how do u make a carpet of a plant across the surface of the substrate?

Karma954

Karma954

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Apr 16, 2011
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broward county
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Mason
i helped my friend set up a ten gallon planted tank with eco complete as the substrate. he wants the top of the sub. to be completely covered in baby tears, or sumthing like it. hes bought two rocks from the store that had baby tears on them. the pushed the first rock into the substrate leaving the baby-teared part right along the surface of the floor of the tank. the second one he ripped off the rock and smushed into the surface of the substrate. i feel like this isnt going to spread fast enough though. how can he get a carpet like that??
 
I've never succeeded. :) I tried babies tears and failed miserably in my 20 gal.....I think it has to do with depth and the amount of light that can get down as far as the leaves (and not having a sandy substrate, and loaches to dig the darn stuff up). :)

I believe java moss can work well, as it can handle low light (a planted tank in my LFS has a thick carpet of moss on eco-complete or some such substrate), and dwarf species of hairgrasses. Riccia fluitans can look nice, but its actually a floating plant I think, and you create the carpet effect by attaching it to netting.....

In any case, I'll keep an eye on the thread because I'd like to try again myself!
 
Typically you'll need sufficient light, fert and co2 to get the carpet you want. Once you have those in balance, your carpet will fill in quickly. You can help it spread by taking individual plantlets and inserting them into the substrate at regular intervals, similar to a grid. With sufficient light they will spread laterally in stead of reaching vertically.

Mark
 
HC or dwarf baby tears needs high light and CO2 I believe. From what I've read the easiest way to make the carpet is to grow it emersed. That is have the substrate has to be completely wet and the plant must be out of the water. And the humidity should be high in the tank.
 
Well he gas one of those cheap co2 setuos whetr u mix stuff and replace each month. He said hes down to keep buying babytears on lava rock but its very expensive! Tge light he has is a T5HE thats slightly larger than the tank. As said before he uses eco complete, byt shuld he still use liquid fert?
 
A.twin bulb t5he btw
 
RNeiswander said:
HC or dwarf baby tears needs high light and CO2 I believe. From what I've read the easiest way to make the carpet is to grow it emersed. That is have the substrate has to be completely wet and the plant must be out of the water. And the humidity should be high in the tank.
Click to expand...
:iagree:

That seems to be how it prefers to grow. Not sure how it grows in the wild, but in the aquarium it seems to prefer a wet environment rather then being completely submerged.

CO2 and nutrients are the key to keeping it. Just blasting it with very high lighting doesn't usually work. That isn't to say it doesn't need high lighting (it does), but that the CO2 and nutrients available to it are even more important.



edit:
A 2 bulb T5 anything should be plenty of light for them in a 20L. Not sure how much CO2 those DIY setups supply, but should be enough. He may need fertilizers if he doesn't already add those.
 
yah im sure hes good with the light he has, i didnt realize that hed need to add ferts with the eco complete, but what fert should he get?? and yah the Co2 setup he has is for 40 gallons maximum, so im sure theres more than enuff.
 
Can he try HM instead? I found it much more forgiving. Mine stayed a low cute mound until my BN plec dug it up. Eco, no CO2 & ~1.5w T-8s, maybe root tabs. HC really needs CO2 from what I've read.
 
what is HM and what is HC?
 
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