Hey all,

Vaughn, thanks for the explanation...........

Okay, so forgot to order the substrate in time but new plants came in.... What to do?

While I am waiting, I decided to do some work in the meantime.

I scraped the top 1" from the entire bottom area in two steps Friday night and Saturday morning.

1. Friday night, uproot plants, remove rocks, wood, etc. Leave some wood in for shelter. Plants kept were left floating or is Java fern attached....All others tossed as full of brush algae, terrible...........Just kept my Java fern trees
2. Removed top 1" from nastiest 1/3 of tank. Wanted to guage affect on fish.
3. 75% WC with Prime.
4. Sat morning, scrape remaining top layer.
5. 50% WC. While filling, gently siphon all over to pick up substrate dust that is all over from the scraping. Probably do another 40 gallons WC just from this alone into big rubbermaid containers (40 gal).
6. Top layer is clean, substrate looks good, fish are okay. Added about 10 gals of volume, as I had to add 4-5 2 gal buckets while removing the top layer (filters were on at the first pass), so sump kept going too low. New layer line is much lower, I like it much better........plus a bit more water volume!
7. Rescape and plant new arrivals.

They are already starting to stand straighter and many were pearling quickly

Here is a link to an album of photos of this work. The only pics with a tag are the before image and the after scrape image. All others were done about 8 hours after the initial planting.........for some reason they are the last ones (go figure) so select view all or next page to see them sorry.............can't figure how to sort them yet, but I will and fix....

gerrydirish/Rescape - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Can't wait till the substrate comes in, is replaced, and done. I think/hope it will look awesome. Can't wait until it grows in some..........

I think this may be better waiting for the substrate, as I get a chance to see how/which plants do well and where, and get them healthy for a couple 2-3 weeks and then replant???

What do y'all think of this? Or should I replace and replant ASAP while they are still undergoing an initial adjustment to their new environment??

Detail below is the plant list location narrative to go with the album.

Don't read further if not interested..lol

Thanks again.

Left side of tank.

3 Java Fern wood tree structures. Not in their final position, am playing with this one. Cards like to go over the top of these as the current is strong at this point, and they school to other side against the strong flow and back again riding the current going the other way in a big loop around the tank perimeter and across the middle very nice....... got 25-30 more in quarantine that look good and expect to get 100 more in about 4-6 weeks. If all goes well, will have my 200+ in the display tank by June sometime. Long quarantine by experience .....

Immediately to the right of this in the back is Rotala rotundafolia. This will get taller and curtain the back. Will sway nicely in current when it gets big enough.

In front of this divided by more wood is Cabomba caroliniana.

A little in front to the left of this is a bit of hygrophila difformis. which will replace the cabomba if it doesn't take..

At the far left is an Anubia hast that I got by mistake..

Center is more cabomba.

Right of center is water oak. This will also get tall and curtain the back.

In front of this divided by more wood is an amazon I also got by mistake surrounded by the Riccia covered rocks.

To the right of this is various Ludwigia species to provide a nice red to all the green.

In front of the wood and the ludwigia is lobelia cardinalis. I hope for this to grow out some and provide more cover and contrast with the taller plants in the back.

Vaughn if still with me, did your look like this at first? When you corrected my mis id as 'anubias' a thread or two back, yours was nice compact and green. can you provide a short detail of growth pattern/changes if any????


The oak will also turn brownish due to high MH output, so contrast should be nice.

Will post in a few weeks when they grown in and when the project is done. I will enjoy it either way.

The fish seem really happy BTW.............LOL

Thanks for letting me share and for all the ideas/help.

Made it much easier/less work/more enjoyable.

P.S. The icons on the subject line are selected by mistake/fat fingering...........sorry............