MudHog

To many choices and not enough tanks.

Here's what I'm considering so far. For those that know anything about any of these, please speak your input. For a base, I have plane small gravel. I'm not looking to put all of these plants, but just looking at options for starters. I really like to Orchid, Dwarf Sag and Dwarf Onion Plants. I will have a little bit of Java Fern growing under my new log. I'm also going to need one or two fairly tall growing plants for background. My lighting will be a single Satellite fixture by Current USA with a total of 65w.

Dwarf Sag - Sagittaria subulata
http://www.plantgeek.net/images/plantpics/subulata.jpg

Anubias x. 'Frazeri'
http://www.plantgeek.net/images/plantpics/frazeri.jpg

Dwarf Onion Plant - Zephyranthes candida
http://www.plantgeek.net/images/plan...phyranthes.jpg

Orchid Lily - Barclaya longfoilia
http://www.plantgeek.net/images/plan...blongfolia.jpg

Wolfgang8810

i have dwarf sag and its pretty cool slow growing and kind of a foreground plant

a good taller plant would be contortionist val or corkscrew val as a background plant

no experience wiht any others im sure that other fishloreans will help. there is akso a foroum that is specificly for plants. its basiclt fishlore with al he same people talking about plants plantgeek.net

Isabella

You'll have almost/approximately 1.7 WPG of lighting over your tank, which is pretty good (I'd call it "lower-medium" light). I have similar lighting over my 75 gallon tank: 1.73 wpg.

Of the plants you mentioned, I've had experience with Anubiuas and Sagittaria. Anubias will grow very well under your lighting. They'll grow well even under much lower lighting. So you can go ahead with Anubias. As for Sagittaria, it didn't do well in my tank, even in nutrient-rich substrate and under 1.73 wpg of lighting. From what I've heard Sagittaria is OK for low-light tanks, so maybe it will do well for you. Don't know why it did so poorly for me. You should try it and see for yourself.

Good background plants that grow tall are various Swords (especially Amazon Swords for lower light tanks) and Vallisnerias. But they both should have nutrient-rich substrate in my opinion. Your lighting would be OK for both Swords and Vals, but I don't think they'd do well in plain gravel. My Vals died in a tank with plain gravel when I moved some of them to see how they would do. As for the Amazon Swords, I did grow them for about a year in plain gravel. They looked OK but they grew so slowly it looked like there was no growth at all.

MudHog

thanks for the info.

of those four, the anubiuas, the dwarf sag and onion plants are the ones I like the most.

How would Ludwigia do in a gravel substrate?

Also, in the attached link: http://www.petsmart.com/product/inde...amily&keepsr=1 what is the purpleish plant that is second from the left side?

What I'm thinking about is scaping it like I have, but with some real plants. Currently, I have ludwigia, green tiger lotus, corckscrew val, red foxtail and that purple plant like the petsmart link that I'm trying to figure out. I'm considering some ludwigia for background as I don't care for the corkscrew val. Then java fern as a middle plant for my log decoration. Maybe some dwarf sag for a foreground plant. Christmas Moss on the root decoration.

What's your views on that scheme?

Wolfgang8810

i dont think its the true colors of the real plant but it looks like a type of bacopa or moneywort

MudHog

Wolfgang8810,

Your correct. After looking at the Tetra site, it's a Red Bacopa.