# Can dwarf hair grass be kept trimmed to resemble a lawn. Must it have soil?



## jadaBlu (Feb 14, 2013)

One AQ theme I am doing will involve a partial lawn. I can use green gravel but I'd love to have real grass. My package from Petsmart says to just bury it in the gravel. I read some posts that mention soil. Can you feed it plant fertilizer and just use your gravel? Can you keep it trimmed fairly short to a couple inches?


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

DHG only gets to about 4 inches anyway so you can trim it down to an inch and it will be just fine! My DHG did great in my 10 gallon with Liquid Ferts (I used API's LeafZone). They do need medium to high lighting though. Also it's good to seperate the little strip you get from Petsmart into about 3 or 4 little sections and then bury them about an inch to an inch and a half away from each other so they can fill in. Make sure to remove as much gel as you can. And no, you don't necessarily need soil, they did just fine in my gravel


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## DefStatic (Mar 17, 2013)

Medium Light at least. Liquid Ferts do fine, but root tabs will help as well. If you want it to spread fast, I suggest either learning about CO2 or getting some Flourish Excel.


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## ao (Feb 29, 2012)

mine spread pretty fast under medium light...
in low light it just stopped growing. lol


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## bniebetta (Feb 26, 2013)

I don't know what is wrong with mine... has light and seachem ferts and just looks retarded...


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## DefStatic (Mar 17, 2013)

bniebetta said:


> I don't know what is wrong with mine... has light and seachem ferts and just looks retarded...


Pics?

Are you using Flourish Excel or Flourish Comprehensive?

What is your lighting situation like?


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## bniebetta (Feb 26, 2013)

I will post some when I get home from class. Both actually. hre are some little really green wisps but the majority of it is yellow. I actually took it apart after reading this thread and planted smaller portions of the whole spaced out and trimmed off some of the obviously gone parts. My bulb is a cheap one but it is supposed to be 18000k. I am nervous about making a diy CO2 i guess because I don't understand it :/


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## LittleBettaFish (Oct 2, 2010)

18000K is too high. Pretty sure you only want between 5500 to 10000K. Could be why you are having issues.


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

bniebetta said:


> I am nervous about making a diy CO2 i guess because I don't understand it :/


Yeah I had to research DIY CO2 several times and watch videos before I understood what it even was and did haha


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## bniebetta (Feb 26, 2013)

LittleBettaFish said:


> 18000K is too high. Pretty sure you only want between 5500 to 10000K. Could be why you are having issues.


It's so hard to tell :/ it was actually doing that before I got the 18000k bulb and just had an average 15 watt florescent, which was part of my motivation to go grab one. The store owner told me that basically nothing would be too high and it would be to my advantage to get the highest possible. I am going to give it some more time, but here is what it looks like after I separated it and cut some off.


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

How long have you had it bniebetta? It might still be in the stage of "die off" and will grow back once it's used to the water.


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## bniebetta (Feb 26, 2013)

Let's see.... I think it has been in there exactly one week today. Yeah, I really hope that's it haha I am going to give it a few more weeks and see what it does before I rip it out and curse it. It kind of seems that way from the few wisps of that young green color sticking out. Most of the other things are kind of in that stage right now, with the exception of the water wisteria which is unusually happy.


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## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

Okay, that's good. Just let it run it's course then and it should come back soon.


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## Otterfun (Dec 31, 2012)

I just plop mine as a clump into the 1g vase-tank, low light the it sponged from my Fluval SPEC V next to it, grew about 1/4" in 2 weeks.


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## jadaBlu (Feb 14, 2013)

Another question: I am doing a multi-tank 5g start up I would like to get the grass to spread to use it in more than one tank and keep a little behind to continue grow more. I am thinking of putting it with the gravel I would use in the tank and growing it in a sterilite container. Will it easily move once it's ready? Will it disturb the cycle very much if I install after the tank is cycled?


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## MoneyMitch (Aug 3, 2009)

never had luck with DDHG myself, if you aren't noticing any new growth and it keeps browning out like that id pitch it and try something different. from what ive experienced its either been not enough light or co2 or a combination of the two.


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## isochronism (Nov 24, 2012)

I bought the same Top-fin pack that I left it in it's package for a month on a windowsill. I then moved it to separate container for a while. I simply planted it in gravel a week ago. It is growing. It floated up two days ago and showed developing roots. I put it back down with a few gravels to help weigh it. I use slight Seachem ferts. Tank is on a windowsill w/southern exposure.


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