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Thread: Any fert needed for a moss tank?

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    Any fert needed for a moss tank?

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    It's near to a fortnight since I started a moss-only mini tank for shrimps. I currently have a black molly to do cycling duties and I have several sparse bunches of moss tied onto driftwood and netted to pebbles.

    Besides feeding the molly frugally, I have not added any ferts to the tank. Should I start adding some LGA or any other liquid fert? If so, how much should I add to 3 litres of water and how often should I dose?

    My tank is 3L in volume, plain Lapis gravel, 9w clip on lamp on 10 hours daily.

    pH: 6.8 (from ketapang leaf to keep pH below 7 so that Ammonium is not converted back to ammonia)
    Nitrite: 0.1 ppm
    Ammonium: 1.0ppm

    Problem: Mosses don't seem to make any progress in growing out of the net. Is fish poo not enough to feed the moss?
    Warm regards,

    Lawrence Lee

    brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.
    Philippians 4:8

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    Re: Any fert needed for a moss tank?

    I will put in 2-3 drops of LGA every other week in my mini shrimp tank (8x6x6 inch) when i top up water. Try a little and observe for ill-effects to get agaration of dosage.

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    Liquid fertiliser (LGA) dosing

    If you wish to avoid algae problems, then it is probably better to start with a low dosage and increase gradually until you observe optimal plant/moss growth.

    I started with two to three drops a day for my 2' tank. Now I am giving this tank two "squirts" a week and having a minor spot algae problem that can be "solved" with scrubbing the surfaces.

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    Lawrence: For moss, we usually tie with fishing line to the wood. I am not sure if your netting is too fine for them to grow through or it is blocking some light.

    Have to be patient with mosses. When the tips of my Java Moss shows a lighter shade of green, I know it is growing.
    koah fong
    Juggler's tanks

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    Re:

    [quote:79dcb1ef46="juggler"]Lawrence: For moss, we usually tie with fishing line to the wood. I am not sure if your netting is too fine for them to grow through or it is blocking some light..[/quote:79dcb1ef46]
    The net was recommended to me by Mr Chan of NA because it is difficult to tie with string on a rounded pebble. The moss on my driftwood is not tied, I just wedged some into cracks and let the others sink to the flat surfaces, hoping it will cling on someday.

    [quote:79dcb1ef46="juggler"]Have to be patient with mosses. When the tips of my Java Moss shows a lighter shade of green, I know it is growing.[/quote:79dcb1ef46]
    Yes, the light green tips show out from the netting the very next day after I placed them in the tank. After that, it seemed to stagnate and 2 weeks after this sudden spurt of growth, the tips had hardly extended longer than a millimetre from that overnight growth. I've read in another forum that the author there took only 2 weeks to grow this form of moss (mini moss) from its emmersed form to fill a palm sized wire mesh. That caused me to think that I might be needing some form of fert as mine hardly grows.

    [quote:79dcb1ef46="gks"]If you wish to avoid algae problems, then it is probably better to start with a low dosage and increase gradually until you observe optimal plant/moss growth. [/quote:79dcb1ef46]
    Actually I'm more concerned about poisoning the molly and BB with excess fert, knowing that the tank is 3L small, than my fear of growing algae since this is to be eventually a shrimp only tank.

    [quote:79dcb1ef46="budak"]I will put in 2-3 drops of LGA every other week in my mini shrimp tank (8x6x6 inch) when i top up water. Try a little and observe for ill-effects to get agaration of dosage.[/quote:79dcb1ef46]
    Seeing that yours is a 5L tank, I think I'll try 1 drop per week for mine, and 2 drops at every fortnight with the 50% water change to aga-aga the strength.

    I've got in a malayan shrimp to test the suitability of the water for shrimps. After one night in the bowl, it looks like it will survive. I'll see what happens after today's water change and LGA addition.

    Thanks to all for your answers.
    Warm regards,

    Lawrence Lee

    brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.
    Philippians 4:8

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    I too have a recently added shrimp tank and discovered that even relatively conservative additon of LGA and phosphate resulted in algae explosion of the BBA type and rapid yellowing of water because of lack of CO2 and fast growth plants. Now, I think I am on to something with a couple of grains of potassium phosphate once couple of days for the 40cm tank, can see the green shoots spurt out over night after addition.

    I agree it is a very qualitative approach but I'm just happy to accelerate it's growth, not striving for max growth rate in a carefully balanced chemical soup at further risk of algae outbreak. Free time spent disturbing the shrimps

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    Re:

    [quote:57db9c970a="thwwx"]I too have a recently added shrimp tank and discovered that even relatively conservative additon of LGA and phosphate resulted in algae explosion of the BBA type and rapid yellowing of water because of lack of CO2 and fast growth plants. Now, I think I am on to something with a couple of grains of potassium phosphate once couple of days for the 40cm tank, can see the green shoots spurt out over night after addition.

    I agree it is a very qualitative approach but I'm just happy to accelerate it's growth, not striving for max growth rate in a carefully balanced chemical soup at further risk of algae outbreak. Free time spent disturbing the shrimps [/quote:57db9c970a]

    LGA doesn't contain phosphate. Do you have fishes in your shrimp tank? If you don't there is no way to get phosphate into your tank except to dose KH2PO4.
    Warm regards,

    Lawrence Lee

    brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.
    Philippians 4:8

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    yes, I have no fish, tank is meant for experimentation on shrimp breeding and minimal maintainance. It's a constant battle with yellowing water without abundance of higher plants and CO2

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    Re:

    [quote:6fd83cbc1a="thwwx"]yes, I have no fish, tank is meant for experimentation on shrimp breeding and minimal maintainance. It's a constant battle with yellowing water without abundance of higher plants and CO2[/quote:6fd83cbc1a]

    Yellowing water can be due to tannins leaching from your driftwood or other decor. I don't think the yellowing of water has anything to do with algae growth. In fact, Dennerle, in their website under the topic of "Interesting Facts about algae" states:
    Most of the algae species which subsequently colonised fresh water, such as the particularly troublesome brush and beard algae, are frequently encountered in shallow, fast-flowing, clear waters which are usually fully exposed to sunlight. The UV and blue radiation is markedly higher here than in the undergrowth. The clearer the water, the more deeply UV and blue radiation are able to penetrate into the water. However, large plant populations are also to be found in stagnant or slowly flowing waters which are fully exposed to sunshine. In such cases, the water commonly has a pronounced brown colour resulting from falling leaves, for example, and filters out the UV and blue components of the sunlight with corresponding efficiency (recent studies show that while UV radiation is able to penetrate deeply into clear lakes or the sea, water even with only a slightly yellow colouring filters out UV radiation with a wavelength of 320 nm up to 100 times more effectively than the orange or red radiation at a depth of 70 cm, for example. The browner the colour of the water, the more pronounced this filtration effect is, and it can be assumed that virtually no UV radiation penetrates into such waters).
    Attempts are also made to keep algae under control in garden ponds via the use of “coloured” water (by filtering through peat or peat preparations).
    In other words, with your yellow water, you should not be seeing algae.

    In my community tank which has water yellowed because of ketapang leaves, I do have BBA, but they are mainly on the gravel, beneath the thick lawn of E. tennelus. In my case, I suspect the BBA grows there because there is no current that can penetrate the foilage of the lawn, and are surviving on the decomposing leaves that I'm lazy to remove.

    Since yours is a shrimp only tank, and now that you have found the balanced regime in fert and plant growth, have you tried to blackout you tank for 3 days to kill off the remaining BBA? Your shrimps can finish them off and you save on algae wafers.
    Warm regards,

    Lawrence Lee

    brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.
    Philippians 4:8

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    hey, thanks for the info, something I did not know (l don't know a lot, which is why I mostly lurk around ). I'm not too sure though because this same driftwood has been submerged for a long time and the rate of yellowing directly correlates to the fertilizer amount I added and did not happen so fast with a non nitrate regime.

    As for BBA, I guess the shrimps have been helping with the clearing and no longer propagating as I have drastically cut the nitrates. I'm actually very impressed by what I saw at Nature's main display where he has a large log covered by what seems like greenish BBA like algae and wondering if that is achievable in my mini tank. The shrimps love it!

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    Re:

    [quote:0693bac382="thwwx"]I'm not too sure though because this same driftwood has been submerged for a long time and the rate of yellowing directly correlates to the fertilizer amount I added and did not happen so fast with a non nitrate regime. [/quote:0693bac382]
    You can boil it if it's not too big, to accelerate the rate of leaching. Also, soaking in very concentrated salt water helps draw out the tannins. Rinse well before re-introduction of course. This will put to rest any suspicion of your driftwood colouring your water or not.

    [quote:0693bac382="thwwx"]I'm actually very impressed by what I saw at Nature's main display where he has a large log covered by what seems like greenish BBA like algae and wondering if that is achievable in my mini tank. The shrimps love it![/quote:0693bac382]
    Yes, that was the piece that got me interested in growing moss on driftwood. I think tht moss is the Cladophora (sp check anyone?) kind of moss, and I read somewhere that it grows on its own when exposed to very strong lighting.
    ----------------------------------------------------------

    update on my shrimp-only tank.

    With Nitrite consistently at 0.1ppm for a few days, I introduced a Malayan shrimp to test the water. 3 days later, I put in the second just to confirm. So far so good, so last night, I put in 4 cherry shrimps I bought from Prec.

    This afternoon, I see all the shrimps hanging upside down onto the Salvinia. Sniffed the water and wheeeew! Stink Bomb exploded in there or something.

    Took everything out, fitted in the UGF and now I'm leaving the UGF to run for a couple of hours before I return the shrimps in there, to make sure all the sulfur gas is dissipated.

    Lesson learnt: no circulation, no good.
    Warm regards,

    Lawrence Lee

    brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.
    Philippians 4:8

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    I think the I better clarify a few things here...

    The light level you use is pretty high. You are not using CO2 injection. Moss uses only CO2 and might run into problem. Your moss not growing might be due to lack of CO2. The chances of you getting algae is high. You might offset it a little by raising KH a little probably ~5. Alternatively you can use alternative carbon source like Seachem Flourish Excel. With this light level, you probably have to add some fertilisers too.

    Your nitrite has probably killed all the shrimps. With healthy growing plants, you probably will not need any filtration. I have run a 20L moss tank (with Java fern & E. tennelus) filterless without any problem. Let you plants grow in first. Ensure that NO2 is consistantly ZERO before adding any shrimps.

    BTW, I have ever had terrible algae problem in "yellowing" water...

    BC

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    Re:

    [quote:320525f40f="bclee"]The light level you use is pretty high. You are not using CO2 injection. Moss uses only CO2 and might run into problem. Your moss not growing might be due to lack of CO2. The chances of you getting algae is high. You might offset it a little by raising KH a little probably ~5. Alternatively you can use alternative carbon source like Seachem Flourish Excel. With this light level, you probably have to add some fertilisers too.[/quote:320525f40f]
    I was hoping to make it a low maintenance tank, afterall, it is little bigger than a really large drink you can get from your 24hr convenience store. The 9w clip on lamp is the smallest I can find. I was initially thinking of adding some baking soda, but stopped because I'm not sure if moss will be able to extract the carbon this way. Moreover, I was trying to keep pH lower than 7 then. I'll probably add the kh powder now that the UGF is running.

    [quote:320525f40f="bclee"]Your nitrite has probably killed all the shrimps. With healthy growing plants, you probably will not need any filtration. I have run a 20L moss tank (with Java fern & E. tennelus) filterless without any problem. Let you plants grow in first. Ensure that NO2 is consistantly ZERO before adding any shrimps.BC[/quote:320525f40f]
    NO2 might be zero. I'm having difficulty deciding if it is 0.1 or 0ppm since the test sample is lighter than 0.1 but very faint colour can still be detected. The shrimps are fine, I think the sulfur gas was the result of me disturbing the substrate when I netted out the cycling molly. Guess I don't have any luck in a filterless low maintenance tank. I admit the lack of plants is an obvious reason, but with a tank so small, I can hardly find any low maintenance plant that is as small as moss, yet grows roots to aerate the gravel.
    Warm regards,

    Lawrence Lee

    brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.
    Philippians 4:8

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    i guess maybe u could get the ocean free smallest HOF if not eden 304. the lights can just be on when u get home from work so that you would get algae from the high lighting (3W/L!!!). for my 20cm by 20cm cube glass bedside tank, i put in lapis gravel, 1 small driftwood about 10cm covered with erect moss and that's all! no fert, no filter, no lights. only depending on the lights in my rm when im home from work. no algae and cherries are having babies now.
    Founder of theWaterBox

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    Re:

    [quote:574c251521="GaspingGurami"]
    ... I was initially thinking of adding some baking soda, but stopped because I'm not sure if moss will be able to extract the carbon this way. l.[/quote:574c251521]

    Moss do not utilise HCO3 directly.

    HCO3- <---> OH- + CO2

    As CO2 is being used, the HCO3- will supplement the CO2 by the above reaction.

    BC

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