Hairgrass and amano shrimp

[LancsRick]

Any bright ideas to stop the amano's digging up my ele. acic. when foraging? I'm replanting the hairgrass every single day at the moment since I come home to find the shrimp have been digging through the top layer of substrate, and then the water flow has pulled the plants free!

They're a bit small to put lead strip on, I'm worried about crushing the stems.

Any alternatives?

 

[BigTom]

Lead strip on the shrimp then.

 

[LancsRick]

That's a stupid and cruel idea.

(You'd just put gloves on his feet to start with!)

 

[George Farmer]

Can you plant it deeper into the substrate? I've never had an issue with hairgrass - only more delicate stuff like single plantlets of HC and glosso where the roots can't penetrate the substrate so much.

 

[LancsRick]

How deep can I plant it George? Some I've only got a tiny bit of substrate over the "crown" as I wasn't sure how they'd cope with having that buried. I've just tried pushing a few in a fair bit further, so the crown is 1cm or so under the substrate - is that safe for the plants?

Love plants, love shrimp, why can't they just get along?!

(Don't be mean and say "it's not them, it's you". That would just be cruel...)

 

[BigTom]

How deep can I plant it George? Some I've only got a tiny bit of substrate over the "crown" as I wasn't sure how they'd cope with having that buried. I've just tried pushing a few in a fair bit further, so the crown is 1cm or so under the substrate - is that safe for the plants?

Love plants, love shrimp, why can't they just get along?!

(Don't be mean and say "it's not them, it's you". That would just be cruel...)

I've got hairgrass spreading along the sides of one of my tanks and the crowns are anything up to about 2-3cm deep, so I wouldn't worry about doing that.

 

[George Farmer]

Like Tom says, 2-3cm is fine. It's a really hardy plant in my experience, and will take soon enough given appropriate conditions.

 

[LancsRick]

No wonder I've been struggling to keep it down in that case! Thanks guys!

Major replanting will commence soon....

 

[LancsRick]

Despite replanting everything, these amano shrimp are still hellbent on digging up all the hairgrass. It's only in fluval stratum at the moment, which is quite light. I'm wondering whether a gravel cap might stop them as it's a bit heavier. Failing that, I'm going to have to give up on hairgrass in this tank, or remove all the shrimp until it's fully carpetted....

I'm at a loss...