# Hemianthus Callitrichoides; PITA to plant !!!



## john b. (Dec 23, 2004)

Have you tried burrying most/some of it? What if you put some of the flourite over it to weigh it down till it roots? I don't have any of this yet but I'll hopefully be getting some soon from John P. So I'm also looking for ideas because I too have flourite. 
John


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## Ibn (Nov 19, 2003)

One of the reasons why I switched over from using fluorite to sand instead. Makes planting much easier.


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## m.lemay (Jul 28, 2002)

Yeah, I'm tring to hold it down with bits of flourite, it's working somewhat. The old growth became algae infested rather quickly, probably from the transportation shock. But the new growth is sprouting up nicely If I could just keep the fish off it for awhile, it could get a chance to take off. The Rainbows and the black mollys pick at it constantly. I had to pull the clown loaches out because they were flinging it like a cat playing with a dead mouse.LOL

I'm thinking about putting some kind of netting over it, spiked into the substrate. Any Ideas?


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## john b. (Dec 23, 2004)

I had a similar problem a while back keeping glosso down, my corries kept knocking into it pulling it up. I took a plastic breeder cage I had,the kind with big slits on the bottom,placed it upside down over the glosso and weighed it down with rocks on the edges of it. It looked ugly, but after about a week, I didn't need it anymore and it gave the plants enough time to get a good hold. HTH.
John


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## Georgiadawgger (Apr 23, 2004)

That's exactly why I decided to forget it...glosso is much easier and looks fine to me. The batch of HC I got from a dude sent it to me and apparently he must have grown it emersed (or barely submersed) since the color pattern and shape of the leaves completely changed once I saw new shoots come out...but then again it became algae infested since over 90% died...needless to say I was a bit PO'd after paypaling him a good chunk of money. 

I'd rather wait until it gets flooded in the hobby and get it cheap. Its only a matter of time.


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## m.lemay (Jul 28, 2002)

Yeah, I paid pretty good $$$ for this HC also. I'll be damned if I'
m gonna let that $$ waste away in my tank. I'll figure something out to hold it down.


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## SCMurphy (Oct 21, 2003)

Well if you kept Madagascar Laceplants you could use an old leaf as a hold down. It's what I do with seedling laceplants.

Otherwise float it until you have enough mass to plant in your oversized gravel. lol I plant HC in sand, it does quite well like that.


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## Aphyosemion (Oct 15, 2004)

I have it in 2 of my 1 gallon desktop tanks that only have shrimp, and in my 10 and 20 gallon tanks. It is just getting going in all of those tanks so far, but I am not having any problems keeping it rooted, even though they all have flourite. In my 10 gallon tank I have neons, which could care less about it, and in my 20 gallon I have guppies, which never seem to pay much attention to the bottom of the tank. In my 75 gallon tank it didn't work because I have a weather loach in there who decided there HAD to be something good underneath it and would not give up until every strand was floating around the tank. I think the secret is just having it in a tank where it will be left alone by the fish.
-Aphyosemion


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## Troy McClure (Feb 22, 2004)

I got sick of snails up-rooting my HC so I took the small clumps and buried most of it into the eco-complete. It stayed and now is spreading very well. I've still got two clumps floating around the top that I'm waiting to grow out and plant.


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## aquaverde (Apr 15, 2003)

I only have tried it in my Moon sand, and it's dead easy to plant there.


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## bharada (Mar 5, 2004)

I separate the clumps into individual stands of about 1" lengths. I then plant it by taking one end and pulling it into the substrate leaving one cluster of leaves poking up. The only floaters I have to deal with are the ones that are too short to bury deep enough in the substrate.


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## shalu (Jan 16, 2003)

I did just like Bill described last week, setting up a new tank. Basically like planting glosso.


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## capricorn77 (May 6, 2005)

Has anyone ever tried tying some HC onto rocks, driftwood and have them grown successfully? 
I got some HC recently and tied it to some rocks...ever since, it's been disintegrating slowly. Now it looks like a mesh of mush! :icon_frow 

Any ideas? :icon_conf


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## Bert H (Dec 15, 2003)

This stuff has indeed been a pita for me. I got some from Gomer a while ago, and am about to give up on it, but I feel like Mark does, paid good money for it, and hate to give up, but... Might try some in the higher light tank, see if it does any better than in the 10's where I put it.


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## bharada (Mar 5, 2004)

capricorn77 said:


> Has anyone ever tried tying some HC onto rocks, driftwood and have them grown successfully?
> I got some HC recently and tied it to some rocks...ever since, it's been disintegrating slowly. Now it looks like a mesh of mush! :icon_frow
> 
> Any ideas? :icon_conf


I tried that in my 125g tank but it suffered the same fate that your's sound to be having. I've really only have success growing it in my very high light (4.8wpg) 40g tank. My 125 is no slouch at just over 3wpg, but HC just browns over in that tank.


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## Pete City (Apr 2, 2005)

I plant this stuff the same way Bill & Shalu do. I've never seen it attached to anything but substrate. Mine grows in 2.4wpg, and I think some people are growing it in less wpg then that, so growth is not light related, when I bought the stuff the dealer sent me some root tabs, because it supposedly likes a nutrient rich substrate, I use eco-complete.
Here's a question for you guys, how do you prune/thin this stuff out?
This has got me a little stumped, do you just pull out various sections or actually cut the plant, mine is getting really thick growth wise.


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## SCMurphy (Oct 21, 2003)

I've given it a hair cut, pulled out individual strands, and pulled up a clump and replanted a few strands. It all works.


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## m.lemay (Jul 28, 2002)

*Update*

I think all my fish are diggers. The mollys like to pick at it, and the bolivian rams, and the boesemani rainbows. 

Another thing I noticed is that the old growth is getting algae covered and dying but the new growth looks very healthy. I think the stuff I bought was emersed grown causing it to wither when submersed :icon_roll . Its starting to spread very slowly  . I'm just letting the floaters grow out at the top of the tank. Hopefully it'll grow out fast enough so that I can replant the casualties.

I saw one of our members tank who's name I won't mention that has the whole surface of a 20gal tank grown out with a thick mat of HC. roud: I'm hoping he'll find it in his heart to throw some scraps my way. :tongue: 


Marcel


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## capricorn77 (May 6, 2005)

Well, the HC I have is being placed in a 5 gallon Eclipse Hex tank that has been greatly modified. 
I replaced the existing light with an ahsupply 13W PC lamp. Took out the existing filter, and put another ahsupply 13W PC lamp on the cover of the filter, and added a small red sea nano filter (or palm filter). So I should have about 26W over 5 gallons. 
It is **BRIGHT** I tell you! roud: 

I've noticed that the HC that I planted on the substrate is starting to grow. The ones I tied to my rock have all but disintegrated. I just learned a very expensive lesson there...should have checked my facts on here first :icon_roll 

Hopefully, they'll grow and I'll have extras :icon_bigg


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## jart (Jan 17, 2003)

My experience with the plant I bought as "baby tears", whuch may be HC:

Took a long time (>1 mo) to establish itself and put down roots and really take on a nice light green color. After 3 months I guess I'm happy with it; however it is a bit of a pain to trim (I cut it with scissors and it seems I find little plantlets for weeks there after). Will I keep it? Dunno. It seems to look best when it is left alone to fill in for awhile but then it seems to really take up a lot of space, more than I would prefer.


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## John P. (Apr 10, 2004)

Marcel--if you bought the HC from me, then you bought submersed-grown plants. I've grown it attached to rock, floating, on the EcoComplete. I dose a lot of ferts, have 30ppm CO2, use Seachem Excel, and have ~3 watts/gallon. kh= 4-5 and gh is always above 10.


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## m.lemay (Jul 28, 2002)

JohnP: I bought some from you and I can't remember who I bought the other half from. Both batches did the same thing, but they seem to finally be bouncing back, I almost lost all of it. :icon_eek: If they weren't grown emersed, the shipping may have stressed them out.

I got 4.3 watts/gal 15-20ppm nitrates, [email protected], phosphates 1-2ppm,flourite, and flourish for micros. What are your nitrates and phosphates levels? Your using excel in addition to CO2, does that seem to help? What dosage? My GH is around 10dgh, KH=7dkh.


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## John P. (Apr 10, 2004)

I actually don't even test my water anymore, believe it or not! After I adopted EI dosing, I routinely have almost double "ordinary" macro levels of npk. I only dose 4mL of Flourish every other day--not very much. I OD Excel by 3x the rec. dose. I believe HC loves Excel.


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## m.lemay (Jul 28, 2002)

I went back to dosing excel to try and save this HC from disappearing into mulm. 

Algae seems to be taking over all but the newest shoots. I'm hoping the excel will reverse this trend. I'm constantly replanting floaters in hopes that it'll eventually pay off. 

If this HC fails, this will have been the worst $40 I've ever spent on my planted tank. :icon_frow 

Marcel


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## Georgiadawgger (Apr 23, 2004)

m.lemay said:


> I went back to dosing excel to try and save this HC from disappearing into mulm.
> 
> Algae seems to be taking over all but the newest shoots. I'm hoping the excel will reverse this trend. I'm constantly replanting floaters in hopes that it'll eventually pay off.
> 
> ...



Me experience is exactly what you have gone through. That's why I ditched it for E. trianda and E. cinerium.


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## m.lemay (Jul 28, 2002)

I'm gonna have to agree with you there. 

Since trying this plant out, I've gained a new found respect for glosso.  
I think I'm gonna pull out whats left and replant the area with glosso. Who cares if you gotta pull it out every 4 weeks and replant.... At least the sh*t grows.

I'm pulling out all the HC and I'm gonna try and see if it grows floating on the surface as a last hurrah.

This whole experience has been a real bummer :icon_frow 

Hooray for glosso..... the champion of foreground plants. roud: 


Marcel


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## m.lemay (Jul 28, 2002)

*Good News !!*

I think I'm gonna be able to salvage the HC. 

I changed my substrate over to Eco_complete (see my thread in the photo album)and the HC seems to be growing well and staying rooted. The algae that was once plagueing the HC seems to have stopped completely and it appears that the HC is beginning to grow new shoots while the rest of it remains un scathed by algae.

Besides the Clown Loaches tearing the stuff up, I had some black mollys in there that were pulling it out. So I pulled them out of the tank too.

There might be hope yet for this plant. roud: 

Marcel


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## Anthony (Jan 11, 2005)

A PITA for sure, and it also took almost 2 months before it became the ever non stop growin PITA it is today. The same can be said for ricca and parrot feather as well. WHY you little b.........


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## m.lemay (Jul 28, 2002)

So now your HC grows outta control? Have you ever tried glosso?

I could never deal with riccia. If it doesn't root, I don't want it.


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## aquaverde (Apr 15, 2003)

m.lemay said:


> I could never deal with riccia. If it doesn't root, I don't want it.


Amen to that, Marcel. Same here (except it floats).


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## bharada (Mar 5, 2004)

I finally pulled out the last of my Cladophora infested HC last night. I spent an hour tweezing the HC apart from the algae. Now it's all floating until I get back from vacation and can spend a day replacing the substrate in the tank. Of course, I also have an ever increasing floating mat of Riccia that I'll have to weed it out of by then.


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## shalu (Jan 16, 2003)

Bill, you did not come to the SFBAAPS plant swap last week in San Francisco. We visited Aqua Forest, had a great time there. 

Eric posted some of his earlier pictures on his website, so everyone can drool over some well grown HC :icon_bigg


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## Momotaro (Feb 21, 2003)

I am glad that shop is _waaaay _out west, and not here in the Metro Area! :hihi: 

Mike


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## jhoetzl (Feb 7, 2005)

hmmm, business trip to SF in 2-3 weeks...  (And Concord too I think)...


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## Momotaro (Feb 21, 2003)

I could do SF in the Fall.......*NO*! Must resist..._Do I hear Horace Greely???????_

Mike


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## markstr (Jul 5, 2003)

I just wanted to mention that I have a new 37 gal. Oceanic
tank that has been set up for about 2 months now..
I dose NPK, Plantex. High Lights @ 4.7 WPG, Pressurized
CO2 and just got done with the Excel OD program..
I am using the HC for all Forground areas and Rotala
"Green" for part of Background. I had really noticed that
the Excel really speed things up for growth and the HC is
growing at a pretty fast clip.. Both Plants love the High 
light etc.!!!


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## styxx (Jul 2, 2003)

Momotaro said:


> I am glad that shop is _waaaay _out west, and not here in the Metro Area! :hihi:
> 
> Mike


LOL!!! I know what you mean, I would be broke in a second if it was around the corner!!!


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## Momotaro (Feb 21, 2003)

Well....we may head out to San Fransico for a little vacation in the fall. If we do, guess where we are going to stop.....

Mike


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## Overfloater (Jan 12, 2004)

Wow that store looks very promising. Sometimes I think it wouldn't be too bad to live in San Francisco... :wink:


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## ringram (Jan 19, 2005)

The net is a good idea. I've heard of people using mesh netting (like hairnet or similar, perhaps more ridgid) on riccia and java moss. It's a good idea if you find it hard to keep rooted. Try it and let us know!


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## m.lemay (Jul 28, 2002)

I've pretty much given up on HC . It's just not worth the effort. After months of trying to get this stuff to root and spread in my tank, I'm done. $50 down the crapper. It costs it's weight in gold and it's worth its weight in fish poop IMO. I'm gonna see if I can get it to grow in my shrimp tank and if it dies, R.I.P. :icon_roll 

I'm planting glosso instead. I've had much more success for far less effort, and if your asking me, it looks just as nice. roud: 

Marcel


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## bharada (Mar 5, 2004)

I've cleaned off as much of the clado-infested gravel as I can and added a patch of Riccia and some river rocks to the tank so my HC is still floating. I did get to pick out more clado from it while I was pulling some Riccia for Mike (Momo) so at least what's floating is now clean and ready to plant. 

I'm leaning toward using it in a new tank instead of changing the substrate in the 40...to lazy. I have a rimless 6gal tank I'm planning on setting up at work. I might have to make the drive into the city and pick up some ADA substrate for that tank and see what all the fuss is about. Expensive substrate and ghetto lighting (2 clamp-on work lights with spiral Fluorex bulbs) should make a good combo. :icon_lol:


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