Cabomba and Dwarf baby tears don't really have different relationship other than both being aquarium plants. But the just happen to be my most hated and most loved plants.
Cabomba became my most hated plant for couple reasons. The kind of Cabomba I am talking about is the dark green one, with a bit brown to red on the top. I have another kind of Cabomba (or other plant that looks every similar) that is light green, and that one is OK to me. The first reason I don't like that dark green Cabomba is the color. It make the whole tank look darker. The light green one is a lot more attractive in comparison. The second reason is, it grow way too fast in my setup. In just a week it grow from middle of the tank to the top of water (18 inch in height, 29 gallon tank). Meanwhile, the light green one only grow an inch or two. They were planted on the back of the tank, but when it reach the top, to lean towards the middle where the light fixture is. So it end up took up half the tank's depth on upper water. The third, and the major reason is that, its leaves fall so much. Every inch of the substrate, there is a fragment of its leaves lying. Every time I washed the pre-filter sponge, it got full of its leaves again in less than a day. It just made the whole tank look so messy. While other plants drop leaves too, they drop a lot less, including the light green cabomba. There are only a few of the fallen cabomba leaves are light green. So after 2 weeks, I finally decided to pull all of them out today. The tank looks a lot cleaner now. I may buy couple more plants to fill the background, but currently the lack of plant in the back just give the tank a new fresh look. So I maybe not buying any plants to fill there after all.
Dwarf baby tears is the plant I love the most, because I love to grow carpet in the front ground of the tank, and it is the best looking front ground carpet plants. Ironically, it is the most miserable plant in my tank. I planted them with small brunch, like of the size of my finger nail each. I clean out most of the mineral fiber that it came with, pinch its root and push them down the substrate till the leaves were a bit above the substrate, then push the substrate around it a bit to make it hold better. The first week they looked good. Occasionally couple get loose and float to the top, and I mostly will just push them down again. But since last week, most of them start melting. At first it was only the one near the CO2 reactor. I was not pay too much attention. But as of now, all of them are melting. Some brunches of them are almost all gone. So I had to start looking for the reason. I searched a bit, then found out that it is possibly because of the high water temperature. Then I remembered, the heater for the tank did not arrive until last week. So before, the water was just running on room temperature, which is about 76. After the heater arrive, I generally increased the water temperature to 80. Last weekend, I finally bought a pair of discus, and also increased the temperature to 82 for them. Now the time line all match up. When the water was 76, it looks good. When it increased to 80, some of them start melting. When it reaches 82, most of them are melting. Therefore, I am reducing the temperature to 78, which was said in many reference within the lower end of discus's temperature range. Hopefully, both the fish and the plants will be happy at that temperature.
