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I’m going to be completely redoing a 75 gallon that is currently a hot mess of plastic plants. It has a pair of rescued adult Jack Dempseys (10” and 8”) and 2 rescued common plecos (I know!) that are subadult at almost 10” each. All of these fish have been very bad about dislodging everything I’ve planted in the tank, no matter how deep the substrate and despite laying rocks over the roots. The plecos dislodge plants by just doing pleco stuff, but the Jacks (especially the male) will actively grab the plants and jerk them around. My idea (inspired by @dasaltemelosguy tank pic posted on another thread) is to use some extra tall lucky bamboo to go all the way to the bottom of the tank and have the spiral, leafy portion above the water line. I think I have a solid plan for securing the tops of the bamboo. My plan to secure the bottoms is to plant the bamboos in ceramic pots with screen over the bottom holes, dirt, then sand layers, then stack pebbles/rocks all around the stems inside the pots so they’re as securely held as I can make them. Then the pots will be braced with some large river rocks (4-6”) to keep them in place. Large river rocks will be further reinforced with smaller rock, then whatever large “pebbles” I have leftover after packing around the stems of the bamboo. The “pebbles” are about 1” to 2”. I would like to keep the tank as bare bottom as possible since this squad of fish are poop monsters. My real question is, how much room do the roots of lucky bamboo need? Yes, I know it’s not actually bamboo, it’s Dracaena sanderiana, but I haven’t grown this particular Dracaena before. The pics of the bamboo shows pretty short roots. I’m assuming these are likely trimmed for shipping? I have assorted size pots available from 3” to 12” wide. I’d like to keep the pots as small and low as practical. I’m also guessing I’ll likely need to go at least to a 4”-6” wide pot? Should I go bigger? I also have a rectangular pot that is about 5” wide by 17” long and 5” deep. The bamboo is going to be in the middle part of the tank (I have big, sponge-filled HOB’s on each end at the back). This rectangular pot may be just barely long enough to work or I may have to do one additional pot. Would it be better to use this single, large, rectangular pot? Should I just go to a full sand bottom and stack rocks around the bamboo without doing pots? I’m a little worried about the sand triggering breeding in the Jacks and I do NOT want that. I keep the temp down around 74 F to minimize breeding and never do cooler water during water changes. I’d also like to plant some jungle Val the same way as the bamboo, but possibly slightly larger pots to get more room for future runners. I’ll be starting these in a different tank until the Val is established. Open to ideas and suggestions, but I mostly need to know how much root mass I’ll need to accommodate.