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just some questions about carpeting plants...

Which is better/easier to be planted as a carpet?

also which is easier to maintain?

will the trimmed grass float?

Thanks guys... appreciate it

Riccia doesn't really "root" and only forms a carpet if it is attached using a net, and allowed to grow through the net, thus forming a carpet. Sounds like a lot of work to me...

Definitely hair grass, that thing grows like crazy and you don't need to trim it

Riccia is light and nutrient demanding, to form a carpet besides what xxmrbui3blesxx says it also needs constant CO2 for it to really get bushy and look as a carpet.

Hi,
I've had the durnedest time keeping dwarf hair grass
rooted in larger grain size substrates such as
Flourite. IMO, I tend to think that the substrate
grain size for that plant ought to be about "sand"
size.
As was mentioned in the earlier post, Riccia is not
a "rooted" plant, and is actually a floating plant.
It is also a plant that you can "train" to grow into
the darndest places and ways.

Check out this site for all you might want to know
about the care and shaping of this plant.

http://www.nature-aquarium.com/home.htm

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

Thanks for the replies guys =)

What substrate is ideal to plant hairgrass?
i've read that eco-complete is not fine enough to root them.

i've also read success stores by mixing eco-complete with black moon sand.

What do you guys suggest or think will work best?

sorry 1 more.. - can you control the density of the hairgrass?

[span class="edited"][Edited by Dakkon 2004-07-01 04:43][/span]

Hi,
As I mentioned in my post, I belive that the best success
with hair grass would be with a fine grained substrate.
I have 100% Flourite, and it refuses to root, and stay put.

You can plant the grass in plugs, or use tweezers to
plant each plant, one at a time ( I know ya gotta be
kidding!!) about a 1/4 to 1/2 inch apart and it will
grow and fill in the spaces. As far as thinning it
out - most folks want it to provide a lush, ground
covering, carpet of green in open spaces, and rarely
prune it back. You can, using sharp scissors,
mentally establish a line within the tank that you don't
want it to cross, and then be dilligent about snipping
the runners as it crosses the line.

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

my dwarf hairgrass rooted fine in eco-complete

thanks for the info again frank.

Really, Megil. then i might as well try it with the eco-complete, are there different brands of it? or are they all the same? (incase of size difference)

and i planted the plants individually using tweezers... wasn't too bad really. but theres only one brand of eco-complete.

I think riccia would carpet quicker but it is a lot of work. My hair grass grows, but not very fast. I wrapped one of my rocks with riccia and it grown to the surface and I had to trim it, but that didn't look right so I rewrapped it. It grew out beautifully but it overgrown again and I trimmed it, a little lazy to rewrap but it looks fine, not good... but fine.