Monte Carlo...issues

[Richard40]

Having trouble with Monte Carlo. Finding most of it’s lifted, bits floating all the time. When I planted it, it had no water in the tank. Used Tropica 1-2 and cut into small pieces and planted. As you can see from pic tonight, there’s barely any left. CO2 running and lime green colour drop checker. I did use my hands to plant rather than tweezers. Could this be the problem?

 

[Sammy Islam]

I'm having the same problem, i think it's just the way it goes you just have to bury it deep with a little poking out the substrate. Mine hasn't taken off yet but it isn't dying, i've overcome the initial melt, nearly 4 weeks in so i've just got to wait it out. I hope i don't have to plant more because it's very difficult when then tank is full.

 

[Richard40]

If mine fails again any ideas what else would look decent as a carpeting plant? I’ve bought another two Tropica 1-2 to test with tweezers and if that doesn’t work I either go for the larger pots instead of Tropica 1-2 or a different foreground plant.

 

[Sammy Islam]

Dwarf hair grass would probably be good and easier to plant.

 

[Wookii]

I had similar issues with Monte Carlo (MC) - loads of melt and really slow growth - and eventually replaced it with Marsilea Crenata - though more because I just preferred the look of the Marsilea.

My MC had started to grow and put out new runners, but it took four weeks and was painfully slow. I got the impression that it needed a lot more light at the substrate than I could give it, as I didn't want light that high due to potential algae issues at start up. It was probably a matter of patience, or lack thereof, in letting it get established.

As for the planting, the only way I found to get it to stay planted was to use much smaller portions, and use two hands. One to push the plantlet into the substrate with the tweezers, and then the other to press down gently on the plantlet whilst removing the tweezers. That we they don't seem to come back up.