hey all,

I have a big bare patch, about 2 feet long in the middle of my tank, and Im wanting to get some kinda of carpeting plant thats fairly fast growing but that will stay fairly short. Oh, I have fairly hard water, GH 15 or so.

Any ideas?

How about glosso, riccia, or HC?

thye will not stay short really.
Hair grass or U. gramifolia are nicer lower mainteance weeds that get a defined height.

Not that fast growing at first, few foreground weeds are, but then it'll take over well from there and not pile up too much.

2sq ft is a lot of space. Gloss will fill in fastest I'd say.
It's fine in all water parameters.

Moss, rocks, wood etc also should be considered.
Caves and mossing/java fern, Anubias etc on the top of the caves makes a ncie look and nice for the fish also, wood or rocks may be used for this.

One of the large tanks I plan on doing will have these.
Pairie dog holes poking out of a lawn basically. Good for nocturnal catfish etc.

Regards,
Tom Barr

Regards,
Tom Barr

Thanks guys, Ive been reading up about Glosso Tropica say that it really prefers soft water, is it that picky?

Im leaning towards HC as its tollerences seem to be wider for a harder water. It also looks very like Glosso (from the pics anyway).

My tank is only 12inches wide unfortunatly, so the area I have to cover isnt that wide either, maybe 8 inches or so. Im definatly going to do something with caves though Tom as you suggest, probably with some java moss as I have some of that already (still young to the tank, but its started whooshing now nicely).

Glosso's the green beast. As Tom said, it should be fine in most water parameters.

BTW I'd think of not giving too much space to the foreground. One issue a lot of people seem to have in aquascaping is that they think they need a huge lawn to make Amano-esque tanks, but IME, the best lay (including Amano's) are the ones that make sure to give the midground (that is building a visually appealing foundation/hardscape) enough attention, and foreground/background development are secondary. As long as the stems get enough space to form nice bushes and the foreground has just enough space to form some height contrast to the midground, they will fullfill their purposes.

I took some of Toms advice and made a really nice cave out of rocks right in the middle of that open space.. java moss wedged and tied on it so itll spread.

Your dead right GMF, its totally transformed the look of the whole tank, even without any growth on it as yet. Im so suprised, its created 2 more rooms in the centre and its totally balanced the tank.

My new CO2 should be here in the nxt few days hopefully, although, according to my drop checker, levels are pretty good at the moment anyway and pretty stable, so its not so bad.

Ive ordered some HC, will see how that goes, there are a few other plants taht ive got that were struggling before, if i junk them, then ill get some glosso to replace them and see how that goes to. Thinking that the best idea is to try smallish bits of a few, and pick the strongest, just as you would in your garden.

Thanks for all the help peeps, much appreciated as always.