suggestions on plants and landscape for remodel?

[Bravofleet4]

Hi guys I would like your opinions on landscaping and plant selection for one of my tanks.

It’s a 30 gallon low-med light at 65 watts no CO2 fertilized planted tank. I’m a little unhappy with the tank so far b/c I think I made a mistake choosing to have the substrate evenly distributed to form a flat surface. Also many of the plants I have so far don’t even root into the substrate but are tied down to rocks or branches. Currently the plants that I have are anubias nana, java fern, vals, giant hygro, phillipine java fern, anacharis, crypts, and duckweed. What I want to try and do is put a carpet down and if possible replace my vals with another tall plant since I’m getting annoyed by host fast it propagates. Landscape wise I was thinking of maybe sloping the gravel and adding some rock faces? What do you guys think? I’m willing to add 15 more watts per gallon as well through another light fixture and maybe doing some DIY Co2.

 

[Arturo]

I think your tank looks great but in the end it's all up to you.

 

[fishorama]

The right side looks good but the left wood pieces are too wimpy for my taste. Maybe replace them with the rocks you mentioned.

 

[serissime]

I really like ludwigia myself (don't remember my specific species).... nice attractive red and green foresty area. For your tank, I feel like it would benefit from a large and interesting piece of wood.... Also, I have anarchris rooted in my tank instead of floating and I really like the way it looks

microsword, dwarf hairgrass, and riccia are plants I see being used as foreground/carpet. I have dwarf hairgrass and think it looks nice

this is my 10g for reference/ideas (picture was taken not too long after planting, and right after a trim. Don't know where my camera is now lol)

 

[Bravofleet4]

that is a beautiful tank serissime and you have false julii cory cats like I do!!! I will consider looking into dwarf hairgrass thank you!

 

[theredchaser]

The easiest way to go about aquascaping is to first pick your favorite object that has decent size with a unique color or shape for your focal point. I usually use a piece of rock or driftwood, but you can use a nice unique plant as well. Divide your tank's total length by 2.6 to get n, then place your object 1n away from either side. You should try to work with your fav object and accentuate it rather than cover it.

Try to cover your back wall with overlapping patches of stem plants or long plants. Its better to plant these in patches instead of rows. If you have a bare spot/side in your back, then its better to have only small or carpet plants in front of it. For example, your plants on the left side of your tank seem to have no where else to go so the overall layout becomes less coherent. Also, the floating anacharis takes away from your focal point (i.e. your rock in the right side) and makes your overall aquascape much weaker since your eyes keep wandering around randomly.

Always work from high plants to low plants, and avoid placing plants with similar color/leaf shape together. The combinations look pretty good on the right side, just remove the crypt since its blocking your focal object. I would pick the plants from the left and try to fill in the empty spaces in the right. If you're trying to emphasize your focal point by using an empty space around your rock, I would bring the phil. java fern from towards to front to emphasize a space around your rock. You also don't have any non-green plants so you might be interested in a bronze crypt. Just be careful to make it work with your driftwood pieces so that it doesn't stick out like a sore thumb and take away from your rock.

Dwarf hairgrass is an easy carpet plant that would work with the selection of plants you already have. The only downside is that if your water params go out of whack its easy to grow algae. Its close to impossible to kill though.