Aquascaping. I’ve always been interested in plants, growing, especially the kind that requires a lot of patience, strange for an impatient guy, ha 😉
That is why I like aquascaping, its a kind of a fast-forward of growing plants on air and it still requires a lot of patience, an equilibrium of mind and soul, and of course an underwater environment with a fragile balance. I haven’t got a lot of experience, I’m just being a “poetic” smartass 😉
So after I’ve mounted the new DIY LEDs I kind of broke the equilibrium in my aquarium. I made a mistake not dosing enough of the nutrients for plants to thrive so they became ugly and deformed. As I’ve later learned due to potassium deficiency. And being me and an impatient prick, I didn’t bother saving the plants (by the way, the fish survived just fine) I decided to order new plants and replant the whole aquarium. This time I’ll be extra careful to dose enough of everything they need (won’t be explaining it, have to leave something for another post).
I like to order my aquascaping stuff from a local shop some 5-6 km from my home. I really would suggest them if you live anywhere on Balkan peninsula, the company is called Aquashop. And they are well stocked with all aquarium stuff for fresh water and seawater tanks. And what they don’t have in stock they supply very quickly.
After some work searching the vast web of information about aquascaping, mainly images and aquascaping youtube videos, my choice were 5 plants. Rotala rotundifolia, a plant from southeast Asia that requires quite some light is a relatively fast grower and is in the middle of the difficulty range. I’m using it as a background plant. As planned in front of rotundifolia I’m placing Ludwigia sp. “Mini super red”, the characteristics are pretty much the same as for the rotundifolia, except they state that this one is a bit easier on the difficulty part.
On the left of the aquarium in the background I’ve planed Rotala sp. “Pearl”, which is a really nice plant in my opinion by the means of looks. Its characteristics are in the middle on all fields (lighting, growth speed and difficulty). In front of it there will be a row of Lobelia cardinalis “Mini”, a light needy plant, a slow grower, but quite easy to manage.
And finally, in the front row as a carpeting plant I went for the look of real grass, so the obvious choice was Eleocharis sp. “Mini”, also a light needy plant, but opposite to Lobelia this one grows quite fast and is besides for light not a difficult plant.
So I’ve ordered the plants and the delivery was quite fast (if you take into account they didn’t have any of them in stock). I got the plants in under 7 days. And planted them on a lazy Sunday evening.
The picture of the freshly planted tank and the IN-VITRO plant packages from Aquashop are down below in the gallery. I’ll try posting a photo a week of the progress in the tank.
