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Mosses that do or don't attach to Hardscapes!

GHNelson

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UKAPS Team
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Hemel Hempstead
A general consensus of Mosses that do or don't adhere to submersed hardscapes!

Anchor moss....................No
Afro Moss........................Yes
Brazil moss....................
Bucephalandra moss......Yes
Cameroon moss..............Yes
China moss.....................
Creeping moss................Yes

Christmas moss..............Yes
Erect moss......................

Fissidens fontanus.........Yes
Fissidens miroshaki.......Yes
Flame moss....................Yes
Hooker Moss..................Yes

Java moss......................Yes
Krabi moss.....................Yes
Mini Christmas...............Yes

Peacock moss...............Yes
Pearl moss......................
Queen Moss...................Yes
Singapore moss..............
Spiky moss......................
No
Stringy moss....................
Taiwan moss..................Yes
Thailand moss.................
Triangle moss..................
Weeping moss................
No
Willow moss..................Yes
 
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Java moss will start off attached, but when it gets old and cuts off the light to where its attached to, it will die off and detach.

Same goes with the mosses in the same family like christmas moss, flame moss etc

I don't think I've ever seen willow moss attach in water, and its stems are too brittle to tie down. so I'm going to say

Willow moss..................... No
 
Java moss will start off attached, but when it gets old and cuts off the light to where its attached to, it will die off and detach.
This applies to any moss to be honest. If it is starved of light/CO2 etc in the deep recesses, then it will die.
 
Peacock - no (to gold wine)
I does for me to definitely to wood and to rock i'm not realy sure yet, glued some on months ago and it's growing, would need to take out the rock to inspect it up close if new growth attached but looks like it.

I can take some pics of the wood part when lights are on later on the day. But for me it's a yes.. :)

Must add, got a lot of wood and at some parts it refuses to attach.. I'm yet not sure why, if it's placement or something in the wood causing this.
 
Peacock, i didn't put it there it comes from bellow creeping over the wood by itself.. Couldn't get a better pick it's a very shaded spot.
DSCF6990.jpg
 
I does for me to definitely to wood and to rock i'm not realy sure yet, glued some on months ago and it's growing, would need to take out the rock to inspect it up close if new growth attached but looks like it.

I can take some pics of the wood part when lights are on later on the day. But for me it's a yes.. :)

Must add, got a lot of wood and at some parts it refuses to attach.. I'm yet not sure why, if it's placement or something in the wood causing this.
interesting.

One of the issues is that moss identification is difficult and it's sold as this and that. so maybe the peacock I had was not peacock!!? :)

What's your opinion on Christmas moss??
 
What's your opinion on Christmas moss??
Last year i ordered Christmas moss from aquamoos.de, at least i thought so.. It's still in the other tank attached to wood.
Kinda the same discussion came up and was said i probably didn't get christmas moss.. Remembering this now, maybe didn't get real peacock this time as well.
It looks like it and have no other comparison what else it should be.

I personaly think in the end all mosses attach if it's placed on a material it's abel to attach to in proper conditions..Identification is indeed very dificult sometimes with many mosses but i'm not convinced this can be used as a pointer to say it does or does not attach to hardware. This aint the compllete picture and not specific enough.

Take stringy moss for example, which is a submersed form of a terrestrial moss whichs isn't stringy at all and grows epiphytic on our trees etc. You might find it in your own garden. I have it in the tank, submersed it's very brittle and twines it's long strings into other plants it appears not to attach. I took some of a piece of wood in the forest and placed it in water last year and saw it change form. Have it growing close to the surface into the emersed part as well, one day i found it growing emersed attached to a dried out echinodorus leaf edge. It might not want to attach to a hard inert rock ot a piece of relatively fresh wood. But my best guess is, if the wood is rot enough it probably will eat itself into it. If you put it on a piece of brandnew spiderwood which is a fresh piece of rhododendron root it might take a few years for that wood to becomme suitable for certain mosses to attach to.

I'm still exerimenting in wabi kusa with several (aquatic mosses) my peacock if it is definitely grows epiphytic on wood emersed, on rock can't say still too early, also placed flame moss on a rock emersed and fissidens on wood. It all still is alive, the day i take that WK apart i will find out how and if it the flame attached and how it changed it's form.
 
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Hi all,
One of the issues is that moss identification is difficult and it's sold as this and that. so maybe the peacock I had was not peacock
That would be my problem, often we don't actually know what species the mosses are, and even if they have a scientific name attached to the colloquial/trade name it might not be the correct one.

The moss sold as "Stringy moss" ("Leptodictyum riparium") almost certainly isn't L. riparium, but maybe <"Drepanocladus aduncus">, but the moss sold as Drepanocladus spec. aduncus is something else again, and these are European native mosses that are scientifically well described.

Mosses that are sold as Taxiphyllum and Vesicularia species are even more difficult to pin down. Many mosses are only identifiable with a microscope (to look at leaf cell structure) and when they have capsules (which again may need microscopic identification), and the majority of them don't produce capsules when grown submersed. Some species of moss that are in the trade may be scientifically undescribed etc.

For what its worth the moss I had/have as <"Christmas moss"> was a Vesicularia sp. (based upon the leaf shape and gritty texture) and attached to everything, including the glass. There are some microscope images of what I thought (in 2009) were Christmas and Peacock moss in this thread, <"Mosses">.

cheers Darrel
 
Then you might as well come to think what the heck is peacock anyway?? And there still is a lot of disagrement about what is what. So it's a group of taxiphyllum sp. looking simular... I took several terrestrial growing mosses from the woods which where rather far away from any water. I did put them sumbersed and actualy all of them developed new growth and all of them had a stringy appearance in submersed form. Even the Mnium sp. i did put submersed for longer periode started to new growth finaly in very long strings. All of them where attached, realy do not know the true sp. but if not attached to wood it was attached to the soil.

Anyway i'm far from a scientist i'm just a hobbyist very much intrested in biology, fysiology, anatomy etc. And that little bit of theoretical assumptioms of growth form of mosses taken in the scientific papers i red. I think to came to the understanding that mosses attach on a rhiziod level.. It doesn't eat itself into a structure it's little rhiziod cells grow into the little microscopic cracks provided. At the point they are fat enough grown into a crack and attach by clinging like a screw plug in a hole in the wall. It's the symbiotic microbiological process which does the eating part and provides the moss with food to grow these fat rhiziods. Hence Darrels statement it even attaches to glass, it hooks into the microscopic scratches in the glass living off a biofilm of bacteria waste.

All mosses have those rhiziods and in my idea it's not the moss it's the hardware preventing it to attach.. So the question should be put as "On which hardware does certain moss not attach.. In my theory that would be much more correct then blame the moss. :) This next to many other factors which could play a significant role preventing the moss to attach..
 

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Since this post started, I noticed moss had attached to my low-tech tank glass!! It is either flame or java. Not sure as I can't tell them apart in low tech.
 
:thumbup: Not realy firmly attached but definitely creeping up on it, maybe a matter of time, i guess it only would do this if there are nutrients for them to find on the glass. One of them the lower is Taxiphyllum sp. the other long one is that stringy i told about above. It's there already for quite some time. It was more a while back but it gets over grown by bog pimpernell.. :) Had to help it a side to take the pic.. This is emersed half inch from back panel top edge.. Notice even the darn hair algae growing emersed on it.. :)
DSCF7004 (Kopie).JPG
 
Did some cleaning today and found another one, regularly find some like this with all mosses i grow.. :)

This is stringy, which one, beats me.. As said in first glance it appears not to attach..
DSCF7010.jpg


All 3 pointed objects are attached.. Notice :) you might have the idea moss and plant have a beginning and an end, at one end roots and at the other end the stems and leaves. Or like it would show roots like some stemplants do at internodes.. Moss does it different, where ever it touched something it can get food off it's rhizods grow into.. I'm still waiting to get my camera attached to the microscope, looks awsome. It looks like it growes rhizoids from its leaves. But for now this is the closest i can get. Working on it..
DSCF7014.jpg

:thumbup:
 
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Hmmm, my experience with Willow moss (Fontinalis antipyretica) is different from the above. It's one of the most aggressively attaching moss Ive ever seen. It'll stick to dirty glass.
 
Can you see whether it has a central vein, that doesn't reach the leaf tip?
I'll take a look with the microscope first thing in the morning.. :) Luckily i still have that little piece in a glass on the window sil.. I kinda lost track of all the mosses i got in the tank.. They are all over the place now, i got 2 stringies in there, one came with an other moss bought from aquamoss as sneak in. I remeber you gave the same possible ID on it a year ago.. But i never checked. :oops: This time i will.. And the other stringy one is an aquatic grow form of a terrestrial moss i threw in. It must be one of those 2.

Hmmm, my experience with Willow moss (Fontinalis antipyretica) is different from the above. It's one of the most aggressively attaching moss Ive ever seen. It'll stick to dirty glass.
Also got that one, not to the glass but definitely attached to hardware and it grows like weed, it's the fastest growing moss in my tanks.. Also found pieces of flame moss with little clumps of substrate attached to it. But they are very britle and easily break off.. Almost all mosses do, the only moss i have to pull off with relatively some force sometimes is the aledged aquamoos.de christmass moss..
 
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