Decided to scape my tank tonight, so that I can go into the new year with a brand new scaped tank. 
So, I headed to Pasir Ris Farm Rd 3 to pick up my plants direct from the plant farm. You get a fabulous price here rather than from any local fish shops as you skip them and go direct. But enough about my purchases…
Here is the substrate that I will be using for the tank. GEX soil, which is reasonably good. I got a total of 20kg worth, as the tank is fairly large.
Filling up the tank.
Ah.. finally done…
The girls helping me with the tank.
I’m attempting a fairly challenging plant called Hemianthus callitrichoides, or HC as better known in the industry. This plant is often grown “emersed”, that is in a terrestrial environment and dry. They are then sold to the local fish shops and placed submerged in a tank with CO2 and bright lights. In the transition from emersed to submersed, it is normal to experience what is normally known as “melting” or decaying of the leafs as the plant adapts itself to being submerged in water.
The HC I bought from Pasir Ris is grown emersed, and the chap at the farm picked out the HC direct from the ground! How can you be fresher than that! They didn’t have much, but I bought 70% of what they had. All in this red bag.
Here is the HC spread out on the table.
For the scape, I’ve decided that I wanted to scape a HC lawn with a focus point at the left corner where I would place 2 driftwood. These are the two pieces of driftwood I am using.
After tying some plants to the drift wood and arranging the driftwood to a position I liked, I proceeded to fill up the tank with a small tube. It would be a mistake to disturb the soil by the water as the water could end up being extremely cloudy.
At the same time while filling up, I began the painstaking and backbreaking task of planting the HC. Here you can see the final hard scape I will be using.
I tried planting while the soil was moist, but found it very tedious as the soil kept coming up. So, I decided to only start planting once the soil is submerged in water. Here, you can see that I’m 40% done with the HC. This alone took me close to 2 hours!
Heres a top view.
Stem plants come in small cute buckets. You have to remove the plants from the buckets, and free them from the corse rock cotton they are wrapped in. Each stem or plant must be separated before planting. This is how it looks like.
Wah.. the small tube was taking too long!!! Decided to change to the larger tube. Faster fill up!
After the numerous trips between the toilet and the tank to fill up pails of water, it is finally done!!!! Took me approximately 5 to 6 hours! Hope the scape is nice, and hope even more that the HC will survive! 
