75G - Work in progress

[krisw]

After about a year of neglect, I decided to go for that "hillscape" I've always wanted to try. After a few unsuccessful attempts at creating styrofoam/silicon hills, I just loaded the tank up with lots of rock/wood, piled on the Soilmaster substrate, and got to planting. This was a couple of months ago.

Here's a picture I took last night. I might yank the anubias afzelli, and I need the utricularia graminifolia to grow in along the bottom of the hill on the left side. I also need the glosso to fill in, in the middle-front where I recently pulled out an overbearing patch of blyxa japonica, replacing it with a much smaller patch of anubias nana. I'm open to any other suggestions/comments.



Plants include: glosso, anubias barterii (reg/nana/cofifolia), ranunculus inundatus (left on hill), utricularia graminifolia (left, in front of hill), and ludwigia pantanal (trimmed short, center/back)

[Aaron]

Perhaps some medium height Crypts in the back corners to give it some height?

I really like the new scape though. It's much better than the old one.

[Ghazanfar Ghori]

If you're going for a hilly look I think you should consider removing
the larger leaved plants to allow for the scale to be more appropriate.
Glosso is pretty appropriate IMO. HC would work well too. Maybe some
E. tennelus 'micro' at the foot of the hill. Some HC filling in the rock gaps.

[krisw]

Thanks for the comments! I'm not sure I might consider adding some taller crypts to the right corner, but I'm not sure it would look good on the hill itself. I think I'm definitely going to remove the large-leafs anubias afzelli. HC and hairgrass is a good suggestion. I might try switching in some more anubias nana first, in place of some of the plain barterii. (The less stuff I have to trim/maintain frequently, the better. )

[Jeff120]

I think a group of stem plants would look good in the back left corner. Its looking good!

[Ltrepeter2000]

What are the fish you have in there?

Thanks
Rob

[krisw]

What are the fish you have in there?

I have quite the mismatch of fish in here. I have two pairs of apisto cacatuoides. 3 bolivian rams. 4-5 golden pristella tetras. 5 inlecypris auropurpureus. 1 whiptail catfish. 3 hatchetfish. 1 SAE. I'm sure I'm forgetting something else, but that's the basic ones.

[krisw]

So, I've taken some of your advice. Namely, I've tried to reduce the overall leaf size of the anubias in the middle by replacing them with anubias nana. Let me know what you think now.

[Aaron]

I like it better this way. I can't figure that Utric out. Sometimes it does awesome and other times it just sits there hanging on for life.

[krisw]

I can't figure that Utric out. Sometimes it does awesome and other times it just sits there hanging on for life.

Yeah, exactly the same here. I've planted it exactly the same all along the bottom left of the tank. About two thirds from the left, you see a nice "ball of utric" but everything to the left of that is just hanging on. I haven't a clue why the one place does well, and not the other in the same tank. Maybe more/less light in one place than the other. In the recent TAG article, the Tropica president said that it actually prefers low light until it gets used to higher light. Maybe that's the problem.