Removing diatoms from eleocharis

[idris]

My new tank appears to have deveolped diatoms. Ok, nothing surprising there. And I've read up on how to deal with it.
But any suggestions on how to remove it from eleocharis parvula / dwarf hair grass that a) hasn't grown in propperly yet and b) is in a tank that isn't mature enough to have Ottos (or any other fish) introduced.

 

[Alastair]

Hi mate, did you trim the parvula right down when you first planted it? i think this helps it somewhat. thats what i did anyhow and the diatoms i got didnt seem to touch it.

 

[idris]

They're cut down. But I guess it depends what you mean by "right down".

 

[Alastair]

mine were about a centimetre in height when id planted them

 

[idris]

Am I right in thinking they won't now grow much taller than that? With the height of my tank I'd rather not cause plants to be shorter

Eiher way, that's a way to prevent diatoms attaching, not how to remove them once they're there. With the troubles I've had I'd rather not be pulling them out, but that's all I can think of.

 

[Alastair]

Mine are growing really well now, About 2 - 3 cm but I think if they are trimmed short to start off with then they stay pretty short. In your case you want them kept long as you say you'd rather not have short Plants. The only other way would be to try manually removing the algae, but I can imagine that would prove to be a back breaker with the height of your tank...

 

[idris]

Everything is either back braking or ball breaking at the moment but I'm sure it will all get easier.

To be fair, I can't even really think of a way to manually remove the algae from clumps of grass that wouldn't mean them getting uprooted. If they had well established root systems, maybe, but if they did (as I understand it) it probably wouldn't bs a new tank and I probably wouldn't have diatoms
(See, I am learning s...l...o...w...l...y )

 

[Alastair]

Ha ha yeah ball breaking for sure. That's a deep tank you have. I've had my grasses in for just over two months now, and moved them to a different spot but the root system even now isnt particularly big and many a time have I uprooted a couple in error. I'm not sure whether you going to end up going the route of flooding the whole tank, If you do, just see how they go and if it gets on your nerves just trim. I believe they establish better once trimmed anyway...

I'm still and always am learning on here. It gets a bit addictive :0)

 

[idris]

...I'm still and always am learning on here. It gets a bit addictive :0)

I just wanted some pretty fish in the corner of the room

 

[Alastair]

that was my excuse cough erm I mean plan