Care specifications
| Type | Carpet |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | Advanced |
| Light | High (50–90 µmol PAR) |
| CO2 | Required |
| Fertilizer demand | Medium |
| Growth rate | Medium |
| Max height | 1 in |
| Spread | 4 in |
| Placement | Foreground |
| Attaches to hardscape | No |
| Snail & shrimp safe | Yes |
| Temperature | 68–78 °F |
| pH | 6–7.5 |
| Color | Green |
| Trimming | Regular |
| Styles | Iwagumi, Nature |
Get Dwarf Baby Tears
Propagation
Divide a mat into small plugs and plant them in a grid; runners knit the plugs into a continuous carpet.
Frequently asked questions
Can I grow Dwarf Baby Tears without CO2?
Long-term, almost never — submerged HC without CO2 thins, yellows, and dissolves over a few months. The one workaround is the dry-start method: grow the carpet emersed on damp aquasoil for six to eight weeks (it gets unlimited CO2 from air), then flood. Even then, the established carpet holds far better with injection after flooding.
Why did my HC carpet detach and float up in one piece?
HC roots are shallow, and a carpet left untrimmed traps gas and dead growth underneath until buoyancy wins. Trim it down by a third regularly so light reaches the base, avoid uprooting fish like large cories in the carpet zone, and press any lifting edges back in immediately.
Go deeper
Dwarf Baby Tears appears in
Find plants for your tank
Four questions — size, light, CO2, goals — and a ranked list matched to your exact setup.
Open the plant finder →