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Once Upon A Time...
There was a 75g tank that had a terrible identity crisis and couldn’t decide what it wanted to look like.
Guess what??? I’ve done it AGAIN! Yes, I’ve completely gutted the 75g and I’m in the process of giving it a complete makeover. More on this later. Let’s take a stroll down memory lane and see from whence this tank hath cometh.I originally bought it when I returned home from Iraq with plans to put together a planted Discus tank. Why? Well, because I already had the Discus and decided I wanted to give live plants a try. Plus, the maverick in me said, “this is supposed to be the
Holy Grail of tanks” so why not take the challenge. This was my first foray into planted tanks as I always shied away, thinking they were much too difficult for a simpleton fish keeper like myself. I prefer to keep things simple and natural looking; I don’t care to be farting around with all the high-tech tank needs. So, to get things started, I purchased some driftwood off of e-Bay and bought a few plants from the local Pets Mart for a trial run. This was the initial result. Holy one-dimensional!
Most of the plants began growing fairly well, with one exception. See the one directly in front of the filter intake...the Mondo Grass! Dad-gum Pets Mart selling terrestrial plants to unsuspecting aquarist who don’t research stuff before they buy it.
Shame on them!
It appeared I might possibly be successful with this endeavor, so I purchased some new really nice looking...you guessed it, terrestrial plants. This time a Dracaena species of some sort, which can be seen next to the rather large Peace Lily, which of course is immediately adjacent the Mondo Grass.
Stupid Pets Mart! Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice...I’m an idiot!
Eventually all three of those plants died and were removed in favor of something aquatic.
This time I took notice of some really nice looking plants called Echinodorus. I picked up several species along with a plant called Dwarf Sag or Sagittaria subulata. I have to say, although totally one-dimensional, this was one of my favorite looks for the tank.
Yet another of my favorite looks for this tank.
At some point, I moved some of the swords over to the 29gal and basically left myself with just the three large E. bleheri, some S. subulata and some Hydrocotyle. This one didn’t last long as it was very boring to me.
Here’s the 29g, it actually looked pretty good...I think.
This one was a result of not knowing what to do with what I had. So, I just gaggled all the driftwood up together and put some of the S. subulata around it. I had given the swords a bleach dip prior to putting them back in the tank to rid them of some algae they had on them. I used a 1:19 bleach-water and dipped them for about a minute. They looked really nice initially...
...but then the next morning, it was a little different look than I had anticipated. Unfortunately, only one of them survived
While all of the E. bleheri were trying to recuperate in another tank, I added some other plants to get by until I could figure out what to do with it. Take note of the Pistia stratiotes, this stuff grew like wild-fire and within about a month covered the entire surface of the tank.
Here was my first attempt at a dual-substrate. My plan was to make it look like a riverbed...yeah, not so much. The Hygro Polysperma “Ceylon” was really “ratty” looking once it filled in, so I had to do away with it.
I ended up replacing it with Valis. gigantea on the left and R. rotundifolia and the one surviving E. bleheri on the right. I actually kept this scape for quite a while, probably longer than any of the previous ones.
Eventually, I came up with this scape, and I have to say it is by far the best I’ve ever created. I had seen something similar on the net and had just recently used pool filter sand in my Mbuna tank and I had some left over. I love the clean look of the split-substrate with the brilliant white sand in the front, really brightens up the tank.
Here we go AGAIN...
As is evident from all the pics above, I’m not very good at maintaining one aqua-scape in a tank; I grow bored easily with them. So, now that I’m changing out the inhabitants of this tank, it only stands to reason, at least to me, that I change the entire look of the tank.
To begin, I pulled all of the plants and driftwood and placed them into one of the plastic tubs that I’m always recommending to folks. These things are absolutely priceless!
After removing all of the plants and driftwood, this is the blank slate I was left to work with...
After doing and undoing many times, I ended up with this crappy scape. I absolutely loath it and will be changing it this upcoming weekend. I hate the orangey-rust color of the fluorite, so it will be removed. I now remember one of the reasons I did the previous scape...to hide the ugly fluorite substrate.
Anyway, I’ve got several nice pieces of driftwood that are covered in Java Fern and were tucked away out of site before, but I want to showcase them this go-round.
My Anubias originally was attached to a small rock and only had about four leaves. It has now turned into this beauty that I have re-attached to a piece of driftwood.
I happen to notice one of my Keyhole cichlids hiding out by a piece of wood and he was very well camouflaged, but once he noticed me with the camera, he was on the move and back to his natural color. It’s amazing the color morphing these fish can do.
All those beautiful plants 
< - These guys were patient.
now tat is patience!
I am going to miss your last Aquascape...
