How to plant hemianthus callitrichoides (HC) ?

[|squee|]

I got a palm sized patch today, but I searched the forums and Google for tips on planting this crazyily minute plant and I've no idea how to do it still.

Any tips? I've small tweezers at hand but I really do not know how to start.

[PeterGwee]

Look at Oliver Knott's tanks with HC planted. Small clumps and just shove it in.

Regards
Peter Gwee

[|squee|]

Shoved in already

I foresee I'll have "fun" trimming this plant in the future.

[BFG]

If you have shrimps especially yamato, they can pull out the plants as was my case.

[Barbarik]

Planting HC is a "back-aching" process that someone need to overcome. A pair of tweezers is a must. It is near to impossible to plant it by the roots. Need to "sacrifice" some of the leaves to be put into the gravel.

But once HC has established itself in the tank, the satisfaction of having a lawn-effect is very undescribable . The only problem is trimming once it gets too bushy.

[ah^siao]

how is the trimming usually done?

[krabbie]

how tall can it grow until?

[Phillipians]

what i did while planting was also to take small clumps with some plantlets then plant it in, like what squee said, bo bian (no choice) gotta sacrifice some of the leaves, i m waiting for my to lawn too. I dont think it grows too high though

[|squee|]

They were shoved it, but some floated up.

And it's hell to clean out all those tiny leaves too. Oh boy... why did I do this to myself. But they're beautiful though. It might be just the thing that can solve my aquascape.

[silane]

It is quite a pain, they float easily and once the root get damaged easily and without healthy roots, their growth stalled and start to float up.

Planting them in small number of plantlet will usually causes them to float up as nothing much to hold them down. Plant them in a large clump at the expense of slower spread increase the chance of success, place small pebble over them to prevent floating.

Or look for HC that grow on planted gravel, you can plant HC with gravel on root, weighing them down and minimal damage to the root. This method prevent any floating up, once they don't floating, more roots will grow into the substrate and crawler will bloom.

[lukeskwr]

If you have shrimps especially yamato, they can pull out the plants as was my case.

man if only i had read this thread. i wasted my HC. This is what i did: I filled up the tau huey container to the brim with fert mixed lapis gravel. place the clump of the HC on top and hold it down with fishing line. to keep the fishing line in place i made grooves around the edge of the tau huey container but too bad my yamatos uprooted them even before the hc roots itself....now me trying parva as foreground plant..... got a 2ft tank in the office waiting to be setup....HC?