50G – Goodbye Old Scape, Hello New Rocks!

I finally got past my resistance and tore down the “Fallen Tree” aquascape in my 50G. I really wanted an aquascape where I can use some nice stem plants, but the manzanita hardscape seen below really just needs a simple low-to-the-ground type design on the right side. The stem plants I had in there looked okay, but didn’t really work with the hardscape.

So, Wednesday evening I tore out all of the plants and hardscape, and made myself a new rockscape using the new rocks I collected from my friend’s backyard. In his neighborhood, construction of the homes sometimes involves dynamite to dig out for the foundation, which conveniently leaves mounds of quartz-based rocks all over the place. I thought a rock-dominated aquascape would allow me to use the stem plants more effectively because the rocks would hide the bottoms, allowing nicely trimmed tops to pop out from behind them.

Above, you can see what I came up with. The foreground is still all Eleocharis sp. ‘Japan’, with a midground almost 100% comprised of Blyxa japonica. Blyxa aubertii is in the back-left with Limnophila repens var. ‘Mini’, Rotala sp. ‘Araguaia’, Ludwigia senegalensis, Pogostemon erectum, and Rotala mexicana var. ‘Araguaia’ making up the background. Comments welcome!