Aquarium grass seed is starting to bloom

[CornAndCrawlers]

The grass seed I bought on amazon came with instructions and a 3 day to sprout promise. After 7 days there was still no sprouts so I gave up on them, bought and inserted some other plants and filled up the aquarium with water, I kinda figured these seeds would just rot away and be food for bacteria and shrimp. 

However, after about a week of being fully submerged, they have now all sprouted. Some of them have taken root in the substrate, some have taken root on my moss, and others haven't taken any root and just float up at the top. 

 

Everyday it gets a little more lush but I'm expecting that all of this will die off quickly.. 

[OnlyGenusCaps]

On 4/26/2022 at 1:04 AM, CornAndCrawlers said:

The grass seed I bought on amazon

Um, I hate to be the bearer of perhaps unwelcome news here, but...  The stuff coming up in your tank doesn't look like grass to me.  From that photo, it really looks like some sort of dicot, which rules out grass.  I'm not sure what you have in there, but it looks happy currently.  I'll be curious to see what ends up happening.  Please do post updates.

[CornAndCrawlers]

grass seed update: 

More sprouts, although you might not be able to tell from the first photo, but in the second photo you can see that I now have a ton of floating sprouts.

[Guppysnail]

I wonder if they will do well long term floating. Could be fun. 

[CornAndCrawlers]

Two week update, no sign of death. I do have a slight tannin-color in the water now, but im not sure if that's from the seeds or me disturbing the substrate recently. More is floating because I rehoused my darters and disturbed some of the plants in the process of netting them.

I drop in some some seachem flourish fertilizer and seachem nitrogen once a week although im sure sure if liquid Fert is doing anything for these plants because I kinda just assumed they were root feeders. 

 

[CornAndCrawlers]

3 month update pics on the aquarium grass seed and the stones covered in terrestrial moss that I added to my nano aquarium. 

 

[CKetchum]

Thanks for sharing! This is going to be an interesting ride. 

[OnlyGenusCaps]

On 7/29/2022 at 9:46 PM, CornAndCrawlers said:

3 month update pics

Absolutely fascinating!  Definitely not a grass. But what is it?!  A seeded aquarium plant seems really cool.

[nabokovfan87]

Pearlweed?

[Patrick_G]

There’s a lot of seeds for sale on Amazon or eBay. The consensus on another forum is that they’re usually terrestrial seeds that won’t survive long term when submerged. On the other hand there’s a bunch of pics from people who have success with them. 

[OnlyGenusCaps]

On 7/31/2022 at 12:10 AM, Patrick_G said:

The consensus on another forum is that they’re usually terrestrial seeds that won’t survive long term when submerged.

See, that is totally the outcome I would have guessed!  But looks like they are making it it longer term.  And to be honest, most of the "aquatic plants" in the hobby are marginals that try to reach the surface anyhow.  Still, this is fascinating for me! 

[FLFishChik]

This is so interesting! I see aquarium “seeds” all over the internet and wondered if it was just a scam or if they were legit. Can’t wait to see how this turns out and see what plant it actually is!

Edited July 31, 2022 by FLFishChik

[gjcarew]

I've seen quite a few that aren't "grass" per se, but are usually some kind hygrophila since that is one of the few aquatic plant genuses that it is practical to harvest seeds from. 

I still consider it false advertising because they usually show pictures of Eleocharis acicularis or some other actual grass, but if you just want a lot of plants then this could be a good option.