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Julia's tank 40L - 3rd layout - Anubias Garden

That's bog wood from some local wild pond, that's what the seller told me. It looks dead. And smell like a bad swamp.

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Err... Suddenly in the light of new day I'm in doubt about that new wood I showed yesterday. Here's another photo:

15518134215_35f07d98ef_c.jpgIMG_1722 by bialix1, on Flickr

My plants list for new layout is: anubias, bolbitis compact, lomariopsis, micrantheum monte carlo, and some moss. So my doubts are about all those tiny roots on the wood. Will they play well with anubias? I want to keep most of the wood plants-free, and only use plants at background and sides.

What do you think, guys? Or maybe I should use needle-leaf jave fern to complement those tiny branches?
 
That wood looks fantastic mate, really looking forward to seeing what you do with it. Although they're very common plants I really like Java Ferns in all their varieties!

Edit: I just looked at page 3 after writing that, I thought the wood was massive on the photo above until I just saw you holding it! Judging by your previous efforts I'm sure you'll do a great job with it.
 
Thanks James.
That wood will fit most of the tank by depth, about 3/4 by length, and I need to cut it at top a little bit to fit it.
(Btw, that's hand of my dear sister on the photo :)
 
I remember a Spanish aquascaper that made a very nice layout with a similar piece of wood. It was placed on a corner and the lower roots were covering the base of the tank. He just planted low plants in between but without trying to create something perfect, thus letting some parts with gravel of different sizes and colours. It looked liked a real underwater riverbank scene.

A mixture of small and green Cryptocoryne, some spots of Eleocharis mini and some spots of Hygrophyla pinnatifida would look great IMO... I've always wanted to create a kind of mixed and somehow chaotic carpet

Jordi
 
Thanks Jordi.
I also thought about mini eleocharis, already ordered it.
I'm under big influence of recent video of big Tom and his blackwater Poco Pozo.
 
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SuperColey1 said:
Thats a mad amount of plants in a tank that size. I do not know how you have pulled it off but it looks great :) <---understatement
Click to expand...

I think I just put the plants in and let them grow.
Actually I'm not very satisfied with left back side. There are empty spaces on substrate level, not filled with plants. ;)
You know, I always thought that real profi scapers cover every square inch of substrate with plants (now I'm not sure). I'm just amateur. :)
 
Okay. This week was very exhaustive for me. I managed to re-scape this tank twice in a week.
First attempt:
15431828778_9f35231051.jpgIMG_1791 by bialix1, on Flickr

First attempt result didn't look good enough for me, so I decided to change it. I'm glad I took picture in an empty tank so I could compare 2 photos and find out the position of wood slightly differ. Let's look:
15411523918_99c5c8575d.jpgIMG_1785 by bialix1, on Flickr

One can clearly see that angle of the wood is not the same, therefore that hole between vertical branches in the upper part of the wood looks bigger in planted version. Also I wanted to use my new precious plant anubias nana "gold" with its distinctive lime green leaves, so I put it entirely at right side. It was looking good live after planting but too bright on photo.

So 2 days later I managed to refine the layout. I did read some articles on aquascaping techniques and some art methods, and decided to get rid of lime green anubias on the hill, and use 2 kinds of usual dark green anubias instead: smaller "petite" at the back, and bigger nana closer to front glass to imitate linear perspective. Also I changed angle position of the wood: now its right part is closer to front glass, so horizontal branch ain't parallel to front glass anymore. The water is quite murky and milky due to bacterial colonization bloom. I expect the water will clear in couple of days.

I think even milky photos are better than nothing, so here they are:
15615309761_c6e7ee7b8a.jpgFront view (2014/10/23) by bialix1, on Flickr

I don't quite happy with vertical branch without bark. It's too straight and vertical. I think I should decorate it with some moss.

Sides:
15617968675_08a0d25ed8.jpgRight side (2014/10/23) by bialix1, on Flickr
15618805892_c27d735f09.jpgLeft side (2014/10/23) by bialix1, on Flickr

I'm going to put some moss on vertical branch this weekend, so I'd be happy to hear your feedback, so I can improve the layout even further.

As you can see I mostly used slow grower plants. The reason for this is quite simple. My sister don't have too much free time for pruning fast-grower plants (and obviously a little bit less passion to scaping than me), and also I can't see this tank often enough to be able to adjust the way it grows. So my intent is to have almost finished state right from the beginning, and only occasional trimming (once in month/couple months) will be required. I hope such layout can last for next 1-2 years without re-scaping. For some reason my sister don't get very excited about rescaping and all side effects that process involves, like a lot of buckets with dirty water around the room, cleaning/washing the tank, and so on :)
 
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