• You are viewing the forum as a Guest, please login (you can use your Facebook, Twitter, Google or Microsoft account to login) or register using this link: Log in or Sign Up

Questions about mosses, Peacock in particular.

GreenGrow

Member
Joined
26 Jun 2011
Messages
116
Location
UK
Hi there everyone,
I know that mosses are one of the easiest aquatic plants to grow, but I haven't had vast amounts of success with them in the past.

What I'd like to know is whether you can have too much light for the moss, I have about 1wplitre at the moment.

Also what is the prime temperature for mosses, and can it be too hot?

I ask this because some of the moss that I have is a lush green colour whilst other parts right next to the green moss are browning?


Any thoughts would be great

Thanks

Ed :thumbup:
 
Hello,
Mosses are not all that easy to grow. I don't know why people say that. More people fail with moss than succeed, that's for sure. Mosses are slow growing, low light plants and so if you harass them with a lot of light they fail unless you pump them up with extra CO2 and nutrition.

Mosses are capable however of doing well under a non-CO2 enriched environment and can thrive under very poor lighting which the more high-profile and exotic species can't handle. That seems to be their niche, and so I think people equate this with "ease". Once the lighting conditions exceed this niche the mosses will struggle.

You did not specify the type of lighting, or the size of the tank. If this is T5 lighting in a medium sized tank, then 1 watt per liter converts to 4 watts per gallon, which is a tremendous amount of light for any plant and therefore your CO2, nutrients and flow have to be stellar, otherwise the moss will turn brown and disintegrate in a matter of weeks or days.

You need to study more about the relationship between light and plant health. More light is NOT better.

Cheers,
 
Thanks for your very extensive reply!

I am using 4x54w T5 bulbs over a 240l tank. I have pressurised CO2 and my dropchecker is a lovely light green colour. I also using EI Dosing so there shouldn't be a lack of nutrients, but I am re configuring my dose amounts just to make sure.

The thing with the moss is that there is is lush growth and colouring in the majority of the moss, but in some it looks brown.

So in your opinion, you can have moss in a high light tank as long as the nutrients and CO2 are high as well?

Thanks
 
Hi,
You're welcome. Yes mosses in high light tanks are indeed possible but particular attention should be paid to the flow and distribution of the CO2. Moss turning brown means that the CO2 at that location is poor relative to the amount of light at that location, so the plants are not able to produce food fast enough and their cells die of stavation. At other locations the CO2 level is adequate for the cells to produce food. A green dropchecker can never guarantee that the CO2 is adequate at all locations in the tank. The distribution of CO2 in any tank is NEVER uniform.

In the short term you might want to supplement the CO2 with liquid carbon dosing (unless you have plants in the tank which react negatively to liquid carbon). You can also relieve some of the growth pressures on the moss in the short term by reducing the lighting by 25%-50%.

Long term you can either make minor upwards adjustments to your gas injection rate or play with the distribution of your filter outflow or add more flow, or a combination of all these to improve the CO2 concentration levels at those locations where the moss is dieing. You can also trim the moss to make it less thick so that the CO2 can reach the lower leaves more easily.

Cheers,
 
Back
Top