# Dwarf Hairgrass starting to brown/ turn yellow



## Aenglaan (Apr 29, 2016)

My hairgrass has been in the tank for a little over a week and isn't looking too good. Some of it is growing, but a lot of it appears to be dying off. 

My tank is a 40 breeder with a Fluval 206 and Hydor powerhead for filtration. 
My light is a current USA LED. The substrate I use is 5mm grain Blackwell aquasoil about 1 inch/ 1/2 inch. 
I have a CO2 system that comes on one hour before the lights and turns off one hour before they turn off. 
I dose with the Green Leaf Aquarium dry ferts both micro and macro. 
My pH appears to be around maybe 7 without CO2 and around 6.3 at max CO2 levels. 

What could be the reason for why it doesn't appear to be holding up well?


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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

A week is not that long of a time span. You'll get some dieoff, but if you start to see runners you should be in good shape. It actually doesn't look that bad in the pics. If you pull up a clump are there fresh (white roots)?


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## patfat (Oct 23, 2015)

Aenglaan said:


> My hairgrass has been in the tank for a little over a week and isn't looking too good. Some of it is growing, but a lot of it appears to be dying off.
> 
> My tank is a 40 breeder with a Fluval 206 and Hydor powerhead for filtration.
> My light is a current USA LED. The substrate I use is 5mm grain Blackwell aquasoil about 1 inch/ 1/2 inch.
> ...


do you have only one light on the tank? 

on my 40b I have 2 lights on my and I have dwarf hair grass too but had my for a couple months now and I inject co2 with ferts but I am having the problem of not getting growth


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## Aenglaan (Apr 29, 2016)

houseofcards said:


> A week is not that long of a time span. You'll get some dieoff, but if you start to see runners you should be in good shape. It actually doesn't look that bad in the pics. If you pull up a clump are there fresh (white roots)?


The ones that I accidentally uprooted had some white, tangles roots. There seems to be more growth out of the currently existing runners (small, green leaves), but a lot of the leaves look kind of pathetic (one of the clumps got a significant amount of browning and I decided to get rid of it entirely, since I didn't think it would survive).


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## Opare (Sep 9, 2015)

They may have been grown emersed, so melting in the first week is to be expected. Even if they were grown submersed they might melt a bit as they adjust to your parameters. Only worry about the DHG if it isn't looking good in a month or so. I think as long as the crown is healthy the plants should bounce back, even if the leaves all die off.


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## Aenglaan (Apr 29, 2016)

Opare said:


> They may have been grown emersed, so melting in the first week is to be expected. Even if they were grown submersed they might melt a bit as they adjust to your parameters. Only worry about the DHG if it isn't looking good in a month or so. I think as long as the crown is healthy the plants should bounce back, even if the leaves all die off.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


The hairgrass was tissue-cultured. It's sometimes hard to tell whether or not the crown is healthy. I basically see brown tissue with several white roots so...


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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

So tissue cultured = emersed so as Opare stated there might be additional die-off. How are your other plants doing?


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## Opare (Sep 9, 2015)

Aenglaan said:


> The hairgrass was tissue-cultured. It's sometimes hard to tell whether or not the crown is healthy. I basically see brown tissue with several white roots so...


Like House said that means they were grown emersed, and therefore there is nothing really to worry about. The melt is completely expected. Just wait about a month and if there are still issues let us know.


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## Aenglaan (Apr 29, 2016)

houseofcards said:


> So tissue cultured = emersed so as Opare stated there might be additional die-off. How are your other plants doing?


My rotala indica/ rotundifola and staurogyne repens are doing well. 

Some of the lower leaves on the rotala are yellowing and/or getting that white fuzz, which I think is a bacterium of some sort. The middle/upper parts of the rotala are doing well, although I feel it may be awhile before I get the gold/pink leaves again.

The staurogyne repens (which weren't in the pictures) seem fine, but they appear to get uprooted surprisingly easily sometimes, but I think they're grasping onto the substrate better now.


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## Mr. Bean (Jul 10, 2016)

Those more experienced than I may disagree, but I planted a field of dwarf hair grass six weeks ago, but put root tabs every 4-5 inches (NilocG clay with macros) and no micro ferts in the water column at all for a month and they spread pretty quickly. LIke someone else mentioned earlier...I don't see a problem, at least with the pics you provided. I would note as well that your substrate is pretty hefty for these tiny root systems to get traction in.


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## Aenglaan (Apr 29, 2016)

Mr. Bean said:


> Those more experienced than I may disagree, but I planted a field of dwarf hair grass six weeks ago, but put root tabs every 4-5 inches (NilocG clay with macros) and no micro ferts in the water column at all for a month and they spread pretty quickly. LIke someone else mentioned earlier...I don't see a problem, at least with the pics you provided. I would note as well that your substrate is pretty hefty for these tiny root systems to get traction in.


Yeah, I had aqua soild with 1mm grain size, but I returned it after thinking that I didn't need it.

Does anyone think that adding 1mm grain size to the substrate would be helpful?


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## Mr. Bean (Jul 10, 2016)

I think it would be beneficial for any rooted plants...to include hair grass.


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