Echinodorus tenellus vs Sagittaria subulata

[mitche8359]

For those of you that have any practical knowledge of either of these plants, I'd love to hear some comments. I have grown the tenellus before with little sucess. Looking for a low growth foreground plant native to Americas. Both fit this category.

 

[malkore]

dwarf sage does NOT grow as low to the ground as e. tenellus. sage grows about 6" tall, and doesn't always lay very flat. It grows VERY quickly, so you have to remove plants weekly, or it'll choke itself out and not look very pretty.

 

[mitche8359]

How would the sage look as a middle ground plant? Possibly have the e. tennellus in the fore ground. I thought I had e. tennellus currently growing in the tank, but it looks too big to be e. tennellus. Some short sword that reproduces by runner is what I have. Haven't been able to track down the name. I might take it out of the tank to get a picture of it.

 

[malkore]

e. tennellus does propagate by lateral runners, and is similar to larger swords (hence the common name "dwarf chain sword" or "pygmy chain sword")

there's only a few inches of height difference between the 2...I don't personally think they'd look different enough to work as foreground and midground...they'd just look like one plant of 2 different heights.

 

[Guest]

My dwarf Sag. stays around 2-3" tall at the most. But this is in a high light tank and I may have gotten lucky with it.

 

[Mr Burns]

i think you're right rex...most of the sag i've seen in person and in books/pictures was at least 3-4".

 

[malkore]

maybe I didn't have a true species. Even when i had it in my 29gallon tank with 110watts of PC's, it grew about 5" long blades.

 

[mitche8359]

Here's one that I came across, Eleocharis acicularis. Has anyone grown this plant? Common name is dwarf hairgrass or similar.

 

[malkore]

Yep, I've got that in my 20 gallon tank. What substrate do you have? it really doesn't do well in flourite...it won't form a nice carpet.
sand is best, followed by very fine gravel or in my case, eco-complete.

 

[MantisX]

I find my hairgrass does fine as long as theres c02 in the water. It requires regular trimming when I administer any kind of root ferts though. It grows like a weed when you pay extra attention to the roots.

As for sags, I cant tell the difference between my sags compared to my vallisneria. They both grow the same height and have the same blade width. I notice the sags put off more plants more quickly though.

 

[mitche8359]

My substrate is course gravel mixed with some finer gravel. I have laterite mixed in the substrate under a few plants. I know it's not the best substrate, but that's what I had in it when I converted over. I don't want sand. I might go to a smaller size gravel when I rebuild for the carpeting, but I'd hate to do that. The tank would likely cycle after setting it back up if I replaced the substrate. I won't have the time to properly cycle since the fish will be in a 10g tank and 5g bucket..

 

[Guest]

Planted tanks need not "cycle" in the traditional sense. Read my FAQ for more information on this.

 

[djlen3]

Sag., for me is an odd-ball plant. I've had it grow 3 - 4" on on end of a 55, and 6" or more on the other end. IME, light definitely makes a huge difference.
Whereas, Tenellus grows low in all the light levels I've tried it in(over 2watts/gal.) and the addition of CO2 makes a big difference for this plant.

Len

 

[mitche8359]

I don't have any CO2 going to the tank. Think it would matter to the hairgrass? Growing like a weed is what I need.