# Planted Tanks > Plant Talk >  how to plant Hemianthus callitrichoides

## slikpizz

issit ok to grow Hemianthus callitrichoides on white normal filter wool?

they are so fine it is hard to anchor then to substrate i find..

anyone keeping Hemianthus callitrichoides without a chiller with good results?

appreciate expert inputs :Grin:  :Grin:

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## Jervis

No, it's not advisable to keep the wool that comes with the plant. Get the right kind of soil/sand (fine and heavy enough to grab the plant on its root) and use a planting tool. That's the correct way of dealing with HC.

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## Mizu World

Besides the points mentioned by Jervis...

No. You do not need a chiller to grow HC. Regular planted aquarium temperature will do.

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## slikpizz

> No, it's not advisable to keep the wool that comes with the plant. Get the right kind of soil/sand (fine and heavy enough to grab the plant on its root) and use a planting tool. That's the correct way of dealing with HC.


why not the wool?

cos they plants are finely entangled with the wool so hard to get them out.

can cut of small area of the wool together with the hc and plant them in together?

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## barmby

I suppose these high end plants with chiller... can grow magically..though I have not touch HC yet. (disclaimer)

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## blue33

HC can grow in temperature at 28degree with no problem. HC loves CO2, i mean the good mixing CO2 and they like very clean water, this they will speed up their growth.  :Smile:

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## Czyne

I'm not sure of the long-term issues of leaving the HC in with the stone wool, but I've planted them while still attached to it and they did grow very well. I'm guessing that the problems would come from the deterioration of the wool long-term, or it getting mixed up in your substrate during any major overhauls and unable to remove. On tropica's site, they show to plant it while still being in the wool, leaving just a cm or two of it attached for anchoring the roots into the substrate. I wish I knew their logic behind that other than ease of planting, and why others say it's a bad idea. Hopefully someone else can explain their reasons not to so you'll have a more direct answer.

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## barmby

Sunny singapore !!! Not possible to have 28 deg/C.. sigh!!!

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## blue33

> I'm not sure of the long-term issues of leaving the HC in with the stone wool, but I've planted them while still attached to it and they did grow very well. I'm guessing that the problems would come from the deterioration of the wool long-term, or it getting mixed up in your substrate during any major overhauls and unable to remove. On tropica's site, they show to plant it while still being in the wool, leaving just a cm or two of it attached for anchoring the roots into the substrate. I wish I knew their logic behind that other than ease of planting, and why others say it's a bad idea. Hopefully someone else can explain their reasons not to so you'll have a more direct answer.


Most of the plant need nutrients from substrate, wool dont have, if you notice those HC with wool on it, it also have wood chips inside also, that is potassium and debris of ferts actually.  :Smile: 




> Sunny singapore !!! Not possible to have 28 deg/C.. sigh!!!


Well i only use fan, my tank highest temperature is 28, lowest is around 25-26.  :Smile:  If you know how to get your ambient temperature right, then your tank temperature is also cool.  :Grin:

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## Shadow

if it is stonewool, it is very easy to clean, just soak in the water give litle bit shake and it will come off. If it is the normal filter wool, then good luck in removing it  :Laughing: .

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## Morgan01

> Sunny singapore !!! Not possible to have 28 deg/C.. sigh!!!


try to locate the coolest place/area in your home for the tank.  :COOL!: 
and remember if you have your lights on during the hottest hours in your home then obviously you'd be increasing the water temperature even further. 



> HC can grow in temperature at 28degree with no problem. HC loves CO2, i mean the good mixing CO2 and they like very clean water, this they will speed up their growth.


also make sure you do not keep HC eating fish...not sure which of mine but feasted on my whole slap of HC the last time  :Evil:

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## barmby

Thank you guys.slikpizz. hope these replies gonna help.  :Smile:

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## Amder

im starting to grow HC (bought from PR farm @ $6) using the emerse method on ADA amazonia soil. 
moist the soil, seal the tank using plastic, on the lights for 10hrs a day...2 days liao... 
hope it works...

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## Verminator

Does HC require fertile substrate such as ADA Amazonia (example) or can it be kept in normal inert gravel. I'm confused now. Not sure if i've asked this question in another thread on here today, or another forum. Lost track hehe.

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## Amder

i dun know. I just find that e overall substrate is nice in terms of colour, size..etc. My tank is still moist, HC is not yellowing, not growing much, maybe still rooting.

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## Shadow

they grow faster in fertile substrate. Their roots are pretty short, thus it may not be able to reach base fert under thick inert sand.

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## Verminator

I was just curious as i plan to have a HC forground tank thus wanting fertile soil for it to remain healthy. Obviously just concerned that the ferts will encourage algae to take over due to the fact the tank will predominantly be HC + 1 other plant. I have ways of solving this, so i'm not overly worried. Thinking fertile soil is preferable then  :Smile:

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## Amder

im also worried about algae problem, therefore trying out the 'dry' method as taught in e sticky. Anyone tried this method with HC with success?

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## Shadow

yup, try that out. Growing dry is easy, the critical point would be when you fill up the tank.

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## Amder

ya. Heard that u have to pump in lots of CO2 when filling up to help e plants with e 'transition' phase. Will take note of that.

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## illumnae

I'm tryng out the Tropica method of planting in large clumps. After painstakingly pulling out the filter wool layer by thin layer, I finally managed to get just one huge patch of HC without the wool. I then separated it into larger clumps and planted them into the sand by burying the edges in slightly. The sand weighs down the edges enough such that the entire patch doesn't float up. It's harder with soil i believe. Hopefully with fertile substrate (using the JBL base fert that you mix in with sand, not Aquabasis under sand) + Co2 (1.5bps in a 1ftcube) and water fertilization (2ml Wondergro Macro+ 3 times a week and 2ml Wondergro Micro+ 2 times a week) will help it root and spread fast

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## Verminator

Good luck with that. HC is such a pain to grow. Interested to see how you do with that illumnae. When i finally get round to attempting my 2ft tank with HC i'm going to pump in CO2 at the highest rate possible before i add in fauna after a month or so. Desperate to get a decent HC lawn before long  :Smile:

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## illumnae

results look hopeful. I planted them in about 24 hours ago. Today I changed the lights from 2x13w Dymax lights to 2x11w Arcadia Pods. It's less light overall, but the lights are 1+ inch closer to the substrate, Arcadia Pods are supposed to have better reflectors and Arcadia bulbs are supposed to be better for plant growth.

Save for some HC that had to be replanted into the soil after the entire patch floated up, the rest is already bubbling and looking a little like riccia to me!

It's been some time since I downgraded my tanks to low tech, so seeing bubbling again is a welcome sight and prompts me to stop procrastinating my 4ft tank upgrade from low tech to high tech

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## Verminator

Certainly a positive sign, i read somewhere that actually allowing HC to float the first couple of days in a new tank helps it acclimatise with even higher success rates to just planting it straight in the substrate. Pearling after 24 hours must be encouraging for you, i hope your successful  :Smile:

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## Amder

wow! Thats great work there!
I cant 'see' my HC bubbling for now, but my whole tank is misty/foggy. I think thats e effect of e 'greenhouse' cycle.

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## illumnae

after more observation, it seems that the HC is only starting to pearl after lunch (1/2way through the photoperiod). Towards the end of the photoperiod, the pearling is very abundant. Is this a sign of poor CO2 mixing, or is it normal?

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## gentle

i notice HC growth is very slow...

i planted some as my foreground plant about one month ago, and now when i look back at the 1-month-old picture that i took, have not notice changes to the patch size...

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## Verminator

> after more observation, it seems that the HC is only starting to pearl after lunch (1/2way through the photoperiod). Towards the end of the photoperiod, the pearling is very abundant. Is this a sign of poor CO2 mixing, or is it normal?


Could just be that your tank takes this little period of time to reach saturation point each day. Perhaps try a little experiment, increase the rate a little and see if pearling occurs sooner in the photoperiod. If nothing happens after altering it slightly maybe its down to inconsistency in your injection system?

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## illumnae

changing the lights gave me pearling after 2 hours! I changed it from the pink arcadia tubes to the 6500k philips ones. Wattage and fixture remain the same

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## Verminator

Fair enough. Lighting is a perculiar thing is it not. I have x2 30W T8's on a 3ft low light tank. Turning one bulb off and running just 1 30W T8 has improved the growth of my crypts and anubias. I just don't understand light. Sometimes it goes exactly how its supposed too, other times it goes completely against what you might expect. Haha. Alas, as long as my plants grow, i'm not too fussed. Atleast you seem to have solved yours too i guess.

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## mordrake

my HC is growing quite fast in my 2ft with 4x24W T5HO. just gave the HC a haircut on sat. 
question. once the HC grows into a complete lawn, is it ok to reduce lights to say 2x24W? read in barr report that HC actually don't need such high lights to grow. good co2 levels will suffice to keep it growing well and low.

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## Verminator

I've read this too. Good enough CO2 levels should sustain the growth you have already.

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## mordrake

thanks. i'll let the HC settle more and drop lights after a 2nd trimming.

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## illumnae

Mine's growing quite fast too. I'm quite amazed by the speed at which it grows. It's only been a week since I swapped out the lights and it's already spreading. Now my problem is balancing the CO2/ferts. As previously mentioned, it seems that my 2x11w arcadia lights are more intense than the previous 2x13w setup. I've added CO2, but dosed WonderGro macro+ and micro+ at recommended dosage. However, I'm starting to see signs of hair algae and BBA. This leads me to conclude that the lag time between lights on and pearling has an effect. It could be that in the 2 hours, CO2 levels are not optimum and algae is growing during this time period. Alternatively, it could be that Wondergro under-recommends dosage.

I've started to switch on CO2 90 minutes before lights on, and I will be doubling the dosage of Wondergro Macro+ (NPK) to see if this solves the algae problem. I would have thought that with HC and Blyxa japonica growing healthily, the algae would be curbed  :Sad:

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## Verminator

Algae always finds a way to grow given our best efforts. Even when we think current growth in our plants is sufficient and healthy algae will find a weak point and attack!

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## illumnae

A new theory I have is insufficient flowrate. It's a Eheim 2211 running on a 1 foot cube. Ever since I installed lily pipes, the CO2 bubbles from the diffuser seem only to be blown about the upper 1/2 of the tank. I don't know if this means insufficient CO2 is reaching the HC or not. However, I do see some of the hair algae still swaying gently down below...so perhaps there's enough flow?  :Sad: 

I guess I'll observe the increased macro ferts + earlier Co2 start time for a week or so before deciding whether to switch to an Eheim 2213 instead

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## mordrake

for my 2ft with 4x24W T5, i'm using ecco pro 2036 with co2 diffusor at the bottom of outlet. dosing dry NO3 >20ppm & PO4 >5ppm twice a week and daily dose of ferka aqualizer and K. was dosing NO3 and PO4 once weekly but was getting GSA. figured that since blyxa japonica is known to be nitrate suckers, i increased to twice weekly dosings now.
now i have hair and staghorn issues but seems to be getting better after manual trimmings and increased ferts. co2 bps is ard 3bps and drop checker yellow. 
co2 timing is set 1hr before lights on and off 1hr before lights off.

one thing i notice was that the algae issue got worse when i removed a large portion of frogbits. now the frogbits are back covering 3/4 of the surface and algae issue is improving. this leads me to think that lights need not be that high to have good HC growth.

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## illumnae

I've read the same actually, that HC doesn't need that high lights in order to flourish. This is contrary to what is generally believed here though.

I was hoping that with hungry and fast growing Blyxa japonica, the balance would be maintained. Hopefully with my newly implemented corrective measures things will balance out. If not, I'll put frogbits in. It's just a bit of a bummer for me as I just spent quite abit upgrading the lights to arcadia pods  :Sad:

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## Amder

wa. You all pro talk a lot of those jargone words, i dun understand a single thing. Only know my HC is growing, slowly but surely! Haha. Using ADA fert, 6x24w.

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