It’s been 3 weeks since I rescaped my 75G tank, and things are finally starting to grow in a little bit. After getting home from my recent trip to Williamsburg, VA, this tank looked pretty terrible. The water was yellow in color, and algae had gotten more than a small grip on the hardscape. Over the last week, with water changes, Seachem Excel, and one use of flocculate to help the filter clear the water, it’s finally starting to look halfway decent.

The Utricularia graminfolia is growing well, even though it’s getting much taller than I usually see it. Hopefully that’s just a temporary thing. I still have some algae on the manzanita and rocks, but it’s coming under control. And, if you haven’t noticed already, my attempt to do a stem-free tank isn’t going very well, as I’ve got plenty of stems in there. I think that I may end up keeping them in after all. Or at least until the next time I get tired of trimming.

I finally did it! I removed all of the Soilmaster Select from my 75G, and went with Aquasoil/powersand using the manzanita I ordered months ago. This is really the first aquascape I’ve down with manzanita wood. Well, I suppose that’s not entirely true since Jeff and I aquascaped the AquaFest demonstration tank with it about 4 hours before I setup this tank, but I don’t think that counts.

A few goals for this tank are to actually get a good Utricularia graminfolia foreground growing well, have better circulation (and less algae), and perhaps fewer stems than I had before. So far, I’ve got quite a few crypts in the tank with C. affinis, C. wendtii ‘Dewitt,’ C. wendtii ‘Green Gecko,’ C. willisii x lucens ‘green,’ and C. moehlmannii. I’ve also got my share of anubias with A. sp. ‘garbon,’ A. heterophylla, A. lanceolata, A. barteri var. ‘nana,’ A. sp. ‘Eyes’ and A. sp. ‘Gasser.’ I do still have some stems in here consisting of Pogostemon stellata ‘broad-leaf’, ‘needle leaf’, and regular. Plus, P. yatabeanus, Ludwigia arculata x repens, and Rotala macrandra.

I’m still figuring out what species of fish I want in this tank. So, far, the three bags of fish I got at Aquafest are in here, so some Nannochromis nudiceps, Ancistrus sp. L279 “Huaco Mayo,” and Corydoras Paleatus. I’m thinking about getting some other West African dwarf cichlids, but I haven’t decided on the exact species or color morph yet.

It still has a lot of growing in to do, but I’d love to hear some initial feedback.

Here’s my 40G tank after being setup about 3.5 weeks ago.

The Blyxa aubertii is still plagued by some hair/staghorn algae, but that’s because I still haven’t gotten a powerhead to add some more flow to that part of the tank. The Rotala macrandra var. ‘green’ is looking fantastic in the back middle, as is the Blyxa japonica.  I’m still trying to determine whether or not I’m able to use the Potamegeton sp. from Florida as a scapable plant. It’s to the right of the R. macrandra ‘green’ below.

It grows a bit too fast to easily time for a photo, but in a huge mass of stems, I think it would look like a stand of crypts with red/browns/yellows/greens throughout. When we first collected it, it looked very much like a bed of crypts with the leaves coming straight from the substrate, where the roots spread by runners. I’ve yet to replicate that growth in my tank, where the plant grows much more as a stem with a few long leaves coming off at alternating nodes. A foot long stem to the surface might only have 3-4 leaves, each of 4-5″ in length. I guess that’s why they called Potamegetons “pond weeds.”

I’d love to hear comments about how the tank is progressing, and would welcome any suggestions for the future.

Here’s a picture of my 40G tank 2 weeks after I rescaped it. As you can see, everything is growing quite well. I’m getting a little bit of algae on the rocks and Blyxa aubertii due to poor circulation in some areas, but I hope to address that over the next couple weeks. I’ve been dosing the full Seachem line of ferts and have been getting really nice growth. The Rotala macrandra var. ‘green’  in the back middle shot up out of just a few stems, and looks gorgeous. The anubias are very slowly starting to point toward the light, but still have a little bit to go.

Note that this picture was taken without trimming anything in the tank, so if the plants look like they need a trim, they do. Please let me know if you like the direction this tank is going, and if you have any suggestions, by all means comment. (I have very thick skin for critique.)

At one of the past GWAPA meetings, I won Hygrophila sp. ‘Sarawak’ in the mini-auction. One of our members had obtained seeds for this plant, grew it up emersed, and finally started propagating it for other club members. When I obtained this plant, it was in its emersed form which has much larger green leaves than the reddish submersed form. In the picture below you can see the contrast of the larger leaf form at the bottom verses the leaves at the top.

Most of us know the plants of the Hygrophila genus as weeds that require frequent trimming and care. For this reason, I usually avoid plants from this family. I’m pleased to report that Hygrophila sp. ‘Sarawak’ does not share this same trait. It is much slower growing than say, H. polysperma, and so it requires much less upkeep. I’m still reserving judgment on how apt this plant is for aquascaping, but my first impression seems to indicate that it will bush up, making it viable. Watch future posts of my latest 40G aquascape to see how it progresses along.