[sausage_king]

New to aquascaping, at least in the modern sense.

Can carpeting plants like eleocharis be stopped from spreading over the entire tank bottom? If I created an "island" of gravel over aqua soil in the middle of a tank bottom, but used only sand near the edges of the tank, would the hairgrass still send runners into the sand, or would the compactness of the sand particles and the lack of nutrients halt its progress?

Basically, is something like below only achievable through constant pruning?

 

[minorhero]

Hair grass will spread into sand, especially when using co2. But you can cut the runners and tweezer out the new plants.

 

[MrGoodkat]

It can be done, but depending on how much time you want to dedicate to maintenance, it might get away from you.

I know I am not disciplined enough to tame runners because I've failed in the past, so I only use plants that propagate with runners when I want them to (hair grass for a carpet, etc.).

Just depends on your personality, what you like doing/have time for.

Edited to add: depending on how you set it up, it may take half a year or more before the hair grass noticeably infiltrates the sand with some minor maintenance. By that point, you may be thinking of re-scaping anyway. So again, just think about what you want out of your tank in the long run.

 

[Deanna]

Keeping Hairgrass From Spreading

Post #3