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Is it too late to prune

S

shady

New Member
Joined
29 Oct 2009
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9
Location
Tewkesbury
I started a nano tank about 6 months ago and the plants have took off too well, it all looked good now has got to a stage where the Pogostemon Erectus has grown out of the tank and the Micranthemum Monte Carlo is about 4 - 5 inches deep. Is it too late to prune the Micranthemum or is it better to rip it out and start again ( I assume once I prune I will see the half dead plant underneath and not sure if this will grow back ??)

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Hi cannot answer your question never had such a great looking carpet! Looks so healthy.
So you never trimmed the carpet for 6 months?
 
You can prune heavily and leave the roots in, it will recover faster that way, but will make a mess with loads of bits of dead plant debris floating around you'll have to pick out, and the growth that's left wont look good for a wee while.

Cleanly ripping the whole carpet out and starting again from the top cuttings will result in less plant debris to pick out, but disturbing the substrate will cloud the water so you will have to do a big water change, and it will take longer to grow roots and recover.

Its six and two threes basically, just depends if your priority is for it to grow back faster or to not look like a dead carpet for a while. Personally I would just heavily prune it.
 
You could try cutting it lower say a inch at a time each week until you have the desired hight?Dont really know if this would give a better result or not than cutting it to substrate level.
 
I did the same with my mc carpet in my bookshelf tank, left the mc grow 10cm thick... just today i trimmed right back to the substrate, it was all dead / yellow but I am hopefully it will bounce back.
 
I lift the carpet & replant - it fills in very quickly & looks better (to my eye) than the waiting for the yellow residue to recover ... this isn't really a deep rooting plant so can be slow to regrow from that mostly dead undercarpet.

I hate trimming carpets so I've done the lift & replant several times ;)

Pogo - you can cut back strongly & interplant some of the top bits so it still looks pretty & fluffy
 
Thanks for the comments and help, the pogo just got cut back until just under the water ( didn't want to chop too much off as it hides the co2 container) and the carpet I just pushed down on itself as I haven't got any decent scissors to cut it yet.

Co2 is just a cheap manual dosing co2 canister and container diffuser , I have to refill the container everyday by hand - no fancy solenoid or anything
I don't dose anything as I don't want major algae issues, just set up with decent soil when I started , cant remember the name it was what my LFS had at the time
 
Quick Update , The pogo got cut back virtually every week due to growth, the carpet got cut back by a half ( still about 3 inches deep ) , the middle plant ( Stauragyne) is now nearly out the top as well.

Due to too much heavy growth and reduced flow the co2 wasn't being used plus with added sunlight from the nice weather , algae has took hold over the last few weeks , not good , so today I have started to rip out all the plants ( god I didn't realise how thick the growth was at the back of the tank and the roots are nearly 6 inches long as well )

Total replant/restart in the very near future with only 2 plants , the micro monte again and one other but cant remember the name.

On the look out for a co2 solenoid system but the mrs is complaining that as the tank only cost £100 why spend £150 on a systemised co2 set , but he- ho , that's half the excitement of the fish hobby ( spending money )

Photos to follow when the replant is done

(PS - Anyone want some of the current plants that's going in the bin by the end of today ( you can cut in half to remove the top "algaefied" stems) then you are more than welcome - collection from Cheltenham area today )
 
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