Just added hair grass to my aquarium (looks like dying)

[Finthusiast]

Hi I am sort of familiar with hair grass but not enough to keep them all alive. Some seem to do fine while others just die (most others die). Any clue what is causing them to die? Here is a picture of one that I just added. It is “melting” slowly over time getting more brown each day. Some seem better than others but mostly all starting to die. Any advice would be appreciated!

 

[Blakewater]

Same thing happened to me with my aquarium. How tall is your tank? Mine is 29" and I assumed it just couldnt get enough light.

 

[kno4te]

If it’s just planted. Could be just not settled yet. Some die off can happen before new growth can start.

 

[Finthusiast]

my tank is only 21” tall. I have some of this hair grass in my ten gallon tank that have been in there a long time and never died. Others I added to the same tank mostly all died I wonder if its the individual specimens? Also wonder if it could be from not planting them correctly? The ones I do have that are doing normal at least they look normal have actually been almost completely buried in the sand. Makes me think the sand is a better choice for this plant but not really sure yet. Heres a picture of the buried one lol at least what you can see of it. What do you guys think? There are actually two of them buried under the sand lol.

 

[Fat Homer]

Hair grass ime needed pretty strong lights and nutrient rich soil to really take off, i personally also ran Co2 (although not sure its 100% necessary) but they grew like weeds...

 

[Schniz]

As others have said I would give them a little bit of time to see if they bounce back but there are a lot of factors that can make a plant die off, live but merely survive or actually thrive in your tank. When I first started keeping aquarium plants i expected to plant my plants and have them grow looking like the picture perfect aquariums I saw in magazines. I planted my first few plants and within a few weeks I had what looked like a failed science project in my living room. I then spent a lot of time and money trying to get everything growing and looking just right but got tired of all the trial and error finding out what I could actually get to thrive in my tank. I finally decided to just go with the 3 plants that thrived and then planted a lot of each and just went with an over grown jungle look. In soft water I had Amazon swords, Rotala Indica and Cryptocoryne Wendtii grow like crazy. In my new house we have very hard water and I'm now growing Italian Val and Anacharis with great success along with the Cryptocorne. The Crypts took a couple of months to get going after the move but the Amazon sword and Rotala died off and never came back. I would suggest instead of trying to create the type of water your plants will thrive in, test your water and then find plants that should thrive in those conditions.

 

[Schniz]

Here is my tank, when I had soft water before we moved, with red and green cryptocorne that basically carpeted the bottom of the tank, an Amazon sword right in the middle mixed in with the Crypts and the Rotala Indica growing in the back and corners of the tank. This was a very low maintenance low cost setup with Flourite substrate, low to med light, no additional CO2, no ferts or root tabs. Other than regular water changes the rotala had to be trimmed every 6 to 8 weeks. About as easy as a planted tank can get.

 

[Finthusiast]

Wow that is a beautiful tank! I appreciate you all sharing with me! And great advice on using what will actually work rather than change water chemistrys lol. I didnt really think my water could have plants without adjusting my set up. Moneywart does seem to do pretty good. I am trial running a method of “burying” the actual green Stem that had some roots growing off them and letting the actual growth sticking off the stem stick out of substrate. Will this cause the part under substrate to rot eventually or will this turn into roots?

 

[Schniz]

Thanks for the compliment. That is the method of planting i used with the Rotala Indica in that pic. Once it reached the surface of the water i would pinch off the top of the stem and then remove the leaves off the bottom half inch to inch of the removed stem and then bury it in the substrate. With the Rotala Indica I had a few stems rot and never take root but the majority took root and had new growth in a few weeks. I'm not sure how well that works with moneywort but I'm pretty sure most stem plants regrow that way. I started with about 24 stems of Rotala Indica in that tank, all the rest grew after planting what I had pruned.

 

[Finthusiast]

Awesome, I will see how these do and if they take off I can get lots more. I want to do one whole side of the tank (like 1/3 of the tank) with plants and leave other side open with some rocks that he can make a nest under. He hasnt messed with any of the plants in the tank he’s in now so I am hoping the bigger tank will be the same way. In my ten gallon I did this and it worked great, he made his nest exactly where I wanted even under the rocks like I had pictured when arranging them!