Plant Maintenance: Hair Grass

[FC]

I just came from the search engine and was not able to find the answer. Now, I understand how difficult it is to find answer through it.

I named this new top as "Plant Maintenance:XXXX". Hopefully, it would easir for future would-be searcher to find it.

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I have hair glass for about 3-4 months now. I cut them once after 1 month of planting them, the result was good. They now spread over about 70% of my tank area. However, they are very very dense, very short (2-3"), medium to dark green and spread very slowly now.

Qustions:
Is the 2"-3" short normal? I was told it is cause by too much light (I have 2.5watt/gallon).
How do you maintain hairglass?
When (by looking at the plant) should I cut them?
The hair glass seems to avoid the feeding area or is it that the fishes cause damage to them?

Care to help?

Thanks.

[jacian]

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On 1/6/2003 1:35:23 PM

Qustions:
Is the 2"-3" short normal? I was told it is cause by too much light (I have 2.5watt/gallon).
How do you maintain hairglass?
When (by looking at the plant) should I cut them?
The hair glass seems to avoid the feeding area or is it that the fishes cause damage to them?

Care to help?

Thanks.
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1. No, that is not short. 2.5W/gallon is not high for hairgrass, I would think 2.5 is required for the hairgrass to grow.

2. You trim them when you find them too tall.... You can trim the hair grass but it would not make them less dense. When your hair grass get too dense, you might have to pull them out and replant.

3. Yes, in fact I am having the same problem as you where the hair grass at the feeding area keep got uprooted by the fishes.

[FC]

Thanks for the good answers, Jacian.

Is there any problem for the plant to grow too dense? Mine is really very dense.

I wonder why some tank has very long hair grass which I always wanted. Or is it that they are of diffrence species. Having said that, the hair grass I bought were long before I planted them.

[Nicky]

I have seen on the web this lady's (from overseas) tank. She has a nice slope-like hairgrass in her tank. Very nice. I have always want to do it but my hairgrass like yours, will not grow longer than 2 inches.

If I'm not wrong, the webby of Tropica on Eleocharis acicularis states that there are more than 100 Eleocharis species. According to the web, it is rather difficult to distinguish betw them.

If you can find longer species of hairgrass in Singapore, pls PM me.

[jacian]

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On 1/6/2003 4:35:12 PM

Is there any problem for the plant to grow too dense? Mine is really very dense.
-I mean will the plant collapse in short time due to over-dense?

Just to share on my experience on my ex-hairgrass carpet which had grown very dense (more than a year time).
1. New growth were slow.
2. New growth seemed to stack on the old one causing patches of hairgrass to be dislodged from the substrate.

It became so ugly that I had to remove the whole carpet.

[jacian]

BTW, PM refers to private message.

[hwchoy]

I recently did a crewcut for my HG. They were so dense because if you trim them a little, the short stubs will keep accumulating together with the new growth. So I decided to MOW the lawn basically, and trim down to the gravel. The idea is that there is now no more stubs, and all the new growth would not be squeezing with the old stubs.

BTW, my HG grows 1 inch in 2 days, and gets up to 4 inches high, waving in the current. As suggested by guys in this forum, I use a comb to keep them tidy.

Got my HG from Teo, you might want to try there. Alternatively, I have seen wild HG in lokangs around 8-inches long.

[Nicky]

hwchoy, your HG grows 1 inch in 2 days?? What steorids did you feed them with?[]

You mentioned longkang got hairgrass that can be 8inches long. Can you tell me where you can find them? It would be nice to mix some long hg with the short ones to create some depth to the tank.

[FC]

Finally decided to lawn the hair grass and did last Saturday morning. It took me 3-4 hrs to cut and clean up.

Once again, I get to see my substrate, feel good, I don't why.

Look forward for them to grow again and hopefully better.

Thanks to all repliers.

[rick]

hi,

I would like to try carpet hairgrass, but you gentlemen described that it is not reccommended. Pls advise. Thanks. BTW if you happen to still keep the hair grass and want to let go ,i would like to hav them to try... thankyou.

Rick