I just wanted to share an experience with everyone. A couple of days ago, my HC arrived and I planted it im a emersed setup. This is the way to go for planting HC, After de-potting, I just pushed the clump softly into the sand and already today I am seeing new growth. This is by far the easiest way to plant this plant without having to worry about the plant floating or getting dislodged by currents. Just wanted to share that advice with yall, if you want this plant to grow a lawn, give the dry-start method a try, it really works well.
Thats what it looked like now. When i first planted, ti was a smooth top, like there werent any little stems coming up but in this picture, it was a uniform bump, but now you can see that at some points, the plants have already started to grow.
amazing ! nice job sin and thanks for sharing, wish i knew this a few months ago. will like to give this a try when I next attempt it. Looking forward to see the progress along the way on this tank. You're probably going to cause me to buy another tank
Thats the fear im dealing with right now, the HC is definitely growing well, they're all growing towards the light, probably cuz of the design of the edge, but anyway, they're def growing, will try and add a picture later today or tomorrow. Since HC is one of those plants that loves excel as much as CO2, im misting the plants with a mixture of excel and flourish comp. Im hoping that it will grow adapted to excel and keep dosing excel after filling to keep the carbon levels up. Once i have a satisfactory lawn, im going to taper off on the excel and hope that the co2 from the decomposing soil and fish will keep it going. I have a couple of extra pots of HC in a tray growing emersed in case it fails so i can immediately restart. One thing im worried about is that the HC is growing more upwards than spreading out, i hope thats just an initial thing. In moderate light setups, i hear that hc sometimes only grows upwards. If thats the case this project is gonna have to turn into a DIY project with new lights or something...
You'll still need to use the excel for a couple weeks after filling.. I've even heard that you need to overdose the CO2 (or excel) for up to a month, before you taper it off slowly... Soil substrates produce CO2, but I wouldn't count on it satisfying all the needs in the very beginning.
Misting with excel is an idea... Might try that.... You can also use miracle grow and such in the DSM... The ammonium will be gone by the time you taper off the CO2.
Yea, need to find some curved scissors though, normal scissors will destroy the bunch rather than help it. I dont plant to be able to reduce excel until at least 6 weeks after filling.
On a unrelated note, I have lots of snails and worms everywhere in the tank to help break down the soil. Super wierd, actually looked under the tank yesterday, love how you can get under the tank in the edge, there were red wroms, white worms <looked like thin maggots, tons of cyclops, ramshorn snails, pond snails, MTS, something that flies, etc in the tank. Not so sure i even need to get fish anymore... its a thriving ecosystem on its own. Guess this is one of the results of emersed setups, the stagnant lower water levels will promote all kinds of critters, im now a bit apprehensive about putting my hand in there, everything needs to be done with forceps and scissors now. Even rock arrangements, which is really difficult without hands...
The flying bugs are probably fungus gnats... They'll feed on the sap your plants produce... Might not want to drag out the dry period too long unless you can control them.
well part of the tank is submerged, the worms are all underwater worms. as for the flying things, I see one once in a while. I usually mist when i see them and they dont show up for a few days, i think it catches their wings and they drown. My snails eat em then probably.
One other thing im worried about is the pond snails and the ramshorns, not sure what their population is right now, but im afraid they may start eating my plants if they get too hungry, not really sure when to toss them food, been doing it once every couple of days but i still worry about it. Might drop in a 3rd HC pot and speed up the lawning...
So i emant to update the pics but didnt get a chance till now. Cant see much difference in the pictures but in person you can def see more height. Also a few strands of HC has started to grow outwards with runners but im not seeing a lot of stems on these runners :-/
Day 6:
Day 11:
Other side has some parts of the HC dying, probably because of the shade from a rock, using one of those compact lights for nanos on it now to try and get it to establish itself better, already seeing how this may be a big problem for this tank. Might really need to consider getting some mods done on this tank...
OK so i had set up a 1g tank, and was also dry-starting my HC, but there was a lot of moisture leaking out so after 2 weeks, i filled the tank before my HC just dried and failed. End result? I went home to my HC pearling yesterday. I was expecting a melt to occure but instead its pearling? Considering no co2 and part of the plant drying out, the healthy parts all had bubbles. Very strange no?
The crypt appeared to be doing ok, but my anubias nana melted. Imagine that.
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