# HC Cuba Carpet depth...?



## Roshan8768 (Mar 18, 2009)

This is a hard one.. it definitely will start dying off underneath and float away if you don't do anything to intervene. I don't think you should do a hard trim (leaving less than 1/2") unless you are running some quality CO2. With the current state I would trim it down to an inch or so every week to encourage it to develop more side shoots, and then eventually you can start making the carpet shorter if you so desire. If I were you I would try different lengths of trim on different areas of your carpet so you don't lose the whole thing if you make a mistake... once you know which approach works best you can apply it to the whole carpet. Hope that helps...


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## hardcastle.scott (Jan 11, 2017)

Roshan8768 said:


> This is a hard one.. it definitely will start dying off underneath and float away if you don't do anything to intervene. I don't think you should do a hard trim (leaving less than 1/2") unless you are running some quality CO2. With the current state I would trim it down to an inch or so every week to encourage it to develop more side shoots, and then eventually you can start making the carpet shorter if you so desire. If I were you I would try different lengths of trim on different areas of your carpet so you don't lose the whole thing if you make a mistake... once you know which approach works best you can apply it to the whole carpet. Hope that helps...




Great advice - I'll try some different trim depths and see how it goes.


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## sfsamm (Apr 3, 2017)

I'm no expert. I actually juuuuuuust yesterday planted Cuba and Riccia in my shrimp tank for my first attempt at them. I was warned to be sure to keep the Cuba trimmed as if it gets to shaded at the root it dies off..... I have no good advice for sure though as I said I just put mine down yesterday. 

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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

The HC isn't as likely to 'float away' since Riccia is a floating plant by nature and it doesn't have any roots. That being said that does look rather tall for HC. How is your lighting?


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## Raizinhell (May 26, 2017)

Yea, is that really HC, the leaves look different.


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## hardcastle.scott (Jan 11, 2017)

houseofcards said:


> The HC isn't as likely to 'float away' since Riccia is a floating plant by nature and it doesn't have any roots. That being said that does look rather tall for HC. How is your lighting?




Lighting seems to be ok. I originally had 2 sets of led lights but had bubbles pearling everywhere and too much algae so I've dropped it back to a single 30w led and it still seems to get good weekly growth without as much algae.


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## hardcastle.scott (Jan 11, 2017)

Raizinhell said:


> Yea, is that really HC, the leaves look different.













I agree, from the side with the tall growth it looks strange. From the top it looks more familiar with the small round leaves.



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## Tnalp (Mar 25, 2017)

i never allow my carpet to get thicker than 1" for the same reason, fear of it floating up.


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## hardcastle.scott (Jan 11, 2017)

Tnalp said:


> i never allow my carpet to get thicker than 1" for the same reason, fear of it floating up.




Thank for the feedback- I'll try for 1 inch, too.


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