Top 3 Favorite plants

[Dork Fish]

What are your top 3 favorite plants in the hobby and why are they your favorites?

Include pics if you can, I am new to the hobby and still learning. 🙂

[Fish Folk]

(Apologies in advance for the ugly setups and terrible photos. I mostly just breed fish. My tanks are every aquascaper's nightmare. Look up great photos by other aquarists using the Latin binomials as search parameters.)

Aponogeton boivinianus:

 

Nymphaea zenkeri:

Pogostemon stellatus:

[Dork Fish]

@Fish Folk Wow that first one is very green 🙂

[Lennie]

From the ones I keep:

Anubias nana gold:

crypt wendtii green:

 

Echinodorus leopard:

The ones that I don’t have, however I think they are very pretty:

Crypt flamingo:

Don’t have it cause too expensive

 

Madagascar Lace plant:

Don’t have it cause goes dormant above 25C, so not suitable for my tanks and climate all year long.

And lastly,

Anubias white:

Expensive and fragile. So again, a pass for me

[Dork Fish]

@Lennie Wow I love the 'Anubias nana' and 'Crypt flamingo', the 'Echinodorus leopard' is really neat as well.

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/6/2023 at 8:57 PM, Dork Fish said:

What are your top 3 favorite plants in the hobby and why are they your favorites?

Anubias Nana - Probably the single easiest plant to work with

Bacopa Caroliniana - Easy stem, works well in most setups and is very beautiful from above.  Staurogyne Repens is similar, but can be more difficult.

Hygrophila Pinnatifida - There's a few versions, one is more red, but this plant is pretty special.  It's unique in the structure, works in the substrate and on wood, it's just a really nice plant if you can get it to work for you.

[Dork Fish]

@nabokovfan87 The 'Bacopa Caroliniana' is now on my list 🙂 Also the 'Hygrophila Pinnatifida' looks very cool, does it require CO2 system to get red?

[Lennie]

On 7/7/2023 at 8:13 AM, Dork Fish said:

@Lennie Wow I love the 'Anubias nana'

Ikr! I have normal nanas too

But the gold version hits different 🙂 I love the yellow light green tone a lot. Not a common color in the hobby. 

On 7/7/2023 at 8:16 AM, Dork Fish said:

@nabokovfan87 The 'Bacopa Caroliniana' is now on my list 🙂 

If you have high ph/kh think twice.

Ive given it a chance twice and they all died or performed a reaaly bad growth 

[Dork Fish]

@Lennie Yeah that color is very cool. Bacopa is prob a no-go for me then, as my pH is 7.8 from the tap.

Might go down with wood and aquasoil, but 40lbs of stone might bring it back up again.

@Lennie @nabokovfan87 My tank is not set up yet but I made a very rough draft of the scape on https://scape-it.io/en/

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/6/2023 at 10:17 PM, Lennie said:

Ikr! I have normal nanas too

Nangi / Minima varities of anubias are special too.

On 7/6/2023 at 10:17 PM, Lennie said:

On 7/6/2023 at 10:16 PM, Dork Fish said:

@nabokovfan87 The 'Bacopa Caroliniana' is now on my list 🙂 

If you have high ph/kh think twice.

Ive given it a chance twice and they all died or performed a reaaly bad growth 

plants need GH Lennie!!!! 😂

On 7/6/2023 at 10:16 PM, Dork Fish said:

Also the 'Hygrophila Pinnatifida' looks very cool, does it require CO2 system to get red?

It might require CO2 to "do well" but there is a lot of hygrophila species and they are all very different and unique.  Some grow like a weed, others very slow.  The main thing is that there's a normal variety and a UK variety (not the country) and the UK one gets a lot more reddish hue.  My gut tells me you NEED co2, but I don't think you seriously NEED it to get the plant red, if that makes sense.

On 7/6/2023 at 10:22 PM, Dork Fish said:

Might go down with wood and aquasoil, but 40lbs of stone might bring it back up again.

@Lennie @nabokovfan87 My tank is not set up yet but I made a very rough draft of the scape on https://scape-it.io/en/

The anubias in the front. swap it out for pearlweed, microsword, or Staurogyne Repens.  Anubias you don't want on the substrate level.  You can wedge it in the rocks though.

 

[nabokovfan87]

Some videos for inspiration for you @Dork Fish
 

 

I highly encourage you to check out George Farmer's videos as well.  They seem to fit your style.  He's got an anubias nano tank coming out this weekend.

[Lennie]

On 7/7/2023 at 8:22 AM, Dork Fish said:

@Lennie Yeah that color is very cool. Bacopa is prob a no-go for me then, as my pH is 7.8 from the tap.

Might go down with wood and aquasoil, but 40lbs of stone might bring it back up again.

@Lennie @nabokovfan87 My tank is not set up yet but I made a very rough draft of the scape on https://scape-it.io/en/

What's your tank size? Also what are those plants on the both ends in the background?

[Dork Fish]

@Lennie Tank size is a 75 gallon. The Plants on either end are "Cryptocoryne crispatula" but they are just placeholders for any broad-leafed really tall growing plant 🙂

[Dork Fish]

@Lennie For example I like 'Vallisneria nana' (because grows dense and is straight) for the background but would prefer it to be just a bit wider like 'Microsorum pteropus'.

Edited July 7 by Dork Fish
added tag

[Dork Fish]

@nabokovfan87 @Lennie Okay it is still a rough draft, but it is no longer a "very rough" draft LOL

I might change the red plant in the middle though, not sure yet

[Lennie]

On 7/7/2023 at 4:30 PM, Dork Fish said:

@nabokovfan87 @Lennie Okay it is still a rough draft, but it is no longer a "very rough" draft LOL

I might change the red plant in the middle though, not sure yet

If you'd like to hear my opinion, I think it looks unnatural this way. The reason why I think It is unnatural is,

1) the rocks create a super strict like acting like a barrier and more or less they all have the same length.

2) Cut the picture in the middle. Left side of the tank is a direct reflection of the right one. Way too perfectly put into practise.

 

I think this video can give you some ideas for what I mean, and may help you to understand how to design such tank in a more naturalistic way;

 

[Dork Fish]

On 7/7/2023 at 10:55 AM, Lennie said:

If you'd like to hear my opinion, I think it looks unnatural this way. The reason why I think It is unnatural is,

1) the rocks create a super strict like acting like a barrier and more or less they all have the same length.

2) Cut the picture in the middle. Left side of the tank is a direct reflection of the right one. Way too perfectly put into practise.

@Lennie I totally agree, the scape-it site unfortunately makes it hard to create what I was really imagining in my head. I want the left side to be higher then the right by at least a few inches. Additionally, the rock placement is going to vary in the depth from the glass:

If you could imagine the below image is from the top looking down with sand in front and the bio-stratum for the plants in back:



I am not very artistic so difficult to portray in the scape-it tool, but perhaps something a little more like this:

@Lennie this is from MD fish tanks channel. It is close-ish to what I imagine in my head.

[NOLANANO]

I love my Bacopa Caroliniana, Anubias Barteri, and Red Tiger Lotus.

These are all extremely easy plants that are pretty hard to kill and look great. 

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/7/2023 at 9:10 AM, Dork Fish said:

On 7/7/2023 at 7:55 AM, Lennie said:

@Lennie I totally agree, the scape-it site unfortunately makes it hard to create what I was really imagining in my head. I want the left side to be higher then the right by at least a few inches. Additionally, the rock placement is going to vary in the depth from the glass:

If you could imagine the below image is from the top looking down with sand in front and the bio-stratum for the plants in back:

It's just me.... But using rock in any form to make a wall is really unnatural for me.

Check this out, specifically just how Filipe handles the stone and how natural the formations look with each change he does. Especially adding in the details and the accent stones on his 3-4 attempt.

https://forum.aquariumcoop.com/topic/33378-a-newfound-appreciation-of-seiryu-stone/

 

On 7/7/2023 at 9:10 AM, Dork Fish said:

@Lennie this is from MD fish tanks channel. It is close-ish to what I imagine in my head.

Initially I thought it would be more of a "Brazilian style"

[Dork Fish]

@nabokovfan87 Yeah, I think the idea is more to make it look like a rocky slope with plants on top, then just a wall.

If you plant moss, etc. in the rocks and wood then plant some longer plants at the top of the rock like MD did, it looks like a rocky area on a sand bed.

Mine will likely not extend the full length of the tank. I only have 40lbs of stone and a 75 gallon tank LOL

@Lennie @nabokovfan87 What I really love is something more like this:



But the amount of money that would require is insane LOL

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/7/2023 at 11:47 AM, Dork Fish said:

But the amount of money that would require is insane LOL

Watch that Filipe video, you have exactly what you need to make that. It might not be as tall, but there's plenty there based on the sketch.

[Dork Fish]

@nabokovfan87 I actually watched it when you posted it on a different topic. There is no wood in there though. 😞

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/7/2023 at 11:58 AM, Dork Fish said:

There is no wood in there though. 😞

He's got a ton of content, thankfully.

He uses a lot of the fine branches and drapes them over the scape in a lot

[Dork Fish]

@nabokovfan87 Yeah those look incredible. I wish he had a 'full tank shot' of the first one though LOL 🙂

Not sure that 40lbs of blue seiryu stone and 3 medium pieces of ghost wood could make a scape like this though. Might try it out just to see, but still have my original backup plan LOL

[Dork Fish]

@nabokovfan87 I spoke too soon LOL apparently there is a part 2 for the first vid.