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Growing Mosses

johnny70

Member
Joined
1 Dec 2007
Messages
637
Location
Bakewell, Derbsyhire
I have several portions of moss which I'm not ready to use in any of my tanks yet, has anyone grown it on in glass jars?

If so any tips for keeping it in tip top condition?

Few questions that come to mind

  • 1.Lid or no lid on the jar?

    2. ferts in the water?

    3. Easycarbo dosing?

    4. Daily/weekly water changes?

    5. Window sill or sat on cover glass of the tank near the light?

Advice welcome :)

JOHNNY
 
Ive read about people just leaving them on the window sill and water changing daily.
 
I have put a lot of time into growing moss in pots and can confidently say the following:

no lid.
no ferts.
no carbon.
water change 100% at a time.
WC daily, or every couple of days.
wipe the pot clean when nedded (once a week or two usually, more often if your WC's are not done daily)

Having them in a lot of water is not crucial, you can keep the mosses in a fairly\small shallowpot.
What is important is keeping the moss clean. The key to this I have found is regular 100% WC, and really rinse the moss out when you do it. Keep rinsing it until no dirt comes off for really healthy moss.

If they are kept in a very bright spot, they will grow quicker but also get dirtier quicker. My daily changes are based on a sunny windowsill.
In a darker spot they will stay alive, but not really grow much, you can then carry out less frequent WC, but still with the same method.

You can measure it by algae growth, if your WC are good you will not get algae.

If you keep on top of it then it is easy peasy. (especially as the WC takes 30sec. Tip the water out and use your hand as a strainer to keep the moss in.) If you laze then the algae starts to set in, and it then takes quite a while to get the moss clean again.

The exception to the above is that if you are consistantly doing daily changes and you still get green water... usually means your moss is getting too hot. You will likely get some disintegration of the moss accompanying this. Simply give it a real good clean and move it to a cooler spot.

Would this information be worthy of an article?
If people want that I will re-do it as one, just let me know (reason I suggest it is that a lot of people have asked me this, usually via PM after I have swapped\sold them moss.)

Enjoy your moss Johnny, I am a bit of a moss freak so would love to hear what mosses you got.... maybe could do some swaps with you....
 
Thanks for that Matt :D

I'm using coffee jar (nescafe) at the moment, so they have lots of water, will take the lids off, they were on, just so if I knocked them over, have been doing a weekly water change so I'll try to start daily or every other day.

I do have some brown moss in there in a couple of pots, this was the moss not being in a great condition when I received it, so I remove the them or will they be ok?

As for species I have

Holger
Flame
Weeping(not in great condition)
Fissidens splachnobryoides
Fissidens Zippelianus
Fissidens Fontanus
And a couple of other mixed ones, probably Christmas, spikey and java

JOHNNY
 
Hey Matt,

I would be interested in seeing this as an article. I'm considering doing a large scape using mostly moss so would be interested in any speedy propagation method like you suggest. Have you tried things like star moss and F.splachnobryoides of Aquamagic to any good result ? I've heard some conflicting reports :?:

Cheers Tom (sorry for the hijack)
 
johnny70 said:
Thanks for that Matt :D

I'm using coffee jar (nescafe) at the moment, so they have lots of water, will take the lids off, they were on, just so if I knocked them over, have been doing a weekly water change so I'll try to start daily or every other day.

I do have some brown moss in there in a couple of pots, this was the moss not being in a great condition when I received it, so I remove the them or will they be ok?

As for species I have

Holger
Flame
Weeping(not in great condition)
Fissidens splachnobryoides
Fissidens Zippelianus
Fissidens Fontanus
And a couple of other mixed ones, probably Christmas, spikey and java

JOHNNY

Nescafe jar sounds good (I use similar), taking the lids off is not vital, but helps keeps them that little bit cooler.
If you are getting no build up of dirt, then you might be fine with the weekly changes.
I'd say - change to daily, see if there is any difference after a few days and if not go back to weekly :)

If it is just a little bit that is brown then 'd leave the brown moss in, as you are quite likely to get new moss growing off it. If it gets to a point where it starts disintegrating or rotting then it will start fouling the water and at that point I would take it out, but not throw it away....

If I have a portion that is nearly all brown then I separate the good bits and keep them in a separate pot. Then as green moss grows off the brown move it into the 'good' pot. Over a few weeks you see that most of the brown moss disintegrates into nothing but enough grows off of it to generate a good portion of moss. It is time consuming and a bit of a pain doing this - the fiddlyness occurs as you get the dirt out but keep the teeniest bits of growing moss in\separated. I did this with my peacock moss and it took me a month of 5 min every day to get things established.

Ideally the splachno would go in an emersed setup (See my reply to TBPro's below). If you try it in pots this method is likely to work (it will defnitely be good for your other mosses as a general 'coaxing moss into health' method):

Keep it in a flat container (like a chinese takeaway container for example), fill it with water, but spread the moss out and make sure that it is touching\breaking the waters surface. If it is 'drowning' lower the water level accordingly. Then (for sprachno) if you want to try them submerged slowly increase the water level and see how you go. For the other mosses just drown them when you want to!



Weeping is probably the fastest grower out of what you have, so if that one is in the worst condition I'd say it is good news as it will recover fastest ;)

I'd like to get my hands on your Fissidens Zippelianus and Fissidens splachnobryoides (the splachno would go in my emersed setup). The rest of your list I have or have had already. A smidgen of of each would be OK if your portions ar esmall to start with. I can offer you some triangle moss (very rare!), and a tiny smidge of fissidens madagascar (super rare!) in return.


TBRO said:
Hey Matt,

I would be interested in seeing this as an article. I'm considering doing a large scape using mostly moss so would be interested in any speedy propagation method like you suggest. Have you tried things like star moss and F.splachnobryoides of Aquamagic to any good result ? I've heard some conflicting reports :?:

Cheers Tom (sorry for the hijack)

I have heard (I can not verify this, but am leaning towards believing it) many say that Fissidens splachnobryoides (not all fissidens are the same!) and star moss are not true aquatic mosses and will not live permanently submerged.
Either way the consensus is that they clearly do better emersed.
Those that have grown them submerged seem to have only done it for a few months, and they say CO2 helps... and the goal seems to be keeping them alive, your not going to get rampant growth from them. So if you wanted large coverage I would go with something more tried and trusted.

I think this is getting close to all my moss knowledge, but keep asking questions and we will see what else I can think of!
 
Thanks Matt, thats awsome, I've got some wood protruding out of the water, might be a good spot for the star moss.

How's the Blyxa doing ?

T
 
TBRO said:
Thanks Matt, thats awsome, I've got some wood protruding out of the water, might be a good spot for the star moss.

How's the Blyxa doing ?

T

Star moss on wood sounds nice. I bought some star moss before I new what I was doing with mosses, it arrived nearly all dead and I made the mistake of just chucking it straight in the tank. I have no doubt that yours will do better than mine should you get it!

I know now that Blyxa is one of the few plants that is a true aquatic and can not grow emersed :oops:
Luckily I only wasted a couple of stems testing that out, some is doing real nice in my main tank. Most of it I have given away though, the portion you gave me was humongous!

The clover is really nice as well. I want to incorporate it into my main tanks scape, just letting it grow for now so that I can see its growth pattern\shape. I am hoping it will carpet underneath and mingle with the bottom of some leggy crypt undulatus :)

When you get closer to doing your moss scape let me know and I will probably be able to sort you out with a couple of mosses.
 
I currently have:
Taxiphyllum alternans (Taiwan moss)
Taxiphyllum sp. (Flame moss)
Taxiphyllum sp. (Peacock Moss)
Taxiphyllum barbieri (Java moss)
Fissidens fontanus (US fissidens)
Unknown (Fissidens madagascar)
Fontinalis antipyretica (Willow moss) <-- only just got this, amanos, snowballs and goldfish eat it down to a stalk :(
Leptodictyum riparium (Stringy moss)
Unknown (Holger moss)
Crattoneurom Filicinum (Triangle moss)

In the past have had spikey and weeping as well.

:D
 
Nice list!

So the Fissidens splachnobryoides is best grown in something shallow so it out of the water right?

What about the zip, is that ok in the tank or should I go shallow for a while?
 
That is really helpful, thanks guys, will try the jar method on the spare fissidens zip rolling around in my tank. And hello to everyone, and hey Johnny, thanks for the pointer :)
 
johnny70 said:
Nice list!

So the Fissidens splachnobryoides is best grown in something shallow so it out of the water right?

What about the zip, is that ok in the tank or should I go shallow for a while?

Thanks :)

Yep, For the fissidens splachnobryoides that is what I would try - shallow so it is peaking out of the water.
The Fissidens zipededodah is a true aquatic so you can try that either way.

Some of these mosses are quite tough... I trimmed some taiwan moss and accidentally left it out of water for 24 hours. Looked all dried up. Put it in a pot and after a few days it was back to life and growing again!!

stripe said:
That is really helpful, thanks guys, will try the jar method on the spare fissidens zip rolling around in my tank. And hello to everyone, and hey Johnny, thanks for the pointer :)

I am glad it helped you. Welcome to UKAPS :)
 
Thanks again Matt

I have both the new fissidens in a shallow dish with a little water, so will see how they grow :) I have started to separate the weeping moss out (good from bad) not much of the good left, have kept the bad in the hope I can coax a little more out of it.

Do you have any link to sites to buy any of the rarer mosses?
 
http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/moostruhe__W0QQ_armrsZ1 - not used them myself, but know someone that has. Have up to 50 different species on sale at various times!!! (some of their mosses might not be true aquatics.... message me before you order any and I can tell you if I know about a particular moss.).

http://www.livingwatersonline.co.uk/plant_moss.htm - highly recommended.

The Green machine - highly recommended as well.

Good luck with the shallow trays, I will be interested to know how you get on :)
 
a1Matt said:
http://www.livingwatersonline.co.uk/plant_moss.htm - highly recommended.
Shame we didn't go there last weekend, would love to have seen and brought some of the mosses, might have to take a trip there when I get back from holidays.
 
yes, was a shame!
If you fancy it, give me a yell a few days before you are thinking of going and I will join forces with you if I can :)
They do mail order, but as it is only 10ish miles from me I'd go there in person (that place is like being in a sweety shop to me! :lol: )
 
a1Matt said:
yes, was a shame!
If you fancy it, give me a yell a few days before you are thinking of going and I will join forces with you if I can :)
They do mail order, but as it is only 10ish miles from me I'd go there in person (that place is like being in a sweety shop to me! :lol: )
I will let you know for sure, on your way there do you go via Morden at all? Or is that too much of a detour??
 
sure thing, I can meet you at Morden, it is a little detour, but that is no problem :)

(sorry for the OT Johnny - we are bound to buy at least one moss between us when we go, so that makes it only half OT! :p )
 
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