# Pic of My Tank



## Twisted_Angel (Oct 2, 2005)

Hi all, I'm fairly new to aquatic plants, but I think I'm really getting the hang of it now. Just took a new pic yesterday of the tank, and I'm pretty proud of it. 
29 Gallon
Plants: Amazon Sword, Anubias Nana, Mondo Grass
Fish: 1 Bolivian Ram, 1 Clown Pleco, 6 Cherry Barbs, 6 Glow Lite Tetras, 1 Female Betta, 4 Peppered Cories and 3 Bronze Cories


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## mrbelvedere138 (Jan 18, 2006)

"Mondo Grass" or _Ophiopogon japonica_ isn't an aquatic plant. It will die in your tank. Guaranteed.


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## Twisted_Angel (Oct 2, 2005)

Thanks for the tip. The guy at the store where I bought it had it fully submerged and never gave me any hint that it wasn't aquatic. Why do they sell stuff like that if it will just end up dying? 
Anyway, thanks for letting me know, glad I only paid 2 bucks a piece for them!


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## houseofcards (Feb 16, 2005)

The mondo grass will not only survive but thrive if you do two things.

1. Don't bury the rhizome in the substrate. 
2. Raise the plant up so part of the stem is out of the water.

Of course if you do number 2 it won't be suitable as a foreground plant and you would need an open top setup.


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## Twisted_Angel (Oct 2, 2005)

Not quite set up to do the open top thing. 
I'm so bummed now, I really like those plants! Is there anything I can get that looks somewhat like it that will survive? I'm thinking about returning these ones, unless I can make use of it somewhere else. Maybe plant it in or around my dad's pond?


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## raven_wilde (Nov 16, 2005)

Don't feel too bad about the Mondo Grass, same thing happened to me when I first started with aquatic plants... except I wasn't hooked up to APC so I didn't have anybody to set me straight and I just kept buying more for a while until I gave up on it out of frustration... I don't know how well it would do in a pond outside, if you really want to keep it around you could try planting it as houseofcards suggested only do it in a large glass vase or something near a window... might be pretty.


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## violentray (Jul 20, 2005)

a plant similar to mondo grass would be dwarf sagitarria (sp?) or possibly dwarf hairgrass, but the dwarf sag looks more like the mondograss.


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

Echinodorus latifolius is another possibility.

http://www.deepforestaquatics.com/aqua/misc/latifolius_front.jpg
http://www.deepforestaquatics.com/aqua/misc/latifolius_top.jpg

No, I don't have it any more. I keep algae now 

--Nikolay


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## spcyamada (May 13, 2005)

*Mondo*

I have mondo grass in one of my discarded plant tanks. I've had it for about 1 year now and it's growing. In the first 6 months, it looked like it was about to die as the leaves melted away. Then about 7 months in, it started to grow new shoots in thick bunches at the base. I think it just takes alot of time for it to adapt. As someone else mentioned, dont bury the plant. Push it into the substrate just enough so the roots are buried while not disturbing it as it grows. This plant does not need much light for it to grow healthy new leaves though extremely slow submerged.


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## ringram (Jan 10, 2005)

Yeah. I figured that out that hard way a while back. It looked sort of neat in the tanks at the LFS, but in my tank (high light /Co2, ferts) it just slowly withered away and never really grew but got covered in algae.



mrbelvedere138 said:


> "Mondo Grass" or _Ophiopogon japonica_ isn't an aquatic plant. It will die in your tank. Guaranteed.


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## Jdinh04 (Oct 7, 2004)

The tank looks great, and it looks like the plants are growing healthy. All you need to do now is either way for the plants to grow, or fill in the gaps by adding more plants. Having more plants in a planted tank and fill in those gaps making it look like an actual aquascape that has been completed. I'm pretty sure that the amazon swords will reach to the top of the tank, therefore I think the background section should be good for now. Try some midground plants and possibly some foreground plants as well.


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## Twisted_Angel (Oct 2, 2005)

Thanks to everyone for your advice and comments. I've decided to try my luck with the mondo for now, if it starts to look bad, I'll take it out. I'm kind of tapped out for local resources for more plants at the moment, so I'm about as planted as I'm going to get for the time being. I'm going to talk to the guy at my LFS about ordering different kinds of plants, so we'll see how it goes. What would you all suggest for good fore and mid ground plants?


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