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Eleocharis acicularis is a small grass-like plant with
filamentous leave. It creates a fine dense carpet at favourable growth
condition. E. acicularis is quite sturdy and hardy with a wide
temperature tolerance. Thus, it is suitable as pond plant, too, because it
usually survives the wintertime. The plant prefers a fine-grained and
nutrient rich substrate and the growth benefits greatly from CO enrichment. There are more than 100 species
of Eleocharis sp
They are found all over the world and many of them are very hard to
distinguish from each other. Unfortunately, only a few species are suitable
for aquarium purposes.
E. acicularis is very suitable as foreground plant because the
water form rarely exceeds 15 cm. It spreads by means of runners but the
horizontal growth is nevertheless quite slow. Therefore, we recommend
dividing the pot into 10-12 or even smaller plants before planting them
spaced 2 to 5 cm apart. In any case, the E. acicularis looks best when
planted in-groups. In small aquaria, the plant looks great when planted
in-groups into a carpet of for example Glossostigma
elatinoides. The plant requires much less attention than the
fast-growing foreground plants, which requires repeated trimming of the
runners with long internodes.
A relatively new employment of E. acicularis is using it as an
anchor for Riccia fluitans when the latter is grown
submerged after the Armano-style.
To begin with, the buoyant Riccia carpet is kept from floating to the surface
by sprinkling with pebbles. Thereafter individual filaments of E.
acicularis are planted in between the Riccia-carpet and E.
acicularis will then keep Riccia in position.
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