# most annoying plant to plant!



## holocron (May 29, 2005)

i've been so frustrated with HC the past few weeks... I give it my vote for worst plant to plant.

anyone else got another?


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## trenac (Jul 16, 2004)

How about Glosso and Dwarf hairgrass.


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## Pseud (Oct 19, 2005)

Yeah, glosso... and tying riccia down is a bit of a pain too.


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## JerseyScape (Nov 18, 2005)

holocron said:


> i've been so frustrated with HC the past few weeks... I give it my vote for worst plant to plant.
> 
> anyone else got another?


I agree. I've had such a tough time trying to get the plant to stay in the Ecocomplete.


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## dukydaf (Aug 31, 2004)

Lilaeopsis sp. can be really tricky(when you have catfish) and second vote for Marsilea


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## Cavan Allen (Jul 22, 2004)

_Bacopa caroliniana_. Just when you think you have that last stem planted, you bump one and they all come up. It has to be the most buoyant plant ever.


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## holocron (May 29, 2005)

yeah, agreed Marsilea is brutal as well.


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## [email protected] (Jul 18, 2005)

*rotala*

For me Rotala rotundifolia is hard to plant I bought two bunches and they will not stay planted.


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## BryceM (Nov 6, 2005)

Cavan Allen said:


> _Bacopa caroliniana_. Just when you think you have that last stem planted, you bump one and they all come up. It has to be the most buoyant plant ever.


LOL! I almost threw the whole bunch away when I first got these for the same reason. I love the look, but they do like to float away.


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## John N. (Dec 11, 2005)

i hate HC. always floats up, Glosso no problem. hairgrass no problem.

-John N.


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## Ibn (Oct 20, 2004)

HC is tough to plant. Also Utricularia sp. foreground since it has such shallow roots.


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## standoyo (Aug 25, 2005)

FWIW, any fg plant is hard when you have nosey fish. buoyant plants are a pain...
quite fast with hg and glosso. 
all you need are good tools. sharp tweezer esp. and it helps if your gravel is fine and heavy...1mm size below.

add weeping moss...it doesn't stick to DW. otherwise ok.


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## Bert H (Mar 2, 2004)

HC gets my vote too.


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## ringram (Jan 10, 2005)

My vote goes for elatine trianda and riccia. Riccia is so hard to keep down that I finally gave up on it. I have a small patch of e. trianda in my tank, but the roots grow so shallow that the plant is barely rooted in the substrate at all. Any strong water movement near it (gravel vac) and it tries to pull up. Re-planting it isn't as simple as it would seem. 
I know a lot of folks say glosso is tough, but I generally just stick a few plantlets in the substrate 1/2 - 3/4" apart and let it fill in on its own. As far as keeping it down, I have no problems really. Yes, you have to rip it up and replant every 1-2 months when it grows up over itself, but I don't mind that.


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## Pseud (Oct 19, 2005)

I found that problem too with E. triandra. Overcame it by planting longer portions of it deeper. In fact, you can actually cover the entire plant with substrate and it will grow back!


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## zig (Jul 3, 2005)

HC for me, painfully slow to plant if you want to cover any significient area of your substrate.

Glosso comes in 2nd place simply because it grows to fast after all the effort of planting. I planted a small 24x12x12 inch tank on the 26 january with glosso as the main foreground plant and basically im going to have to replant it all again after only 4 weeks, the stuff is growing rampant.


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## Gumby (Aug 1, 2005)

standoyo said:


> FWIW, any fg plant is hard when you have nosey fish. buoyant plants are a pain...
> quite fast with hg and glosso.
> all you need are good tools. sharp tweezer esp. and it helps if your gravel is fine and heavy...1mm size below.
> 
> add weeping moss...it doesn't stick to DW. otherwise ok.


I'm with you. Any foreground plant is just a PITA to plant.


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## ragn4rok (Jan 23, 2005)

I hate willow moss, fast-growth hygrophila. I don't have any problem with HC and Marsilea.


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## jude_uc (Feb 7, 2006)

I think most stem plants are a pain to plant because they just don't like staying down; however, if I pick a specific plant, Bacoba is rapidly moving up on my bad list.

-Adam


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## BJRuttenberg (Sep 25, 2005)

I have to keep my HC down by burying it halfway in the gravel...it's damn hard to grow.


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## azn_fishy55 (Jan 6, 2006)

I have now problems planting my HC,since I got longer tweesers,I really don't have any problems planting plants but I hate attaching stuff to rocks or driftwood because it I never know when they are fully attached.


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## C_perugiae (Feb 26, 2004)

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Ammania gracilis. One of my favorites, but that stuff just makes me wanna cry. Talk about buoyancy. The foreground stuff is annoying, but at least most of it doesn't float. I have to agree, though, that glosso can be a pain, especially when an established mat of it gets disturbed.


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## Gumby (Aug 1, 2005)

I have a new plant that I hate. Riccia.

I tied it down to some rocks via a net... within a week it had grown so much that the bottoms of it had died out and the new growth floated. How do you fix this?


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## MiSo (Nov 4, 2005)

when i read the thread, i immediately thought of hc.


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## BryceM (Nov 6, 2005)

Gumby said:


> I have a new plant that I hate. Riccia.
> 
> I tied it down to some rocks via a net... within a week it had grown so much that the bottoms of it had died out and the new growth floated. How do you fix this?


If you give it a haircut every so often and keep it about 1/2" to 1" thick it will slow down the tendency of the lower portions to die off. Even so, the deeper portions will eventually loose substance and then it will revert to it's former bad habit of floating away....... Some people try fishline or stainless steel screens.

Anyone else have better ideas?


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## John P. (Nov 24, 2004)

guaiac_boy said:


> If you give it a haircut every so often and keep it about 1/2" to 1" thick it will slow down the tendency of the lower portions to die off. Even so, the deeper portions will eventually loose substance and then it will revert to it's former bad habit of floating away....... Some people try fishline or stainless steel screens.
> 
> Anyone else have better ideas?


I have some sinking Riccia in my tank. It's darker green--more like a moss color than "standard" Riccia.


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## jeff63851 (Feb 23, 2005)

I really hate tying moss to driftwood....it's so frustrating.


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## JerseyScape (Nov 18, 2005)

jeff63851 said:


> I really hate tying moss to driftwood....it's so frustrating.


Yep, I have no patience for stuff like that. I had my girlfriend planting GLOSSO for me as I lost interest after planting 10 little plantlets. I really need to work on my patience


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## nap83 (Feb 7, 2006)

red ludwigia is the most bouyant plant i've ever laid my hands on, talk about a pain. 

glosso, who has patience for this? i managed to get 2 potted bunches and only worked on one.

never had a problem with dwarf hairgrass and will never try riccia, i'm way too lazy for that. hehe.


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## Aquadise (Jul 26, 2006)

I laugh when people are complaining abo how hard it is to plant a small plant like HC. Just get a patch and throw a rock on it and let it spread, its not that hard. Have you ever plant a sword with 20+ leaves? Its massive leaf is incredibly bouyant, it certainly refuse to stay to the substrate until it send its roots, which can take up to a few weeks. My tweezer couldnt fit the end of the swords so I literally have to climb in my tank to plant it correctly. I also agree with Ammania gracilis, its like planting a airlock pvc tube.


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## AaronT (Apr 26, 2004)

Eriocaulons will float back up all day long without enough root structure. They're totally worth the frustrations though.


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## babypiggy (Jul 31, 2006)

JerseyScape said:


> I agree. I've had such a tough time trying to get the plant to stay in the Ecocomplete.


i have ecocinplete in my tank as well
when i bought the HC from a store
it was grown on a mat (looks like filter floss)
they have never cam unrooted since they grew into the mat.
just srpinkle eco complete on top of the mat


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## Aquadise (Jul 26, 2006)

I got frustrated with eriocaulon so much, so I have to grow them emersed until they get good roots.


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## Mud Pie Mama (Jul 30, 2006)

Aquadise said:


> so I literally have to climb in my tank to plant it correctly.


Wow! What size tank do you have that you can climb into it??? 
I'd really love to see a picture of you doing that! 
I'd never even try to plant a sword with 20+ leaves; 15 of those leaves would be history, then I'd plant it. Most swords with a big rhizome or root stock will recover fast enough for my tastes.


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## Mud Pie Mama (Jul 30, 2006)

C_perugiae said:


> Ammania gracilis. One of my favorites, but that stuff just makes me wanna cry. Talk about buoyancy.


I too love A. gracilis and have found it equally challenging until I've taken up the practice of replanting it "every - other" as I call it:

By the time it grows to the top of my tank it has a very thick stem. Just topping it and trying to replant the top is ....VERY frustrating. But I throw out the top half and let the base resprout. Then next planting time when I've got several new shoots I yank the whole stalk, toss the base and replant the thinner sprouts. At just 6 or 8" in length they aren't as thick. bouyant and difficult yet.


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## oceans0516 (Jul 23, 2006)

jeff63851 said:


> I really hate tying moss to driftwood....it's so frustrating.


Moss is driving me crazy. The little pieces just fly around the tank and i can never catch them all. so messy. I keep Riccia floating and its already a mess. I can't imagine wut a pain it would be to keep it down. Not even gona try.


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## standoyo (Aug 25, 2005)

Gumby said:


> I have a new plant that I hate. Riccia.
> 
> I tied it down to some rocks via a net... within a week it had grown so much that the bottoms of it had died out and the new growth floated. How do you fix this?


Spread some Aquasoil over it or ....
Tie more riccia onto small lava rock and plonk it on top. Aquajournal #38 I think.


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