Dwarf Hairgrass Wont Grow!! - Aquarium Advice

ricardo48 · 10-20-2009, 05:15 PM

Why wont my hairgrass grow!!

Its been in the tank for over 12 weeks now. I seperated it into small clumps of a few strands.

I am EI dosing with 3.5wpg of T5HO light ( 30 ppm co2 )

Everything else is growing fantastically especially my chainsword which is quickly covering the bottom of the tank.

Problem is its starting to grow over the hairgrass areas as the hairgrass just is not spreading or doing anything!!

The substrate is fine gravel with root tabs. I have everything it needs ( light, 30 ppm co2 and all nutrients with EI dosing )

Any ideas??

JustOneMore20 · 10-20-2009, 09:16 PM

Is anything shading it? It seems you have all the elements covered for it to grow. Any algae in it that could be inhibiting growth?

DragonFish71 · 10-20-2009, 09:20 PM

How tall is it right now? It could have reached it's maximum growth.

ricardo48 · 10-21-2009, 03:37 AM

Its in foreground with no shade. The original strands did die off but green ones come through. These have steadily turned dark green/brown with the odd green shoot but they just arent spreading or growing.

They are currently only 1 inch tall maximum in places.

fort384 · 10-21-2009, 05:05 PM

I think it must be the lighting. Hairgrass will live in medium and low light, but not thrive. I think that 3.5WPG over a 60L (~15 gal) tank is not a ton of light (it is adequate, but not a ton...WPG rule breaks down rapidly in tanks under ~20-25 gal). Swords will thrive in less light than hairgrass. Also, what kind of bulbs are you using?

If it is staying green and healthy looking, I think it will start spreading in time. It propagates by runners, and your lighting just may be on the verge of not letting it grow like wildfire...

ricardo48 · 10-22-2009, 02:17 AM

2x24 watt T5HO tubes at 6700K

That is more than enough on a 14 gallon tank considering the lumen output.

The green strands comethrough but few and far between and they soon turn dark green/brown

Robert H · 10-22-2009, 04:49 AM

How many hours a day of light? Eleocharis is NOT a fast grower. Be patient, give it some time. You are going to have to keep the grass plants away from it. Those plants will out compete it for nutrients amd space.

Hairgrass also does not like high temps. If your temp is in the 80s, then that will slow the growth way down.

ricardo48 · 10-22-2009, 06:52 AM

8 hours a day of lighting. It has been in the tank for over 3 months now.

My tank is running at 26'C

fort384 · 10-22-2009, 09:44 PM

yeah if you are looking to grow out plants, I would increase the light cycle to 11-12 hours a day. It may bring some algae with it, but it will give the plants a jump start.

ricardo48 · 10-23-2009, 04:03 AM

I aint going to jump that high. I have increased it to 9 hours and will see how that goes for next week. If no issues I will increase to 10 hours.

Strange thing is I am dosing 2ppm of phosphate x3 a week and yet still have "some" but not much GSA on glass and GDA on leaves of pennywort.

I think this was mainly due to an issue I had with co2 last week when my reactor stopped working properly and I went from 30ppm to 10. Annoying thing was my drop checker with 4dkh was still yellow. Only when I changed it out did it go dark green/blue