# Missing Hair grass



## slickwillislim (Oct 11, 2005)

I just noticed a couple hours after the apistos went into my tank that alot of my hair grass are just a bunch of stubs poking up out of the ground. Some of them where the remainders of the emersed version that hasnt completely died yet. All the ones left look healthy but there isnt all that much that they didnt eat. I havent actually seen them eat it but the tetras, shrimp, zebra loach, and ottos have all been in with the plants for a couple of months now and i havent seen a single hair grass get eaten. Is this normal or are they just a little hungry after the long trip. Thanks for all your guys help.

How can i keep them from doing this. I guess feeding them more will make the grass less apetizing but for four little apisto bitaeniata they sure ate a lot of hair grass.


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## MatPat (Mar 22, 2004)

I've only kept A. borelli 'Opal' and A. cacatuoides 'Triple Red' but neither of them have bothered any of my plants. It doesn't seem right that they ate the grass unless they were looking for snails. My Apisto tank always seems to have less snails than my other tanks. If your hairgrass was shedding leaves as it transitioned from emmersed to submersed growth, you may have had some snails in there making a snack out of it and some hungry Apistos who decided to make a meal out of some snails


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## slickwillislim (Oct 11, 2005)

no i have had snails and i have a zebra loach that has kept my snail population at a minimum. I am talking 50+ stalks in a few days. They are trimmed down until they are barely sticking out of the sand only two dense bunches seem to show the least amount of damage. I havent had any of my other plants nibbled on that i have noticed. Its just they ate so much of it i dont mind a little nibbling to pass the time but this is full on buffet for these guys. I have been feeding frozen bloodworms to try and get the apistos to stop eating the grass if they continue to i guess i will have to find some type of life food to tempt them with. I have never read of apistos eating plants. I wanted to know if this was common with other species of apisto.

What food do your apistos really go for they seem relatively uninterested in the frozen bloodworms. Flake doesnt work but they do eat my little pellets i have which i dont get. I dont really have the time to make a batch of brine shrimp and dont really know how to do it or have the supplies but this seems to be the only food that no apisto has ever turned down. Maybe they will eat some frozen brine shrimp. I hope i can get them to eat something besides the plants though from what i have seen they seem to like it. 

Thanks for help i wonder if anybody has specific experience with bitaeniata it isnt extremely common and i had to get them mailed to me. 

Thanks matpat for the ideas but i dont think its the snails because now the new submersed ones have been eaten a lot too.


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## slickwillislim (Oct 11, 2005)

I just rescaped and planted the few stems of dwarf hairgrass i found hiding and they nearly all disapeared in a week or so. It cant be snails i would have seen them and my botia or apistos would have eaten the snail. So whats eating it????

Before:
[img=http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/1903/img65040wo.th.jpg]

After:
[img=http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/1458/img65344hp.th.jpg]


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## SnakeIce (May 9, 2005)

I can't tell from the picture, were the plants chopped off, or were they buried? I don't remember if apistoes tend to be diggers or not.


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## MatPat (Mar 22, 2004)

I have to ask if you hve CO2 on this tank? The hairgrass, even in the first pic, looks like the hairgrass I have tried to keep in a non-CO2 environment. It just willnot thrivie without good CO2 levels. 

Also, looking at your pictures, I would expect a planted tanks to appear much brighter, especially with the whitish colored sand you have in there. What is your lighting like? Is it perhaps being reduced by tall or floating plants? It just doesn't seem to bevery bright but that may just be the picture. 

If you can give us more info on your tank it would be a big help


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## slickwillislim (Oct 11, 2005)

The pictures are dark because the camera I was using has no manual settings that I can find so it focused to that so I took the picture. It really is quite bright. 

I dose Kent micro and grow for my micros and use kno3 and monopotassium phosphate. I dose .5 phosphate every other day, and 4ppm no2 every other day. I test the no3 and revise my dosing weekly to try and keep it steady throughout the week. I do DIY co2 and my ph is in the 6's and I have a kh of 7 so The co2 is not the problem. I have a 2x65w Coralife fixture but I only have one bulb on because I dont have a very high plant load and I want to avoid algae. This is a 29 gallon tank. I am running an xp2 on it set as low as I can get it along with a HOB stuffed with foam to keep it from splashing.

Possible Culprits:
9 silver tip tetras
1 botia striata
4 Apistogramma Bitaeniata
3 Otto's
2 Amano Shrimp


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## cn3934 (Mar 21, 2006)

Happenned in my tank too. Finally found the culprits are the Amano shrimps munching the roots of my hairgrass.


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## Gumby (Aug 1, 2005)

I've never had any Apisto go after plants but it wouldn't surprise me... They are cichlids after all. Apparently cichlids don't read the books about what they are and aren't supposed to do.


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## slickwillislim (Oct 11, 2005)

I dont think its the amano's since they where in there long before my hair grass disapeared.

I have read up on apisto's before and after buying them and I have never read about bitaeniata's that eat plants and if Uwe Romer doesnt say anything about them eating plants then mabey they are just doing it to spite me.

Well i think I will just try another foreground since the hair grass seems to be the onlything being eaten, or destroyed.


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