I've read posts by people complaining about it taking over their tanks. I've never grown it so I have no opinion personally. Just thought I'd give you a heads up. I guess you should be careful with it, and when trimming so as to prevent it spreading in your tank.

Nice job with your tank! Btw, when you say you grew the anubias terrestrially, what exactly did you do? I'd love to know what it involved. I have another month before I submerge my tank and I wouldn't mind ordering some anubias now so as to grow it out. Thanks!

Hi orion,

Thanks for compliment. Tank is still relatevly new so a lot can go wrong! What i did with anubias was to grow ot emerse in compost at high humidity in plenty of light just like one does with riccia. When it was time to start this aquarium i removed the anubias from compost rinsed, divided the rhizone with sharp pair of scissors to get more plants and planted together with Hc and started the dry run. If ya look at earlier pic of my tank when not submerged anubias was already there. This gives it some time to settle and adjust to new envirolment, light intensity ect.

Hope i was of help!

May o pose a question? When is the best time to trim HC and how does one perform this feat? I must admit i am daunted by this task! ALl helo would be appreciated.

Chris

Update on the 180 gal using this method, this was done about 1 month ago from today:

It's looking great Tom. One question though, how have you managed to keep the areas with pools algae free? I can't see any algae on the substrate in those regions. Any thoughts on why that is so?

PS - Thanks for the info Chris. Can't wait to see the progression of your tank. Good luck!

No trick really, I leave the lights on 10 hours a day.
No algae.

You can let it dry out some, then that should help.

Regards,
Tom Barr

Hi Guys,

CAn you please tell what is the best way to trim HC and whem s the best time to do it? Should i give it some time or shall i perform this sooner rather than later? THanks a million guys!

TOm ur tank looks brilliant!

Chris

Well it's time for an update. Things have been going fairly well for me. It's been a month since I added my 3rd healthy pot of hairgrass which hadn't gone through the bleach dip. I found that all 2 pots of hairgrass that went through the bleach dip had all their old blades of grass turn brown and die. This set things back by a fair bit as it took a lot longer for these plantlets to grow out new blades and then send out runners. I guess I might have had much better results if I hadn't done the bleach dip.

Here are the comparison shots.

Tank about a month back:


Tank currently:


All in all things seem to be going well. The only annoying thing is that a lot of the plantlets are sending out runners which come up to the surface and then loop around. Doesn't look very nice and it seems like it slows down the actual spread in surface coverage of the hairgrass. I think I made a bit of a mistake with not planting the plantlets too deep. I was worried about killing it by burying the crown too deep, but the few plantlets that I planted this way seem to be doing fine and have sent out most of their runners under the surface.

I'm going to continue with this for another 3-4 weeks and then submerge the whole setup. I plan to have Manzanita driftwood, anubias nana, anubias coffeefolia, java fern and rotala rotundifolia. Keeping my fingers crossed. This is going to be my first planted tank =).

The hairgrass is looking great! Congratulations. Have you considered giving it a haircut yet? I wonder if that would be the thing to do with it still emersed.

Thanks Vaughn. I have given it occasionaly haircuts...but not all of it, just some plantlets in little bits. The whole problem is that I don't know what to do with all the bits that I cut off. They all just fall down on the substrate and I don't know if it's bad for it to just lie there and rot. It is a pain to try and pick all the pieces up with my forceps. I guess they would all float up when I submerge it and then I could collect all of it.

What do you guys think? Should I just give it a nice haircut to promote runner growth and not worry about the grass bits that fall all around the plantlets?

PS- Btw, I took your recommendation and moved to 2x20W CFLs 2 weeks back. I think I definitely see better growth, and the leaves have been growing really long! I'll probably back down to 2x15 Watts or 2x10 Watts once I submerse it. I think 2x20 W is a recipe for algae disaster once submersed (And only Excel dosing).

In this post, Light Intensity in an aquarium, you can see that even 2 - 20 watt screw-in DFL bulbs don't give nearly as much light as AH Supply lights give, at the substrate level. I still think we are at a low light level with that much light, and with Excel, more light could be better.