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re: foreground plant question



Colleen,

There are many foreground options.  By their nature
*most* foregrounds require a lot of light.  Also, most
foregrounds are sort of high maintenance.

Probably your two best options are echinodorus
tenellus (the plain green kind) and the narrower
red-tinted tenellus found in Amano's books.  I prefer
the latter.

The plain tenellus will tend to get too tall.  But
it's ok and easy to grow.

The Amano tenellus will stay short, however under
high-light conditions it will tend to go wild and grow
on top of itself.

Otherforegrounds that I have done are riccia, glosso,
and acicularis (hairgrass).  Riccia wasn't so bad--I
used onion nets and rocks to hold it down.  Weekly
haircut.  Relatively high maintenance.  Glosso is
great, but after some time it grows onto itself and
then what?  You almost have to pull it up and start
over.  I know Tom has taken 'squares' out of his
glosso (in a checkerboard fashion I guess) to help
control it.  Hairgrass will tend to collect stuff and
is a wonderful place for algae to take hold.

Other less traditional foregrounds include pearlweed
(hemianthus) and stargrass (heteranthera).

I am going to try marsilea quadrifolia sometime soon,
I have heard this can be somewhat low maintenance...

Anyway, I hope this helps...

Arthur
http://taopa.com

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