20... just never gave it reason to climb.
You should also have great luck with moss. If you can avoid java moss from the get go, and gets something a little lusher, you'll be much happier down the road. But once you get java moss in a tank, it's pretty much impossible to remove, and it will out grow nicer mosses in a low light tank.
For a viney, trailing plant to climb, you might try some HM. I've never used it this way, but think it may work well, if you just tuck 1" pieces of it in cracks and crevices, and let it settle on it's own. It has short roots that don't seem to hold too well in sand, which makes me wonder if it would prefer to grip something more firm. It roots into the tops of the cork structures in my 20... just never gave it reason to climb.
You should also have great luck with moss. If you can avoid java moss from the get go, and gets something a little lusher, you'll be much happier down the road. But once you get java moss in a tank, it's pretty much impossible to remove, and it will out grow nicer mosses in a low light tank.
