#1415 He-dutch he-dutchou he-datcaha

About This Aquascape

I dint know emperor tetras loved to nip plants! But after running this tank for nearly an year, now I know. I really loved to have such a deep tank for a while and it was a pleasure to pick this from my dear friend Srinivas. What I learnt from my previous attempt is- once you choose a yellow or orange plant, the choice difficulty goes 10x, because another green or red plant in the neighborhood become exceedingly similar and puts off the contrast. And my first experience growing the whiptail in a dense CO2 rich planted aquarium was both pleasant and rewarding! It ate algae 5x of what a bunch of delicate ottos would. Its such an attention seeker, you'd always find it on the front glass. Definite keeper this one! My fish plan initially was to have a bunch of pearl gouramis(Trichopodus leerii), but then heard horror stories of them making bubble nest with plant leaves. So instead, I went with jumbo sized lyre-tail swordtails, they are one of the biggest specimens I have ever seen~3.5inches. Then I was hoping my dealer would get emperors, since I had them before and really loved their colors, when I added them they dint really standout amongst the variety of coloured plants. And just a month ago, I laid my hands on costae tetra(Moenkhausia costae), I wanted them for their speciality in schooling. This was the absolute best move since they not only schooled spectacularly but also contrasted very well among all plants- highly recommend them! I was hoping to grow Cryptocoryne sivadasanii, but some mix-up at the dealer I had to live with Cryptocoryne balansae. I really had deep intrest in trying out Hygrophila serpyllum, but then it grew in phases, spread like wildfire sometimes, then got eaten by emperors sometimes, then had pink tips sometimes. Quite an interesting specimen this. Echinodorus grisebachii 'Tropica' - always was a challenge for me, I found it growing slower than anubias! At the same time since it was a plant I want to win over, I stuck to this one to see how it'd fair. My favorite in my list has to be the Rotala sp. 'Orange Juice'- you literally can shape it the way you want, and it was a great replacement for green Rotala that was quite shabby and kept crawling and awkwardly stooping. Overall an endeavor that lasted nearly an year, this scape taught me many lesson from CO2 atomizer vs inline diffuser(dont go for this on bigger than 40gal), to getting religious with water changes and cleaning the glass! Thanks to my another hobby mate Mahesh, for helping me out with the photoshoot, through which this timely submission is made possible, Happy Aquascaping!