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Tank plan review, please.

Hi everyone,

This is such a nice list I thought I might impose on you all.
I am planning my first attempt at a planted tank. It is a 55
gallon. I am hoping to get some comments on my likelihood of
success. ;-)

Below is an ASCII version of my "aquascape" if you can call it
that. Obviously it will only make sense with a fixed width font. I
hope that doesn't cause too much trouble.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
|                             +       ***********                    |
|           2    2     3     +   3     *********    4                |
|    2                      +          ********9          4     4    |
|                          +            9******                      |
|              1        +++               ***         4              |
|        1           +++ **            3                       4     |
|  1             ++++   ****     *                8        *         |
|               +       *****   **                        ***        |
|             ++         ****  **              8      8   ***    8   |
|     1     ++      7     *****                           ***        |
|          +            7  ****          6           ***  ***        |
|         +     7           *****                      ******        |
|        +           6        ****                 5      ***        |
|  1     +    7           7    ****                       ****       |
|       +        7               **                    5    **       |
|       +  7          7    7                                 *       |
|      +                                                             |
---------------------------------------------------------------------|
                            FRONT OF TANK

Key
+  3" (8cm) terrace
*  driftwood (the large piece at the back is a "stump" cut in half and
              attached to the glass)
1  Bacopa caroliniana
2  Hygrophila difformis
3  Telenthera roseafolia
4  Myriophyllum scabratum
5  Anubias nana
6  Aponogeton crispus
7  Lilaeopsis novae zelandae
8  Bacopa monieri
9  Vesicularia dubyana (Java Moss) attached to the stump

I can't visualize what the plants will look like, since I don't have
experience with them. I only have Baensch Vol. 1 to reference.
Hopefully someone can point out any glaring problems, like having
taller plants in front of shorter plants, or having plants too dense
or sparse. I'm not strongly attached to the plants if others seem
like better choices.

I will have 4 full-length 40W bulbs (1 plant, 2 wide spectrum plant,
and 1 7500K).  The substrate will be laterite and plant tabs in 2.5
cm of 1mm gravel/sand covered by 5 cm of 1mm sand. For the terrace I
am thinking of putting 5 cm of sand, the sand/nutrient mix, then more
sand. I intend to inject CO2 (the yeast version at first) and use
PMDD.

I haven't had an aquarium with my current tap water. I let a small
sample set overnight and measured the following: pH 8.0-8.5 (my Tetra
test is not very precise), 5 GH, 4 KH.

After I seem to have the CO2 and plants stable, I want to slowly
build up the fish population to contain
   10 Brachydanio rerio (Zebra Danio)
   6 Corydoras (some species under 2") 
   a pair of Colisa lalia (Dwarf Gourami) 
   a pair of Colisa sota (Honey Gourami) 
   1 Peckoltia pulcher 

I will use an Aquaclear 300 filter.

Thanks in advance.

Hope you have a very nice day, :-)
Tim Ayers                                    ayers at ibex-usa_com
IBEX Object Systems, Inc.        http://www.primenet.com/~goat/
St. Paul, Minnesota                                612-698-2736