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I set this up a couple weeks ago with some H. zosterifolia and a local plant species that I collected as well (which is down in the Local Biotope forum if you want to take a stab at ID'ing it). Anyway, here it was a week or so ago:
Here it was this morning after some growth and moving a few plants around:
But, my goal was to try and make it pretty biotope specific, so I decided to yank out the native plant I was experimenting with and keep only the H. zosterifolia in there and let it grow into a big monospecific stand (which is very similar to what I have observed with plants in the wild). My plan is to simulate a bit of a gravel/sandbank in a shallow stream or river along the Rio Guapore in Bolivia, probably in a more open scrub area. So, after I cleared out the native species, here is what the tank currently looks like:
Now I'll just let the stargrass have its way in the tank. It seems to prefer creeping along the substrate right now, with minimal growth upwards--I don't know if it usually does this as I have never kept it before, but I like the appearance because that's how a LOT of plants grow in the high-current streams around here.
Fish include:
15 Moenkhausia sanctaefilomenae (red-eye tetra)
6 Gymnocorumbus ternetzi (black skirt tetra)
3 Otocinclus spp.
When the stargrass fills in quite a bit more, I will also add a handful of Nannostomus unifasciatus (oneline pencilfish). I don't usually stock tanks with so many fish--I have stuck pretty much to species tanks over the last few years--so this is a big departure for me. However, in a lot of the snorkeling and diving I've done in local waterways, I have noticed that around areas of dense plant growth or submerged structures (wood jams, etc.) there is often a VERY high density of fish numbers as well as species, so I'm trying to replicate this in the tank.
I'll update as things grow in. If I can find space I'd like to switch all of this over to a 55 gal tank.
