The results of my trimming and trading...

[sns26]

Are pictured below. At last weekend's meeting, I bought some stems of ludwigia cuba, ludwigia arcuata, pogostemon stellatus, and cardamine lyrata. And learned that I ought to be hacking more aggressively at my existing plant. Oh, and was convinced that there's much to be gained by posting pictures of my tank for people's thoughts.

So...any thoughts? For comparison purposes, THIS is what things looked like before. Obviously there's a lot of growing in to be done, and it's not as if I have that part totally figured out (the HC is still a mess, the HM doesn't seem too happy either.)

[Ben Belton]

I really like your different colors, leaf shapes, and textures. Nice photograph too.

What substrate is that?

[sns26]

It's eco-complete.

[krisw]

Thanks for sharing your tank picture! I agree with Ben that the plants look healthy and nicely maintained. The key thing that's missing from this tank is any sort of hardscape. It seems that you're in the stage of trying different plants right now, which is awesome, particularly since you seem to be having no problem growing them. I'd suggest adding some rock or wood and planting around that to really move the aquascape forward.

Otherwise, I think it looks nice. And, the photo is well done too.

[sns26]

Thanks Kris. There actually is some low-grade hardscape in there, but it has been obscured by the plant growth. I guess I should count my blessings. Where is a good place to track down some appropriately-sized driftwood? (This tank is a 20H, by the way.)

[krisw]

Sam, you can buy Malaysian Driftwood or African Bogwood at many of the local stores. For Manzanita, I recommend ordering a box from manzanita.com. Call them up, and tell them exactly what types of pieces you want (stumps, branches, root balls, etc...)

The main thing to note is that the Manzanita needs to be soaked for several weeks to sink. The others are usually pre-soaked to remove tannins and will sink.