They seem to be growing upwards rather than spreading horizontally. But it is early days yet. If this continues it means your lights are not strong enough. I have a carpet myself and they need a lot of light.
I think you can safely trim the taller strands and if you want you can replant them by using a screen mesh to hold them which you can bury with easy and start growing more baby tears =)
Watts per a gallon as a useful measurement is dead.
20g long gets stronger light than a 20g high using the same light on each due to height difference of tanks.
Yea, you have regular baby tears, not HC. It will grow into a nice stem bush. I suggest pulling it and putting it in the midground or background of your tank. It's a nice plant, just not suitable for a foreground.
I disagree. Well I agree it's not HC but you can make a very nice carpet with HG. It does take time, a lot of trimming, and a good amount of light though.
I didn't say it WON'T carpet, I said it wasn't suitable for the foreground. His tank looks small from the pics so trying to maintain a HG carpet would be ill advised especially being new to planted tanks...
I guess opinions vary, I didn't find it difficult at all to make it into a carpet but I do agree on your point about scale. There are better options available for nano scapes.
I mistakenly bought some baby tears thinking it was HC, the leaves were very small which i guess is due to it being grown emersed. After a few days in the tank the leaves started getting bigger and resembled the familiar baby tears shape
Update rapid growing ... my friend took back his aquascaping tools a ada tools very nice out of my budget right now so I order stuff on Amazon that I could afford to help me groom the tank at the moment they definitely need a trimming
I believe the plant you have is HM=Hemianthus Micranthomoides=(regular) baby tears.
This plant can and will carpet. It does however tend to get bushier then HC=dwarf baby tears. Probably the most understated element is having a smaller grain substrate for the tiny plants to root and anchor to which it appears you have. You likely have enough light which is the most important factor to encourage compact, sprawling growth. The second element is CO2. In my experience, this plant will send out both runners along the substrate and vertical shoots from these runners. As others have mentioned, the vertical ones can be trimmed to promote and encourage more of the horizontal growth.
Here are a few pictures of an old tank of mine with it. I did not trim the vertical shoots.
Baby tears were doing excellent but they are starting to thin out and turn slightly yellow I have been dosing the tank as normal do they need to be trimmed lower or yellow pieces removed?
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Related Threads
?
?
?
?
?
The Planted Tank Forum
3.5M posts
130.6K members
Since 2002
A forum community dedicated to Aquatic tank owners and enthusiasts. Come join the discussion about flora, fauna, health, housing, filters, care, classifieds, and more!