How my 60lt tank looks like today

When I setup this tank I thought the main issue was to keep Anubias nana mini out of algae but I was wrong... Hemianthus callitrichoides cuba is the main problem here!

Is not a question of light or shadow in some areas of the layout because it continues growing very well and healthy, the problem is how it grows. Since a long time without using foreground plants that grow in layers, I forgot that it need to be trimmed very often to avoid that get out from soil after some volume; and this was what really happened. Hemianthus has tiny roots and if you don't be careful in keep it lower, with time will get volume and without apparent reason will be very weak near of soil. You will notice that, when you trimmed it... it will be a question of time! Fortunately for me, I solved this problem improvising a little bit. Using a very thin plastic coated metal wire as a staple, I held the plant on the soil renewing it again as you can see on the picture below.

Maybe I will not keep this layout for much time for several reasons...

• Anubias nana mini, even with small leaf is too big for what I was expecting.


• It takes too much time to grow and cutting the bigger leafs will let the branches naked for long, long time.


• To get the best shape it will take months trimming and trimming the Hemianthus while Anubias grow.

Conclusion: Anubias nana mini is the best choice to have a tree without maintenance for long, long time but in this case it will be better if we use Eleocharis parvula because will compact instead of growing in layers as some foreground plants like Hemianthus.

If you intend to do it on the future follow my advice ;-)