OK, Here's some first pix. It's peated all to heck and back. I have carbon in the filter to cut it back some now. This is the initial set up, with just the rotala and the sags, and some platy fry keeping it cycled.
I'll see what I can do about getting pix with the glosso planted later this week.
in my 10g betta chick tank I decided to try live plants. Ill get pics up when I can, but now its planted with a handful of stuff I cant even identify, other than a sword plant. The coverage is really sparse with just the one cave, and some grass to hide in (not much, should be just enough) and then took the sprigs off a fake green ambulia plant to float in there, and they are doing even better. Imo as long as they have a place to hide and some surface cover they are super.
They are SO chill... that when I moved them from the tank to buckets so I could do the gravel change they actually one by one swam into my hand... I didnt even have to use a net! going back to the tank was just as easy.
I think your present plan and setup is fine, but I would suggest hiding places like terra cotta planters. I have a 1 1/2" and a 3" with a small plant at the front. When any fish needs a time out, thats where I find them. If you dont like the look, hide them behind your plants. Once everything starts filling in, you wont see them, but fish know they are there.
I've got hidden flowerpots in other tanks. (5 of them in the loach motel, and you can't see any but a tiny bit of one of them.) Unfortunately, in order to hide them properly in this tank, I would need to completely rework the hardscape and planting plan. What I can do that should work OK is to get a couple of crypts placed strategically, and they ought, under the level of lighting I have going, to provide a similar sort of cover. Also, if you look in the back left of the tank, the way the filter sits should provide a similar sort of overhead security screened by rotala at the moment, but hairgrass eventually.
Well, the glosso isn't doing so hot, and I finally gave up on regular hairgrass when I drove two hours on the strength of a phone call to find that they had Giant hairgrass and dwarf hairgrass and they split the difference when they told me they had regular hairgrass. So I got some nice Ambulia at auction, and maybe I'll try dwarf hairgrass in the foreground.
The fish in the pic are platy fry I am using to keep the filter cycled. No bettas yet. I'll put the bettas in when I 1) find 6 or 7 good ones at the same time and 2) Have my multi-tank stand built in my office to move the platy fry, since they are turning out so well.
Well, I got it going. 2 ottos (nice pea shaped bellies - one didn't make it) and 7 female bettas, doing nicely, thank you very much. Camera is down at the moment or I'd post some pix.
Update: Over the course of a couple of months, the 7 bettas I had killed each other off. :(
Going to be a while before I try this again, and it will be in a 20 gallon with a much more compartmentalized aquascape.
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