Glossostigma

Setting up a glosso-tank

 

By  Wolfgang  Amri

 

Setting up a tank using only glossostigma elatinoides is one of the most challenging works that can be done in aquascaping. This short description of my experiences and especially the mistakes I made shall help you achieve your desired results.

 

1. The tank:
If you don't yet have a tank, choose one that is quite shallow. This will help you get more light to the plant. Glossostigma is very light demanding and therefore you need to play every trick you can.

I  didn't have the chance to choose a new tank specifically for this project, but used the one I had, which has a height of 22 (too much for my light output)

2. Lights

My plan was to use 4x30w on a tank of 55 gallon. This gave me 2.16 watts per gallon (wpg). This is the lowest you can try. If you have the opportunity, go with higher light output. In my opinion three wpg should be perfect.

3. Gravel setup
Now this is the first actual aquascaping work: Try to create slopes. This will give you more depth, once the plants have grown in. Make the slopes steeper as you want them in the end. The hills will flatten as the tank ages. It happened to me.  The slope on the picture you see isn't steep at all! Make it steeper than that!!! I chose white gravel. Not the most natural thing you can think of, but I wanted the stones to reflect the lights, since I knew it was going to be a challenge to get horizontal growth.

 

4. Stones, driftwood etc.
I chose to make a rockwork. Therefore I was in the mountains to gather some rocks. I was looking for several pieces of the same type (very important) but of different sizes. Placing the stones: This depends very much on what you are going to do. The main focal point (usually the biggest stone) has to be placed in the golden ratio (look at the Aqua botanic Newsflash of  Sept. 17^th 2002). Since I had two stones of about the same size, I needed to do something different. I chose the ratio of the area with stones to the area without stones to be the golden ratio.

   

Also the geometrical center of all stones is in the golden ratio. Try to make the rock placement as natural as you can. Don't place all of your stones. Place the biggest and then throw the other ones in. Once again I want to stress the slope. Here it still looks quite steep, but that will change!

 

5. Planting

Another mistake I made: I didn't buy enough plants. Get as many glosso plants as you can afford. The more you have, the faster they will grow in. I was aware of buying not enough, but at that time my LFS didn't have more in stock. So you need to order well in advance. Start with filling the tank with water (about half of it's height). Once you have the plants, divide them. Then bury them quite deep in the substrate and as close together as you can. This will take quite an amount of time to plant all those little bits.

 

If you don't have enough plants, you can use others (especially fast growing stem plants) in the background to start with. They will use up excessive nutrients and prevent algae growth. Another thing I didn't do (though I knew it would happen). You can pull them out once your glosso has grown in. It will cover the free space faster than you may think.

 

  

When everything is done, fill the tank with water adjust filter, heater and lightning and wait until it has cycled before you put your fishes in. Since I don't have several tanks, I had to put the fish in a bucket once I tore down the old setup. I used the old filter, old water and some old gravel that I put underneath the new one. So I had to put the fish in immediately after I finished the setup. Another thing you shouldn't do!

 

Well, since I made several mistakes, the tank looked like this after a few weeks:

 

 

 

You like it??? Well, I didn't !!!

I pruned the glosso several times and used the cuttings to make my carpet more dense. No matter what I tried, the glosso kept growing upwards. My girlfriend posted a question on Aquabotanic discussion forum on what I could do to get horizontal growth. The answer was: change the bulbs. Since mine have been more than a year old, I did it. At first there was just little change: growth speed increased. I was very disappointed and decided to make one last prune, before I wanted to tear everything down and call it a failed setup. So I pruned it and didn't do any replanting. I also took out all the stones and bleached them, rinsed them very very well before I put them in again. Of course I didn't place them exactly like they had been, but the look was quite the same.

 

This time I got the desired results. I was so pleased with what I saw, that I forgot about all the other Ideas I had in mind for other setups. It took about three more weeks for the glosso to cover the whole substrate and look really fine. Although the plant never looked like Amano's glosso, I was really satisfied with the setup. A little more light would have given me the same look (even lower growth).

Now here is the result:

 

 

As you can see the glosso still tends to grow up a little.

 

Mistakes I made:

 

   Tank was too high

   Not enough light (and too old lights)

   Not enough glosso plants

   No fast growing plants to start with.

   Fishes moved in too early (I had quite a high bio load, because the old setup was full with plants)

   I didn't clean the stones every now and then with a toothbrush. Therefore I had to take them out and use bleach. Especially in the initial stage of a setup I would recommend to clean the stones and/or driftwood every other day. After that there is only a need for cleaning it every two to three weeks. Sometimes no cleaning at all.

   My water was too hard (KH 8, GH 11)

 

If you avoid these mistakes, you should have good success.

 

 

Additional Info on Glossostigma elatinoides:

Glossostigma elatinoides is much in demand in Japanese-inspired aquariums. It is one of the smallest aquarium plants, and thus a good foreground plant. A difficult plant demanding a lot of light. Grows upwards if light is poor. Make sure larger plants do not overshadow it. When planting in the aquarium small clumps (approx. 1/8 pot) should be placed at intervals of a few centimeters to help the plants grow together more quickly. CO₂ addition and soft water promote growth significantly. (ex: http://www.tropica.com)

 

   IMO Glosso needs quite high amounts of fertilizers (but pay attention to not overdose in the beginning, when there is very little plant load). CO2 is a must when cultivating this plant!

• Prune the glosso regularly to keep it healthy.

 

Now I hope to see some of your glosso-tank pictures at the first Aquabotanic Aquascaping Excellence Award (http://www.aquabotanic.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=580).

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