Okay. As you can see from the photo, I've completely changed things around. The last scape really wasn't coming together the way I'd wanted it to, and the UG just wasn't faring well. By the end I had only a couple of square inches of it left, so I've moved the little bit I still have into an emersed set up where hopefully I can coax it to do better in case I want to use it again down the line.
The new setup is using HC for the lawn, lots of isoetes lacustris (the tall plant, occcasionally called octopus plant or quillwort), a couple bunches of HM, a little bit of the lobelia I'd been using, and riccia.
The riccia is a short-term resident. As you can see in the photo, it's attached to the driftwood under mesh, and also used on three stones in the back right corner. What I really want to use in those places is fissidens zippelianus, a difficult to get moss. It may take a few months to get a supply of that, so the riccia is my 'for-now' solution. It's a pain to work with and maintain, but on the plus side it really shouldn't take more then a few weeks to completely fill out.
Not long ago I picked up some ADA 'old black wood' driftwood from the Senskes. One rather large log they sent was unique in being the only piece of ADA wood I've seen that had clearly been sawed off a larger piece of wood. That gave me a completely flat, even surface on one side of the wood and I've used that here, placing that side flush against the left side glass of the aquarium.
The isoetes is positioned in a row behind the wood, and two additional plants are positioned in front of it and all the way up against the side glass. Hopefully this gives the impression of the wood peeking out of the edge of a much larger strand of these plants. Isoetes was used instead of vals mostly because isoetes is completely non-invasive. It's multitude of extremely thin leaves helps with perspective and scale in a small tank, as well, and fortunately it's a slow grower.
I'm unsure about the layout in the back right half of the tank. Right now I have a couple bunches of HM in there, and then a small hill in the right back corner on which are placed a few riccia rocks for texture. I'm thinking as the HM grows to trim it on a diagonal angle, so it 'slopes' down to the right. I'm open to suggestions on what to do with that end of the tank, though.
Thoughts, opinions, impressions?
