pot or not?

[taku]

I received some nice looking HC and dwarf hairgrass for my 3gal picotope today in the mail. They are in the plastic little pots... how do I transplant them and remove them safely from the green foam stuff their roots are all tangled in and put them in my tank soil?

Also, the hair grass has a ton of what looks like seed pods at the top of many of the stems... is this in fact what it is? I want to trim up the hairgrass after transplanting it also but don't want to shock/harm it. Think it'll be ok for a hair cut?

Thanks!

[Bk718]

i would suggest you take out the hc and hg from the pots and carefully remove the rock wool. Plant the HC in tiny clumps here and there in the tank using tweezers. This will help it fill in faster.
With the hairgrass its the same thing but do not trim it yet. Let the plant settle in and then in about 2 weeks do your trim.

Give them both GREAT light and co2.

[taku]

Thanks for the info! :)

I've had my diy CO2 running for several days now, and also have 36watts of light over this little 3gallon (current usa satellite fixture 2x18w), so I think the HC and hairgrass should do just fine.

Regarding using tweezers to plant the HC... since what I have in the pots are giant mounds of HC, when I remove the rock wool, can I clip pieces of the HC into small little pieces or is there a recommended size for better development?

[DAVIDFBT]

I would carefully try to rip out the wool from the roots. Basically, just 5-10 stems of HC per square inch in a checkerboard pattern.

[Fordtrannyman]

Don't worry about tweezing out every little piece of rock wool. It won't hurt anything.

[ciaobella7122]

I generally shake the roots in a bucket of tank water and most of the wool comes off. It won't hurt your tank but it is unsightly.

[sed03f]

definetely rinse in some water, it makes the water messy. do you have a picture of the hair grass, it might be pygmy chain sword. but if the "leaves" are almost as thin as hair, than it probably is hairgrass.