# Dwarf Baby Tears vs. Glossostigma Elatinoides



## assasin6547 (Feb 6, 2013)

Hi all, I'm in the process of setting up a new planted and would kindly like some input on these two carpetting plants: I'm aware that HC requires both high light and CO2, but haven't actually found much from online research on glossostigma elatinoides (everything seems to be outdated info from the age of WPG, etc) - does anyone have any experience with this? Could it potentially be okay without CO2 supplement?

My impression about Glosso was that it tends to grow a little bit higher off the substrate and with larger leaves, which is generally less desirable in smaller tanks. Recently while searching around however, I discovered that some sellers from China are claiming to sell glosso 'seeds' as an alternative to HC, some of which are in a miniature version of the traditional leaf size/growth height. (Maybe it could be a dwarf glosso like dwarf baby tears??)










As I'm no expert in aquatic plants, it's hard to establish from pictures such as this one as to whether or not the claims are truthful, would anyone possibly be able to identify the plants in the image? There are numerous more, easily found from a quick search on ebay for hemianthus callitrichoides. Regardless, I just went ahead and made a purchase, seeing how inexpensive these seeds were, perhaps it will make an interesting experiment to see how they turn out. Going off of the advertisements, it almost seems like the small sized glosso is a bit too good to be true, noting the alleged growth speeds and similarity to HC. On the other hand though, there have definitely been quite a good number of sales of the product (and I'm all for cheap stuff from China) so maybe it's a hidden gem worth trying out. Additionally, here's a more close up shot showing off some of the leaf structure.










Thanks for reading, would appreciate any input from experiences with growing HC as well! I plan to do a dry start either way no matter which plant I end up going with.


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## SingAlongWithTsing (Jun 11, 2015)

iirc those are Ficus Pumila seeds which isn't truly aquatic


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## Ilikefish (Aug 25, 2016)

lolz I just made an order on sep 6. its on the way. hope is real


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## infolific (Apr 9, 2016)

I've grown Glossostigma Elatinoides. It does form a carpet at least under some conditions. One problem I had with it is that once there was a layer of plants the next generation grew on top of the first layer. At this point I should've done some trimming, but didn't. Then another layer grew and another. The bottom layer start to die off forming a brown mess. In addition, the upper layer started to grow vertically rather than horizontally.

So I ripped it all out and planted several stems to give it another go...


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## assasin6547 (Feb 6, 2013)

SingAlongWithTsing said:


> iirc those are Ficus Pumila seeds which isn't truly aquatic


Well... google tells me Ficus Pumila is a rather large leafed terrestrial crawling vine type plant, so I really hope that's not what these turn out to be, haha. The images depict it covering brick walls and stuff like that



Ilikefish said:


> lolz I just made an order on sep 6. its on the way. hope is real


Omg no way, nice. We'll have to see. Mine's eta is Septermber 25th or something of the like. Maybe I should try growing it in another container before planting my new tank?



infolific said:


> I've grown Glossostigma Elatinoides. It does form a carpet at least under some conditions. One problem I had with it is that once there was a layer of plants the next generation grew on top of the first layer. At this point I should've done some trimming, but didn't. Then another layer grew and another. The bottom layer start to die off forming a brown mess. In addition, the upper layer started to grow vertically rather than horizontally.
> 
> So I ripped it all out and planted several stems to give it another go...


Hmm, okay. So it'll be really important to keep up with the trimming and whatnot.


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## latchdan (Sep 7, 2007)

I have glosso, just tossed some in my low light tank ill see if it will grow.

My high light tank it grows really low.


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## Opare (Sep 9, 2015)

HC requiring high light isn't entirely true, good CO2 levels and flow are more important same goes for G. elatinoides.
The seeds that are being sold as Glosso or HC seeds are neither of those plants. There's a huge push of selling this product in my country right now.
According to another user on here, Xiaozhuang, the plant ends up growing much larger than pictured after a while.
Since you bought it already, like you mentioned I would just grow it outside of your tank for a while as an experiment.
If you are doing a tank without CO2 try Micranthemum 'Monte Carlo', may be able to work out okay.
Also, with any carpeting plant (HC, Glosso etc.) trimming is important to maintain the carpet's health. If not the bottom layers will die off and you can get lifting etc.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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