Another question on Hairgrass... sorry, sorry...

[Desewer]

Hey guys

I planted my foreground with hairgrass about 6 weeks ago. Now, the clumps that I planted are still there, not spreading at all, and the leaves are dark brown to black and no longer green.

Water temp is about 28-29C and lighting is 2x36W + 1x55W PL on a 2x1x1.5(h) tank.

Any idea how I can encourage faster growth and get the leaves to turn back to green?

My other plants are growing well. E.g. E. ozelot, Java ferns, Anubias nana, nana petite, Hydrocotyle verticillata.

p.s. I have problems with growth of my HM/MM (micranthemoides), Ludwigia repens and Ludwigia Cuba. All my Cuba have melted and died. These 'problem plants' are in the background of the scape near my filter intake (connected to surface skimmer).

Thanks in advance...

[aquaticlover]

Any CO2 supply? They need Co2.

[doppelbanddwarf]

I think for hairgrass you can give them a trim to make them spread. The reason for them turning brown could be because the leaves are emersed. If new growth comes out then there'll be no problem. If not then maybe the plant is dead.

[REN]

Temperature is abit high too.

[Mildnomsed]

Hi bro,

Any info on fertilizers and CO2?

[Desewer]

CO2 - about 3 bps fed thru a standard 3-ball reactor. Lights from 12pm to 10pm daily.

I dose LushGro Aqua & Micros about one squirt every 3 days. Tetra FloraPride (iron supplement) one capful every 3 days for my Ludwigia repens. But it appears that the repens does not absorb much of the iron. New leaves from my ozelot are deep red though.

I've 80% made up my mind to remove all my livestock and transfer them to my other 2ft tank (containing 6 blue angels and 2 driftwoods, no plants, no lights, 2 internal filters with eheim substratpro and a small amt of biohome) while I rescape my tank.

Was thinking of using glosso in the foreground to replace the HG but I don't know if my water temp is too high to grow glosso. Possible plants for the proposed new scape will be my present ozelot, hydrocotyle verticillata, rotala sp. green, glosso, riccia on mesh or stones between the glosso, anubias nana and nana petite, and java fern (standard and narrow).

[Mildnomsed]

Looks fine... How do you position your lights? 2x36W infront while 1x55W PL at the back or otherwise? And your 2x36W is T8 or T5? My own experience is I used to use 2 T8s but it really sucks. The light penetration is very low. I think generally the type of bulb and the colour temperature will somehow affects the foreground plants. But from what I see, 6 weeks should be adequate for the hairgrass to convert itself from emerse to submerse.

[Desewer]

My 36W PLs are in front and the 55W is at the back. The 36W's are of a different temp from the 55W. I can't recall the exact temp though. I guess since my other plants are growing well, the lighting shouldn't be a problem.

I doubt that my HG was grown emersed in the first place. Still, I'll try to trim them tomorrow night and then monitor the growth for a week or two. Since this time round there'll be almost no livestock in the tank.

On a separate issue, my cardinals and rummy-nose tetras are refusing to eat. I've fed them frozen bloodworms, Tetra crisps, Tetra granules, ADA AP-3 Gold and even Hikari flakes. They just don't eat. But they don't seem to die. Weird.

[Mildnomsed]

ya, you trim them and see if there's any new growth.

On your fish, that's weird. I never encounter this, my fishes are always hungry to an extent that I am always tempted to overfeed. haha

[Desewer]

It's 1:20am and I just finished my rescape. 2 pots of Glosso and one pot of Rotala macrandra from Polyart. Other plants reused.

Now my centrepiece driftwood has Java moss and narrow leaf fern. Background plants are Echinodorus ozelot, Ludwigia repens, Hygrophila sp. and Rotala macrandra. Midground plants are narrow leaf fern, nana petite and Hydrocotyle verticillata. Foreground is Glosso!

All livestock moved to my other tanks. Will fish out my SAE's and Otocinclus and release them in this tank once the plants have rooted, maybe sometime next weekend. Haven't decided on a schooling fish species yet. Wondering if my water is good enough for the Blue Emperor Tetra, Inpaichthys kerri.

I'll post some pics in the aquascaping section when I have time.

By the way, all hairgrass uprooted and discarded. bwahahahaha

[Yttrium]

I have a tank that's of a similar size as yours with 1X55W (now 2x24W) lights, CO2 about 3bps planted with hairgrass, glosso, HM and HC. The only thing really growing now is the hairgrass. Not really fast but the runners have spread to the tank edge at some spots. I used the GEX red pack soil for this tank. I had another tank with black quartz gravel and the hairgrass in that tank never grew. Similar experience as yours, the leaves turn brown then drop off. What substrate are you using? It's a pity to hear that you've thrown all your hairgrass away

[Yttrium]

Oh and my water temp is also around 29deg.. sometimes 30deg on warm days so I don't think its the temp.

[Desewer]

Hmmm... I guess it must be the substrate then. I'm using lapis sand on top of some cheapo base ferts. WHen I first started this tank, I wanted to keep things cheap so I went with generic base ferts.

I hope my glosso can carpet my foreground on this lapis sand. Else, I'll have to switch substrates by July. Maybe ADA Amazonia 2.

Ok, see how lah. If my current scape turns out well I won't have to rescape until end of the year.

[TKS7011]

Hi,
Did you observe the root of the hair grass, was it growing? Any sign of runners under the soil?
Have similar experience, hair grass not dying but just don't start runners.

[chaosdiablo]

I got hair grass with black quartz sand with root monster and liquid fert, think I will have same problem...so what sand good for hair grass etc foreground plant....

[madnugget]

heard that you can grow anything with ADA line of soil~

[Desewer]

ADA soil, of course lah. I have a wallpaper of a 4ft ADA tank with 1.5WPG lighting. Driftwoods as midground pieces across the tank, moss on the wood. Narrow leaf Java fern on both sides of the tank, Rotala 'green' in the background and OMG LUSH LUSH HAIRGRASS in the foreground.

Haiz... see how my bonus is, end of this year. Then switch to Seachem/Dennerle/JBL baseferts with Amazonia II as my aquasoil...

[argonmt]

- lower your tank temperature to around 27 using a fan, it helps the plant grow.
- 10 hours of lighting seems too much. Usually 8 hours is enough.
- I am using seachem flourite. tested and proven.
- If possible get a CO2 reactor, I'm using max mix.
- once you have controlled CO2, you can add more liquid fert of K, P and N.

[Desewer]

Thanks for the tips.

My plant leaves are slowly dying off. Turning translucent and then dropping off. I'll reduce the photoperiod to 8hrs since my lights are so bright.

CO2 is injected using a standard 3-ball reactor. 3bps.

Will experiment with the water temp too. My fan is rather large (AC fan) and I plan to make some mods on it so it can be accommodated on my tank.

[Mildnomsed]

Hey Desewer,

My guess is the plants is somehow sensitive to something. Did you dose anything or overdose anything recently? Try to monitor it too. =)