# How to trim HC?



## KeIgO86 (Jun 23, 2005)

Hi. I used to have HC growing into a beautiful carpet.










But after about 3 months, as the carpet grew thicker, the bottom of the carpet was deprived of light and it died. thus, the roots which secured the plant to the substrate rotted and a simple current created by a sweep of my hand in the water flipped the carpet up and over like a sheet of paper. Its as though it was held down only by the mulm accumulated inside the carpet.

I would like to go into HC again, but to prevent the same catastrophe from occuring again, this time I would be trimming it regularly. So can any guys here share their experience in trimming this beautiful plant?

I was thinking to just cut horizontally to reduce its thickness. Any other ideas?


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## MossyLady (Dec 18, 2005)

I have not yet been able to get any Hemianthus, but there is a trick I'm using to grow a mossy carpet ... with moss, you can sandwich the strands between two pieces of plastic mesh (found in crafts departments), then sew or staple the edges together, and tuck the edges under rocks or decorations. Then, at trimming time, you can lift the whole mesh out and trim over a bucket, rinse and replace. Why couldn't you sew the mass of HC to a single sheet? The roots would grow down to the substrate, but the lifting out to trim would prevent mulm build-up, and the mesh would hold the carpet intact. Use thin fishing line and a darning needle to sew ... it lasts forever.


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## bichirboy (Dec 28, 2005)

That was nice. What were/are your tank's stats to allow you to grow that so nicely?


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## KeIgO86 (Jun 23, 2005)

Actually I'm planning to slope the hc on sloppy terrain. I guess the mesh method would not work for this plan of mine. Thanks for the idea anyway. It would have worked great for flat terrain.

My stats then were 55w of light over a 2x1x1, lots of CO2, KNO3 and flourish excel dosing. Finally, there's a little flourish comprehensive dosing for the trace.


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## matthewburk (Sep 27, 2005)

How thick did the HC get before it started to rot away.


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## adin (Oct 9, 2004)

KeIgO86 said:


> I was thinking to just cut horizontally to reduce its thickness. Any other ideas?


that's what i do. the hc will grow back very quickly but it creates quite a mess. have a net handy to scoop out the swarm of clippings


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## MossyLady (Dec 18, 2005)

For sloppy terrain, you might try using smaller pieces of the mesh, cut to fit the areas where needed.


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