90p iwagumi rescape

[Saurek]

Hello there ukaps. It`s been a while since my last journal (2015?). I was too lazy to update it, so here is the pic of day 51 of the tank:

Now it is gone. Here we have new setup (actually ordered a complete set of stones):

So I have a few questions for you.

First: should I add sand and substrate? I have a feeling that overall level is a bit low. Its about 10 cm (~4 inches) at the rear and about 4 cm near the front (~1.5 inch) now. I think I can make it may be 50% higher but does it worth of rearanging (will be a pain to collect all the small stones and put them out)? Sand is ADA la plata and soil is Dennerle scapers soil (pretty simillar to Amazonia).

Second one: which plants do you suggest to use? I`m tired with 2 years of cuba, so no HC for me. I`m thinking about Utricularia graminifolia but I`ve read too many scarry stories about it. But still want to try out. Perhaps I`ll plant half of the space with it and see how it will go on.

 

[Dantrasy]

Soil height is fine imo. Rocks look fantastic!

Plant as many stems you can get hold of.

sp green,colorata ect for height. blyxa maybe, perhaps val of the sides. dhg, nevilii and helferi in with the small foreground round rocks.

UG is nice as a carpet, but I think you need height (stems) to grow up and beyond the height of the rocks. Plant stems in multiples of 15+ then you can shape them.

 

[doylecolmdoyle]

I agree with the post above, soil heights all look good to me if you look at using some some nice stems to build height, go for some colour, you not really going to see a carpet anywhere but on the left and right where you soil meets the glass. If you want to carpet all the way to the back glass you will need to raise the soil height there at least double

Personally I would dot some crypt parva around the foreground area where your smooth pebble stones are, this plant wont go wild and cover the nice detail you have, at the back go with various rotala sp. and shape them nicely to flow with your hardscape

 

[Saurek]

Thank you for the quick reply. To be honest I do not want to use stem plants - they demand too much trimm and also I do want to keep "stone horizon" clear. We all know that Knott`s tank with UC:

It look gorgeous ofc, but it also pretty high (it could float up occassionally?).

 

[doylecolmdoyle]

Interesting, not sure how he achieved the height with the UG, I am not that familiar with the plant (only growing a small mount in my 45p) I never thought it would get that long. If you want to only use ground cover plants I would build the soil height up at the back, perhaps remove the aquasoil and use something else for height, lava rock or something then aquasoil over the top.

You almost have a flat style scape (which suits a bunch of stems at the back) Perhaps look at re-scaping moving some rocks towards the front and back of the tank to create more depth, and space the ground cover to grow over and be more visible. Much like you previous scape

 

[Saurek]

Here is the "lifted up" variant:

 

[ir0nma1den]

love that hardscape