carpeting plants in a low light excel tank?

Kyalgae

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I've had good luck with dwarf hairgrass (elocharis parvula), if you're willing to wait, you can do a false staurogyne carpet, basically let it get a bit tall then trim it down but replant the cut stem, I have an excel tank, and after a year it looks like a carpet.


The dwarf hairgrass can be a bit of a pain when you trim it, it's pretty messy, but if you have one of those eheim surface skimmers it actually makes trimming hairgrass 80% less irritating. I would totally buy one just so I don't have to net all those fine grass particles. I had some glossostigma in an excel tank, but it didn't really carpet it just put out stringy runners, granted this was before I knew about EI, and its potential to be used with all types of tanks.
 

Kyalgae

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Here's two pictures, one from June 2014, and another 2 months later, from August 2014. These are pictures from when I first started with aquariums.


This was just from adding excel only, no fertilizer. I think the substrate may have had something in it, although it wasn't aquasoil.


2VmFPmS.jpg



PmpmbYw.jpg
 
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edelry.junior

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I have tried it for ages without ferts, with lots of light and CO2. No success. I think more experienced people might do it, but I was never able to.


There is this guy called Dennis Wong, which created some nice scapes. He has a HC Cuba tutorial, and he used IKEA lamps, so very simple lighting. But he does use CO2 and ferts.


I would suggest that you could start with Helanthium tenellum 'Green or Eleocharis Parvula (as Kyalgae suggested). Maybe you could try Lilaeopsis brasiliensis or Micranthemum sp. montecarlo. They do need a bit of CO2, but they are not as demanding as HC Cuba.
 
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edelry.junior

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I really would like to save you the trouble of going through several different plants/attempts, but I do not have that much experience.


What I do know is that I tried several different carpet plants, using light, CO2 and glutaraldehyde (pretty much the same thing as excel) and I never succedded. I did have a lot of ferts in the substrate as well.


But the moment I started dosing ferts in the water column, it all worked out just fine.


These photos are from when I started EI. The top one was the result of several attempts to grow HC Cuba, with lots of light, CO2 and Excel.


Bottom one is after 15 days dosing full EI.


Maybe with excel and low lights you can get montecarlo to work, but I doubt you will get it without anything in the water column.


My 2 cents anyway. I am sure there is a lot of people better at this than me.




HC-Cuba-2-weeks.jpg
 

gabcas0319

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Kyalgae said:
Here's two pictures, one from June 2014, and another 2 months later, from August 2014. These are pictures from when I first started with aquariums.

This was just from adding excel only, no fertilizer. I think the substrate may have had something in it, although it wasn't aquasoil.


2VmFPmS.jpg



PmpmbYw.jpg

it looks fantastic!!! i'm gonna tried with it!!! thanks!
 

gabcas0319

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edelry.junior said:
I really would like to save you the trouble of going through several different plants/attempts, but I do not have that much experience.

What I do know is that I tried several different carpet plants, using light, CO2 and glutaraldehyde (pretty much the same thing as excel) and I never succedded. I did have a lot of ferts in the substrate as well.


But the moment I started dosing ferts in the water column, it all worked out just fine.


These photos are from when I started EI. The top one was the result of several attempts to grow HC Cuba, with lots of light, CO2 and Excel.


Bottom one is after 15 days dosing full EI.


Maybe with excel and low lights you can get montecarlo to work, but I doubt you will get it without anything in the water column.


My 2 cents anyway. I am sure there is a lot of people better at this than me.



nice change with the EI! thanks
 

edelry.junior

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rajkm said:
I have grown Monte Carl, DGH and HC in soil substrate with Excel and Flourish/Thrive with good light

Good results. I thought it should be feasible, but I am glad to know you already did it.


Guess you are set and good to go, Gabriel :)
 
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gabcas0319

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rajkm said:
I have grown Monte Carl, DGH and HC in soil substrate with Excel and Flourish/Thrive with good light

1132F714-FCFE-4140-93ED-0ADE7CF6C051_zpsg5a6cfcs.jpg

hooo wow that's really nice to hear,,, i'm gonna try with different types of plants to see what type works in my tanks!!! thanks rajkm
 

gabcas0319

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rajkm said:
I have grown Monte Carl, DGH and HC in soil substrate with Excel and Flourish/Thrive with good light

1132F714-FCFE-4140-93ED-0ADE7CF6C051_zpsg5a6cfcs.jpg

Hey rajkm, what do you do mean with good light? how much ligth we are talking? my tank has 1,5 wpg? that's good light? thanks rajkm!
 

rajkm

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The difference I believe is soil substrate. I could grow almost all plants in that tank. Once Input more difficult plants I dosed Excel about 1.5x, 4-5 times per week. The tank is no more. I am now trying to do the same with Eco-Complete capped with Flourite in my new shrimp tank. So far it's alive but not the fast growth I got in soil substrate.
 
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edelry.junior

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Light should not be an issue, unless you have a high tank. If your tank is 40cm / 15 inches high, normal lighting should be fine. Do not push a lot a light into a non co2 tank, that's not going to work.


Also, add a rich substrate. I do think rajkm is correct in his assumption. Using pure sand will not help you.
 
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gabcas0319

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edelry.junior said:
Light should not be an issue, unless you have a high tank. If your tank is 40cm / 15 inches high, normal lighting should be fine. Do not push a lot a light into a non co2 tank, that's not going to work.

Also, add a rich substrate. I do think rajkm is correct in his assumption. Using pure sand will not help you.

today i started the experiment with parvula and lilaeopsis! and then i'm goin to try with HC and Glosso! Thanks!
 
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rajkm

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I had a planted+ on a 3 gal tank about 7 inches from substrate so I would say I had about 40-50 PAR.


BTW I can confirm that the MC and DGH I moved over from old tank to a Eco-Complete / Flourite tank is growing slowly. So I think the factor is supplementation. The light on this tank is medium-low at best so too much light is not needed.
 
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