hemianthus micranthemoides struggling

I am attempting to get a carpet of Hemianthus Micranthemoides going, but it is struggling.
Growth is not as strong as I had hoped, and the plants seem to be turning a dirty greenish brown colour, with only the new growth being the light green colour I had expected.

The tank has good quality light, and Seachem Excel and Flourish is dosed regularly.
Growth is stringy, growing more upright than bushing.
Any suggestions?

 

May be a lack of light and nutrients, from what I have seen and heard heavy feeding and trimming is needed. The more you trim it back the bushier it becomes

Hope this helps

 

It is a 60L tank, with a Zetlight Lancia 590 23W on for 6 hours a day at 100%, 2.5 hours at 50% and 3 hours a day at 25%.
Dosage is 2ml of Seachem Excel daily, and 1ml of Seachem Flourish every second day.
1ml of N,P and K is dosed twice a week.

The plants get trimmed roughly every 2 weeks, depending on growth.

 

Why do I think HM does not like disinfectant... let me go dig.

 

Maybe do deeper trims, cut it really short and that way it may become bushier

 

Ah wait just re-read .. old growth with very rich ferts does go a bit brown - not clue why ... for carpet a heavy trim might be needed. Actually my best HM grows in no fertz tank that has direct sunlight and an inert substrate.

 

Seems I am overdosing on ferts then, in an attempt to get good growth...
Eish....
Seems we're never too old to learn.

 

Actually toxicity is something we seldom consider when we dose fertz ... that is why E.I. does a big WC to "reset" things, but even then your substrate could have more fertz than what is in the water column.

Scary thing .. toxicity symptoms on some plants actually look the same as deficiency so yeah.

Later Ferdie

 

Cut that stuff down!! Mine is filling in quickly with regular trims so that each stem has like 4 leaves. Let it grow out then repeat. Also been replanting the off cuts but that can be a PITA , however it makes it fill in quicker obviously.

 

Climbed in the the scissors this morning, and did a deep/low trim of the HM, and gave the Ludwigia a good shave off the top as well.
Also increased the duration of 100% light from 6 hours to 8 hours.
Let's see how it goes.