Good Foreground Carpet?

[onemisterchristian]

I'm just starting to do some aquascaping and was wondering if anyone has any suggestions as to a nice foreground carpetish plant? After reading up on riccia, it seems they don't attach to anything. Are there any plants that would take root on bogwood or slate and still have a bush or carpt type look. Thanks

 

[Jer-]

I have found Glossostigma (spelling...no good) to be a great carpeting plant.

They dont need to be tied down on bogwood or slate, you jus plant them into the gravel (must be fine sized grains) or sand and they spread like there is no tomorrow.

oh they need medium to bright light tho and will benefit greatly from CO2 injection.

other carpeting plants include the dwarf hairgrass, which many people have problems with. I have not been able to grow this plant that well either cos of the instability of my DIY CO2. But i have seen aquariums with a full carpet of this plant and it looks quite nice.

the Lilaeopsis is another carpeting plant that grows too slow. Which causes it to be prone to algea.

um. The dwarf Sagittarius is also another one. But this one grows abit taller than the others and forms a spidery webby network of leaves. It is very gorgeous if a full lawn is established. It grows rather quickly too.

All these plants i have mentioned take root in the gravel, or sand and do not need to be tied down onto wook or slate. All of them require medium to bright light. Medium light slows down their growth while High light will make them grow crazy(except for the lilaeopsis... from my experince and from what i have heard).

Note that Medium light is around 2 Watts per gallon and High is 3+ Watts per gallon.

My favourite is the glosso

HTH

 

[pseud]

I'm working on some Glosso and Elatine Trianda. The glosso is spreading out nice, i just planted the Elatine today, I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[oldwhitewood]

I would go for e tenellus over glosso, mainly because I prefer a grassy look to my tank, but more importantly its a lot easier to plant, planting glosso can (and has) take hours, although if you get the potted stuff you can cut the rock wool into squares and bury that in the substrate, you tend to find they join together and carpet pretty fast that way. E tenellus is easy to plant and soon spreads like mad, but be sure to find the right variety, a lot of places mistakenly sell it as another plant, tenellus looks like a tiny perfectly formed amazon sword plant but with slightly thinner leaves.

 

[xautomaticflowersx]

I've always liked Lilaeopsis species as foreground plants as I also like a grassy appearance. Particularly I like L. brasiliensis ('Brazilian Micro-Sword'). I've found that it quite likes a nutritious substrate (so laterite or root tabs to get it going) and plenty of light, although it will still grow quite well in moderate lighting - just a little slower!