How do you prune/propagate/trim/ jungle vals?

[lamthuyduong]

What is the best way to prune/propagate/trim jungle vals?

[bharada]

I used to trim the leaves so that they were just under water level. Ratty leaves I would make the effort to strip off from the plant base...or at least clip off as close to the plant base as I could get.

Propagation is something that just happens with Vals as they'll start sending runners everywhere when they get settled. I had some that would send a runner with 4-5 plantlets out every week.

[ming]

Althought trimming the leaves to the water levels tend to make the rest of the leaf slowly rot away. Assuming they're successful in your tank as they were in mine, I would just cut the whole leaf thats too long all the way as close to the bottom as you can because they grow new leaves so fast.

[EricSilver]

How about Giant Hairgrass?

I just got some that was very long and trimmed it to water level.

[EricSilver]

Originally Posted by lamthuyduong

What is the best way to prune/propagate/trim jungle vals?

Do you have Jungle val or corkscrew val?
Jungle val is rather large for a 10-gal tank. You'll be pruning it daily (perhaps even hourly).

[lamthuyduong]

I have jungle vals. I received my order of plants 2 days ago. Originally, the jungle vals were at least 3 feet long. I cutted the leaves in half so it could fit the 10 gallon. I realized jungle vals are too big for the 10 gallon. The leaves are starting to turn brown. All of them are starting to turn brown. I don't see any plantlets either.

[EricSilver]

Are the Jungle Val roots white and healthy? If so, you should see new leaf growth soon.

Your tank must be full of plants by now, all of them desperately competing with each other for nutrients. Are you fertilizing?

[Ibn]

You can trim the giant hairgrass in a similar fashion, which will turn the tips brown. Hope that your tank is a tall one, since this plant reaches up pretty high (saw some at Albany that were over 24" tall that shaded some of the other plants on the surface).

I use the same method as bharada when dealing with trimming/propagating vals. They are fast growers and are constantly sending out runners.

[bharada]

Originally Posted by ming

Althought trimming the leaves to the water levels tend to make the rest of the leaf slowly rot away.

This is true, but my experience with healthy Vals is that they'll grow faster than they'll rot. By the time a leaf end would start melting (due to the trim) it was time to cut it again anyway.

[EricSilver]

I have about 15 inches water depth (factoring in substrate). The hair grass I bought was at least 20 inches, and actually looked OK with the tops bent over the surface. It did not block much light either, because the leaves are so thin. But I trimmed it anyway.

It does a good job of filling in a back corner without drawing too much attention to itself.

[rkundla]

Originally Posted by EricSilver

It does a good job of filling in a back corner without drawing too much attention to itself.

I thought the same way about my hairgrass until it because infested with thread algae! I asked my wife if she had a comb I could use to try and groom the algae out of the grass.

My problem with hairgrass is that it grows so dense that when I wanted to remove certain sections of plant to prevent it from creeping into an undesirable area, it pulled out more of the grass than I wanted.