Illsavemyself
Seedling
- Joined
- 21 Mar 2008
- Messages
- 5
My first post, but hopefully first of many!
A have a 200 litre, 44 gallon tank. I don't use CO2 but do dose Excel, Flourish and Flourish Trace. I have just under 3 WPG light delivered by 4 T8s.
I planted Lilaeopsis mauritiana two days ago in an attempt to produce a foreground "carpet". Well my Polka Dot loaches were very excited about having extra plants to dig at and my Rosy Barbs just treated it as free food. So with one party digging and another pulling my carefully laid out "lawn" was floating on the surface in no time. Made one effort at re-planting but within an hour it was all up again.
Just to point out, the rest of the tank is heavily planted but I have not had any uprooted plants since I started out with just bare root stems. Everything else has done well and stayed firmly rooted. The grass has very shallow roots and in the end I had to give up and ditch the plants.
So now I need a good foreground plant that will form a low carpet for my tank, but MUST have a decent root structure to withstand a potential early onslaught whilst it becomes established. I have a Tetra Plant and fine gravel substrate. I have used plant weights in the past but I have far too few magnets to attempt to keep 20+ tiny plants down.
I love Tropica plants and had been looking at Hemianthus callitrichoides "Cuba". However I cannot get this locally and it might be too expensive to order it in especially if it might go the same way as the grass. If I could get this, does it have better roots than the shallow rooted grasses?
Any suggestions will be very welcome?
A have a 200 litre, 44 gallon tank. I don't use CO2 but do dose Excel, Flourish and Flourish Trace. I have just under 3 WPG light delivered by 4 T8s.
I planted Lilaeopsis mauritiana two days ago in an attempt to produce a foreground "carpet". Well my Polka Dot loaches were very excited about having extra plants to dig at and my Rosy Barbs just treated it as free food. So with one party digging and another pulling my carefully laid out "lawn" was floating on the surface in no time. Made one effort at re-planting but within an hour it was all up again.
Just to point out, the rest of the tank is heavily planted but I have not had any uprooted plants since I started out with just bare root stems. Everything else has done well and stayed firmly rooted. The grass has very shallow roots and in the end I had to give up and ditch the plants.
So now I need a good foreground plant that will form a low carpet for my tank, but MUST have a decent root structure to withstand a potential early onslaught whilst it becomes established. I have a Tetra Plant and fine gravel substrate. I have used plant weights in the past but I have far too few magnets to attempt to keep 20+ tiny plants down.
I love Tropica plants and had been looking at Hemianthus callitrichoides "Cuba". However I cannot get this locally and it might be too expensive to order it in especially if it might go the same way as the grass. If I could get this, does it have better roots than the shallow rooted grasses?
Any suggestions will be very welcome?