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hi there fish profilers, you may have noticed my posts over the last few months with regards to filters and substrates and anything else to do with setting up a tank! well i finally have everything together and up and running and am looking at purchasing the plants in a week or so.

i was going for a purely south american theme but have opted to diversify a bit with advice gleaned from your selves (cheers lf and frank!)and have compiled a rough list of what i am looking to put in, unfortunatly i dont have a digital camara as that would make explaining a lot easier! anyway here goes, please let me know what you think and any ideas to change:

oh yeah i should mention its 4ft 50gallon it has one large peice of drift wood on the right hand side and some river stones on the left. it has 2x54 t5s for medium lighting and will be home to mostly small tetra and corys. possibly a bristlenose pleco. the substrate is jbl aqua plus sealed with an inch and a bit of fine gravel.

backdrop- i want hygropolysperma (12 shoots?) on one side and wisteria (12?) on the other with 2 bunches of ceratophyllum demursum in the middle/floating on the top. also possibly a few stems of eusteralis stellattus on the lower hygo end- the plants will be sloping downward right to left with wyteria the tallest, then hornwart then hygro and finally the stellattus. would this be enough fast growers to start off with in my tank? is 12 shoots loads or not many- i have no idea!?

in the mid ground on one side there is a rather large peice of driftwood i was going to attach some java fern too. for a center plant i was going to go for echinodorus osiris which would be situated to off set the drift wood. i was wandering about also including echinodorus shlueteri 'leopard' tho am a little worried about the size of 2 swords in this size tank? what do you think? also 3 echinodorus tropica in a little patch toward the smaller end.

then in the fore ground i was going to plant about 5 patches of tenullus to try and start a carpet effect and on the smaller side having either a few compact hygro and/or a few assorted crypts. i was also thinking of including a patch of microswords to see if it will grow.

hmm im not sure if ive described that very well in terms of aquascaping but it is the plant selction im most concerned with. what do you all think?

Hi Fan,
It sounds like a great beginning. If you don't stock too
heavily, too quickly, then the fast growing plants should
be able to keep up with the fish.

Pictures would be nice!

Personally, I think I'd skip the Pleco.
http://www.aquahobby.com/gallery/e_bristle.php

At 15cm long (when grown) they kinda lumber about the tank
and can uproot many of the plants as they go.

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

cool thanks for that frank. yeah i iwll post some pics.... we are currently getting our camara repaired and have no idea how long that takes!! i have a week off work in 2 weeks so i will aim to get the plants delivered then and i will post some pics once everything is in.

cant wait mate!

Hello Fandan , You sound like you got a good lot of plants to start . On the fast growers , get as many as you think you can stuff in the tank and then get some more . You will underestimate !!!!

Love to see some photos when you get going .

Garry

cheers mate! unfortunatly the company i ordered the plants from got back in touch and have had all there stock damaged in the recent floods so im going to have to find another company! oh well!

Yes the floods in Vic looked pretty bad . Trust you can find another supplier soon .
Were you affected by the floods ?
Garry

no not so much, we didn't get much rain here in albury. a bit here and there but no flooding. how about your self? i recently moved here from england so the weathers really strange. hot or cold. dry or really wet. when i lived in scotland you could go through all the seasons in an hour! but yeah the flooding has been real bad but its good at the same time to actually get some rain!

i found a new supplier and am receiving the plants next week which i have off work. i got them from a place called wormborough aquatics. they didnt have any prices on the web but they ended up being alot cheaper then the place i was originally going to order from. it was only 86 dollars (including postage!) for a few swords, a few compact swords, a load of crypts some milflower, wisteria, bacopa, java fern, hornwart, hygophilia (of the willow variety as the polysperma has been made illegal apparently) and some kind of grass. i had to drop a few of the things i wanted as they didnt have them in stock but am happy with the selection and cant wait to get them. i will let you know how i get on with planting them all!

fandan,No we live in the mountains in SQland. So no floods here .
Had a bit of rain though .

Glad to hear that your onto a new supplier .
Love to see some shots of the tank once you get them .

Garry