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Riccia Lawn

lil-lynx

lil-lynx

Member
Joined
23 Jan 2010
Messages
499
Location
Staines
What`s the best way to create a riccia lawn / carpet with out it all eventually floating to the top. I have seen some people use riccia to create a lawn effect and it looks amazing once you get a nice thick low lawn which starts to pearl but . . . . . . if you read on they remove it because it will all eventually float to the top. Any body help me ?
 
Hi lil-lynx
The best way to do a carpet, is get a flat piece of slate or stone cover with the riccia then use a bun/hair net over the riccia.That's it.
You can get nets on ebay different colours.
Don't make the net too tight or the riccia will die off,due to lack of light,flow,nutrients.
The riccia will eventually grow through the net so it has to be taken out and trimmed or re-done to keep nice and compact,does look good though on various pieces of lava rock which i had covered.
Regards
hoggie
 
But wont it all eventually all die and float to the top because of all the dead bits under the hair net ? So nothing will be able to hold it in place ?
 
Hi again
It may well do that........ but it can take as long as 6 weeks,what will happen is the riccia will reach for the surface that's why its just as easy to re-do it.
As i mentioned previously if the net is too tight it wont last as long.So its best that some flow and light can get through to the riccia.
Regards
hoggie
 
You can do them the same as moss rocks too but with nylon instead of cotton (nylon won't rot like cotton). ADA sell basically coloured nylon as 'Riccia Line' for £20 :eek:
 
Oliver Knott ties his riccia stones rather tight actually.

Lil-lynx - riccia doesn't make roots which is why bits will float to the surface. As anyone who has recieved plants from someone with riccia knows, it's pretty hard to get rid of! So without roots we try to hold it down with hairnets/cord. It's fine to start with, but as it grows bits will float to the surface. Also the bits closest the stone may die from losing so much light. Eventually it gets so 'poofy' bigger bits will float up. By this time your pebbles are looking more like orange size. Just be cautious if you use a hairnet as someone on this forum had a fish get caught in a loose one and died.

How often you take off the hairnet/cord and redo depends on many things:- how finicky you are, how much light/ferts/co2 you have etc etc etc so its hard to nail down an exact timepoint. There was a good journal by Jimbooo, he used riccia for a time.

All the best with the riccia!
 
Thanks guys well im going to give it a go. . . . the worst that can happen is lots of floating riccia right ? and some time wasted but on the other hand i could end up with a bit of wood or a stone coved in lush green riccia :D . . in my mind nothing to lose :).
 
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