[tetra73]

I have 2 small bunches of dwarf hairgrass. Before I planted them, I research enough to know that I would need to trim them down to very small pieces. Unfortunately, I don't have soil or fine sand as substrates. This, I believe, makes it very impossible to carpet the substrate with any sorts of foreground plants with very fine roots. Currently, I am trying to make my Narrow Leaf Chain Sword to carpet. They don't have a lot of runners unfortunately. Maybe 2 the most for each plant.

Dwarf baby tears was the first failure. This was couple of weeks ago. Now, my tank is matured and with a pressurized CO2 system. Everything is somewhat balanced. These hairgrass are making a mess on my tank water surface. They sit too loosely on the substrate. Right now, I have couple of water bottle tops to protect them from being disturbed by my algae eaters. I suspect that within couple of days, the grass will turn brown. And I would have to siphon them out of the tank.

I guess as long as I don't have soil or sand substrates, I just can't grow these plants.

 

[Rainer]

My e.belem seems to be doing okay - aside from the random node occasionally uprooting itself - in Peace River 1-2mm inert gravel.

 

[tetra73]

My e.belem seems to be doing okay - aside from the random node occasionally uprooting itself - in Peace River 1-2mm inert gravel.

Yeah, that's the same substrate I used to cap it over my aquariumplants.com substrate.

 

[Rainer]

I've been burying mine pretty deep - just enough that the longest blades are easily visible. They work themselves out to a degree but it gives the roots time to take hold.

Seems to be working so far.

 

[gordonrichards]

Ferts are important!!! With inert substrate no plant will grow. You might want to get some mts substrate with an inert cap!

 

[tetra73]

Ferts are important!!! With inert substrate no plant will grow. You might want to get some mts substrate with an inert cap!

I am doing fine with fert. In fact, I am upping my monthly root tabs applications to twice per month now since my hygrophila corymbosa are showing sign of potassium deficiency with massive growth at the top. I have no problems with growths.

This is taken couple of days ago. After 1 month and 1 week.

 

[Rainer]

Ferts are important!!! With inert substrate no plant will grow. You might want to get some mts substrate with an inert cap!

Are you saying that carpet plants don't feed from the water column?

 

[Sharkfood]

You don't need fine substrate to grow plants like DHG. I've carpetted my main tank several times with DHG using inert flourite. I did use root tabs initially, but stopped once the carpet was filled in.

Carpet plants can most definitely take in ferts through their leaves, but when you first plant it it's basically just a root, so I would imagine root tabs are very helpful at this stage.

 

[mistergreen]

I think light is your main issue. Those tall plans are blocking out the light for the carpet plants or the light isn't reaching to the bottom. If you have a par meter, you can measure how much light is getting down there.