Hi All, my plants (anubia, amazon swords) are great with natural sunlight and doing fine, but ground cover is not doing well. I had tried "Hemianthus callitrichoides" just die. Anything I need to take note for lush ground cover?
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Yeah, HC requires very consistent balance of light, ample Co2 and nutrients to grow well, outdoor conditions usually can't maintain that balance.
For your outdoor setup, try hardy carpet plants like echinodorus tenellus or dwarf sagittaria... those plants can tolerate variable light conditions and grow in low-tech tanks.
Hi Urban, really nice blog site you have there. Will take note on the carpet plants suggestion. Thanks.
The microfex culture is really hassle free. Where can I get that?
Microfex are usually traded amongst hobbyists... i have been giving out many starter cultures over the past few weeks (and i've also been feeding alot of them to a new batch of fish fry too) so my own culture is quite depleted now, will need some time for the population to grow larger again.Originally Posted by antjoey1122
An alternative is to check with those who got them from me, some of them posted in my thread on the microfex culture: http://www.aquaticquotient.com/forum...-Worms-Culture
Sorry I digress from the topic on ground cover, the Microfex culture is too interesting.
For ground cover I always use those prepared by LFS on wire mesh, I will then bury the mesh into the gravel, which looks very good at first.
But I see most of the tanks pictures are direct rooting.
Perhaps I am doing something wrong here. How do I direct root, I had tried before by stuffing the plant with the roots into the gravel, but the plants always float up after sometimes.
Any idea how to improve on this?
Its usually better to remove the plants from the mesh and separate them into smaller clumps or bunches, then plant each small bunch into the substrate in a grid pattern. The key is to allow abit of space between each small bunch of plants so that they are not overcrowded and have enough space to grow roots and draw in nutrients to establish quickly.
For smaller carpet plants, its naturally much more difficult to plant and root them in larger substrates due to their finer root structure (from your photos, the gravel in the tank is large/coarse type), thats one of the reasons why aquascapers use power-type active soil (those around 1-2mm size granules) in their foreground so that it is easier for the small carpet plants to stay planted and develop roots in the fine substrate. In your particular setup, you will need to push the carpet plants much deeper into the substrate to secure them inside, just the top layer of leaves peeking out is sufficient during the initial grow-out stages.
Pushing the plants into the substrate, can I do it using a pair of chop sticks? Or is there a better tool for that?
Chopsticks can be used if you have the skill... most aquascapers use long pinsettes designed with angled narrow tips to do it (most LFS sell those), much easier.
I'll be trying to do some planting this weekend. Will try to take some photos
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