Dwarf Hairgrass Struggles

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rnickwilliams

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Aug 27, 2017
Messages
7
I planted dwarf hair grass and read all of the forums so I separated and planted into smaller blade clusters roughly 1-2 inches apart. 2 weeks have passed and now it appears to be dying and all of it is covered in a brownish algae like coating. I have a 36 gallon tank with only 1 angel fish, 1 iridescent shark. Tank is planted with several larger plants which seem to be doing ok. Why would my grass show these signs but the other plants be ok? IMG_6693.jpg
 
Not enough light and lacking a nutrient rich substrate I'd say
 
How do I enrich the substrate?



You could use root tabs but the lighting and co2 isn't sufficient for hair grass. To be honest people call dwarf hairgrass a "low tech" carpet plant but unless the conditions are perfect it's almost impossible to grow in a low tech tank. I've seen so many people attempt to grow it without pressurised co2 and medium lighting and it's just died.

I'd recommend pulling it out and replacing it with something like dwarf sag [emoji106]
 
My light is a 17 watt bulb so around 2 watts per gallon. I'm dosing the tank daily with liquid CO2 as well as weekly doses of API Leaf Zone.
That sounds like 1/2 a watt per gallon there, 2 watts per gallon for a tank that size should be able to grow them ok but that lighting is too low. I think your fine dosing flourish excel as I use it for my hc cuba or dwarf baby tears which are very demanding. Try dosing some more liquid ferts too like pottadium and iron. The light is what really needs an upgrade for the dwarf hairgrass carpet you want. You could try planting moss as a carpet, there are plenty of videos to help on that.
 
I could get hair grass to grow very slowly under medium light, no CO2 but it was weeks and weeks of not much happening and the yoyo's tended to root it out. Gave up on it.
 
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