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Moss what's the secret

dean

dean

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Joined
6 Apr 2012
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1,541
Location
Warrington, Cheshire
I'm having trouble with moss all species they just won't grow for me :(

What's the secret?

I'm just weird I suppose I always have trouble with the easiest things but the more difficult stuff always works out for me :) eg it took my 20 years to bread guppies successfully but only took 6 months to do the same with discus
 
All moss varies, some grow better in cooler water, some attached to wood/rocks ect. I am growing flame moss in a 1l jar of water near the t5 lights for my emersed tanks, yet not directly under it. I don't do anything to it, just forgot about it. Some swear by water changes however I keep forgetting and it looks lush, same for Java moss as well. Bear in mind moss is slow growing compared to stem plants and the like, and I wouldn't recommend tons of light, just patience.
What exactly do you mean by they won't grow though, also how are you growing them.
Ps- How can it take 20 years to breed guppies?
 
I've got Christmas moss and fissidens that are on mesh on the base and walls of a 35litre , aqua beam led light 8 hours Co2 and Ferts but the moss is going brown, I'd estimate 50% there's also plenty of glow via aqua clear 201 power head with a bio foam attached to it tank at 75
Had red routed floater and duck weed on top but have now removed it all
 
I keep Java Moss and Fissidens Fontanus right now and I don't have difficulties in growing them. As mentioned above I keep my tanks with mosses with a low temperature because they happen to be in my shrimp tanks. I have a thick carpet of duckweed on the surface so light its not a big deal. I do make sure that theres a nice flow on and around the moss to ensure the debris don't get trapped in it. Also, I can't stress the importance of shrimp as they too clean the mosses very feel as they feed from it. I have also seen the browning pieces of moss develop new growth if they die so its worth separating the rotting strands from the fresh ones too see if new growth occurs. Its also worth noting that Fissidens take painfully long to grow even with high lights + CO2 and ferts, I have had my potion of Fissidens for over 2 months and there hasn't been a lot of growth probably around half a cm worth of growth.

Michael.
 
Well, in a CO2 injected tank the moss surely grows better. Normally it gets more light too, which I've noticed it needs to grow at a steady rate preventing it to become a detritus ball of fluff that even my shrimp couldn't clean on time.
Has anyone grown taiwan moss in a shadowed area of the tank? It didn't like it much like that in my tank. Then I put some left overs in a breeder box near the surface and it exploded. Mind you there was no flow in that plastic box.

And for example, this below is spiky moss that I planted on several branches in the tank at the same time. Each branch of driftwood gets different light because of my floating plants and position of the branches. Here are pictures taken today how each one progressed:

The one the grew in the darkest area compared to other bunches of moss:
dscf5043h.jpg



The one that grew in semi/shadow:
dscf5039k.jpg




The one that gets the most light, also closest to the surface
dscf5041k.jpg
 
My 30 Litre Shrimp Tank - Practical Fishkeeping Forum

That is one of two 30 litre Shrimp tanks of mine which I posted on PFK as you can see its pretty much over grown even with lots of duckweed though that pic was taken after I took some out. I stand by the idea that light is not a big problem compared to how clean the moss is and the flow it gets. You can see the spray bar blows right into the moss. Note that the moss near the bottom and in the middle is still lush green. I do not dose ferts and use CO2 in the tank. I reply on the shrimps cleaning abilities and the flow along with the waste the shrimps produce to sustain the plant life in the tank.
 
sciencefiction said:
May I ask you what type of moss is that?
Click to expand...

Sorry. I re-read your comments. It's java moss.

Try the same with taiwan moss and I bet you you won't have the same success.
My java moss suffered most by my pleco trying to munch on it, so it just kept getting loose and getting into the filters/powerhead.
But the taiwan moss was in a shrimp tank and the moment it got overshadowed, it slowly withered and died. It grew very well by then on top of the driftwood. But then it got permanently overshadowed by hydrophila. Floating plants are more forgiving because they move more and still let some light in.
 
I assume your other plants are growing fine. I guess there is no real secret but the big difference with other plants is that they can't use the substrate as resource for their ferts. Using EI, moss should be easier than most other plants. Using a rich substrate and no water column dosing, mosses (and other epiphytes like Anubias and ferns) can come short of certain nutrients and are harder that way. High excel dosages and certain algae eaters are disastrous to mosses as well.
 
Not all the mosses grows easily in low conditions. Java christmas, spiky seems ok in lower light, but many others not. The above pic shows it well. Mosses are not the lowest demanding plants. Many need more light, soft water, colder water and co2 to looks nice. Also nowadays i see many cases when they grows bad if po4 does not exist in the tank.

Otherwise they grows bad and will never look the way it should.

Just look at George latest tank. Mosses are awesome there they are bushy, vivid and super healthy. This way you can harvest a lot biweekly

Putting mosses in shadow is not a good idea only with the lower demanding ones.
 
I assume your other plants are growing fine
Click to expand...

In my case yes. Only the taiwan moss died. The other plants were unaffected, including the dwarf sag at the bottom and I've never had algae in this tank since setup last September, just diatoms in the very beginning which were eagerly eaten by the occupants. The substrate is inert sand, no tabs, no ferts, low tech shrimp tank. I've only dosed the occassional potassium once in a blue moon. It has 10x flow and gets 50% water changes weekly.
My guess is taiwan moss the least requires way more things than a low tech tank can provide but it did coincidentally die when the hydrophilla grew and spread on the surface, blocking the direct light it used to get. But obviously, since it's a low tech tank I've no way of knowing if it had enough CO2/ferts at the same time, probably not...
 
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