Dwarf Hairgrass

Eleocharis pusilla

Thin green blades that spread by runners into something very like a mown lawn. The most reliable of the carpets: it stays short by itself and needs no trimming.

Light: medium
Difficulty: easy
Height: 3 – 5 cm (1.2 – 2 in)
Temperature: 12 – 27 °C (54 – 81 °F)

Leaf colour: green
Plant type: rhizome
Growth rate: medium
CO₂ demand: medium
Tolerates light: medium – high
Carbonate hardness: 0 – 14 °dKH
Placement: nano tank, foreground +1 nano tank, foreground, carpet
Propagation: runners, division +1 runners, division, daughter plants
Grows emersed: yes

Appearance

Bright green needle-thin leaves 3–5 cm long grow in small tufts. A dense stand looks like grass, and because the leaves stay short it never needs cutting.

Keeping

Not difficult, with one condition: light must reach the bottom, otherwise the lawn thins out. Carbon dioxide speeds the spread noticeably. Patience is the main requirement — the first runners appear only weeks after planting.

Placement

The front of the tank, in small tufts a couple of centimetres apart. Suits a nano tank, where a few tufts floor the whole bottom.

Propagation

By runners: new tufts appear beside the old ones and root themselves. To move it, lift a tuft with its roots and replant.

Water conditions match

The water suits 983 of 1249 species in the catalogue — these are the ones people look up most often.

Swordtail Guppies Cobra Guppy Blood Red Molly Butterflyfish Red Zebra Cichlid Julii Corydoras Red-finned Parotocinclus Gastromyzon monticola Egg-shaped Goldfish Flame Tetra Gardner's Killifish African Tetra Kenyi Cichlid Cuckoo Catfish Golden Swordtail Hypsolebias picturatus Common Zacco Labeo Bicolor Gambusia Flying barb Gastromyzon scitulus Albino Zebra Danio Geophagus Brokopondo Zebra Mbuna

Will eat this plant

These species damage plants, especially when their diet is short of vegetable food.

Bengal Loach Zebra Loach Burmese Border Loach Emperor Botia Spined Loach Marbled Headstander Pellegrin's Leporinus Leporinus striatus False Black Tetra Common Metynnis Mylossoma duriventre Red Whiptail Catfish Molly sphenops Balloon Molly Lyretail Molly Marble Molly Hi-Fin Platy Hawaii Platy Blue Platy Pintail Platy Black Platy Chocolate Molly Moonlight Gourami Melanotaenia parva

Will uproot it

These species dig through the substrate and pull rooted plants out.

Marble Loach Peacock Eel Forktail Loach Guntea Loach Long-nosed Loach Horseface Loach Pearlscale Black Moor Goldfish Shubunkin Painted Pleco Featherfin Synodontis Reddish Mystus Catfish Blue Acara Aulonocara maylandi Aulonocara multicolor Aulonocara Orchid Pearlscale Cichlid Pearl Cichlid Redbelly Cichlid Red-spotted Cichlid Chuco godmanni Haplochromis philander Red Chromide Jack Dempsey cichlid

Matching water does not mean the fish will leave the plant alone.

The same plant with a different look: light, water and care are shared with the species.

Eleocharis pusilla ('E. parvula')

Other varieties: Eleocharis pusilla 'Mini', Eleocharis Pusillis

Scientific and other names, conservation status

Other scientific names: Scirpus pumilio Sprengel, Eleocharis acicularis elongata, Scirpus pumilio, Scirpus pusillus
Eleocharis pusilla: R. Br.
Family: Cyperaceae

Dwarf Hairgrass

Tank conditions

Care and keeping