The Substrate

This is a 2 liter bag of Power Sand for use as the base of the substrate.

This is a 9 liter bag of Aqua Soil "Amazonia" for use as the main substrate.

The Hardscape

This piece of driftwood was buried deep at the bottom of the bin at Aqua-Meister, a local ADA retail store near my house. Not to sound sappy, but it was love at first sight!

From the left.

From the right.

This is the backside.

This is the backside from the left.

This is the backside from the right.

This is how I plan to set the driftwood in my tank.

Right-side angle.

Full frontal.

The Set-Up

After some advice from members of the New England Aquatic Plant Society, I cut off a piece of the front left leg in order to tilt the driftwood forward. It was a small change, but it gives the piece a dynamic sense of movement. Thank you to NEAPS!

Here's the tank right before planting.

The equipment is all set-up. In the picture, from left to right, you can see the glass check valve, bubble counter and diffuser.

Here I've added Bacter 100, Super Clear and Tourmaline. The directions in English are contradictory. In one set of instructions, ADA tells you to put the additives on the bare bottom of the tank. In another set of instructions, they tell you to put it on top of the Power Sand. So I split the difference and did both.

Here I've added one 2 liter bag of Power Sand and some more Bacter 100, Super Clear and Tourmaline.

Here I am setting the dirftwood.

I added roughly 1/3 of a 9 liter bag of Amazonia.

Another angle. The driftwood is pushed as far back and to the right as possible.

Side angle. The substrate has been graded about 8 cm in the back to 4 cm in the front.

Here's the end result. I wish I had taken more pictures of the planting process, but I was too excited. I went to two LFS and they actually didn't have a great selection. I bought want I could, but wanted probably twice as much plant material. I'm not keen on the rotala (?) in the back left corner, but I felt that I needed some stem plants to help during the cycling of the tank. I think I will pull these out when the tank is stabalized.

The anubias on the bottom left is not set yet. The LFS did not have any small rocks for me to tie the anubias to. I'm not sure where I will place this piece of anubias. I definitely need more foreground material, but the LFS only had two pots of this Hemianthus callithictroides (at least that is what I think it is). The plant in the back right is a type of Microsorium (I think). I will need my friends from NEAPS to help me identify this stuff. In general, I think this tank needs a little more separation between the foreground and midground, but I'm not sure what to do yet. And there's also the issue of the back left corner and what to do with it. I'd like to use some hair grass, but I can't visualize if it would look good. I also need to re-grade the substrate.

View from the top.

View from the side.

View from the left side.

Ta-da! Not bad for a first timer, but there's definitely ALOT of room for improvement.

Timeline: Two Month Old

It has been about two months and so far I am happy with the results. Plant growth is exceptional except for the stand of rotala in the back left corner. The rotala grew, but it never really prospered so I pulled it. I may leave the back left corner empty for now. The microsorium is growing like a weed. I will have to keep on top of my trimmings. The hemianthus callithictroides is starting to spread nicely. The anubias is doing well, but seems susceptible to algae growth. I'll keep an eye on it. I have a school of tetra neon, one cory, three amano shrimp, and at least half a dozen other bee-sized shrimp (sorry, I don't have their latin names).