Mosses grown Emersed

[timebomb]

Hi, folks,

Thought I show you all how Taiwan Moss looks like when it's grown emersed.
I don't know if you can tell from the picture but the moss grows in layers:


Here's a close up:


Over the last year or so, I've been trying out different mosses on the same piece of driftwood.

Here's how my Erect Moss looked in emersed form before they suddenly turned brown and died:



And here's my first attempt at growing moss emersed. It's Christmas Moss with some Micranthemum micranthemoides crawling over it.



Loh K L

[amber2461]

Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous ! Mmm -mmm -mmm

[itssg]

Loh, lucky i am not staying next to you. Else, your mosses will end up inside my tank. :P

[amber2461]

Hey Dom

You wish Hehehahahaha ...

[itssg]

Hey Dom

You wish Hehehahahaha ...

Haha..Marge, of couse i wish to have that nice piece of moss. I tried to grow erect moss submersed and it can't really grow well. But it growing fast and healthy in emersed.

I am trying to grow taiwan moss both submersed and emersed. Both also not doing well. Loh, is there any secret recipe to grow them nice?

[timebomb]

I am trying to grow taiwan moss both submersed and emersed. Both also not doing well. Loh, is there any secret recipe to grow them nice?

I thought you're a better grower of moss than me, Dom

But seriously, emersed is a no brainer. All you have to do is keep them moist, either by pumping water to the moss constantly or by enclosing it in an air-tight environment.

Taiwan Moss belongs to the same genus as Java, Taxiphyllum. Java is easy to grow and so is Taiwan. Among the mosses we know, these 2 are the easiest. I think Weeping is the hardest to grow, nicely. I can keep it alive but I can't get it to weep. Erect is tough too as once it starts to turn brown, there's nothing you do can stop the whole bunch from turning brown and dying. It's like it got stricken with some sort of disease where once infected, all of the moss will eventually turn brown and die. The situation here in Singapore is so bad that hardly any fish shops sell the Erect anymore.

There are no secret recipes to grow moss well, other than the fact they need low temperatures but that can hardly be described as a secret. I don't know why my mosses sometimes do well and on other occasions, they don't. Singapore Moss grows well in my balcony tanks but they grow real slow in my cube tank which is cooler.

Peter Gwee, who's very good with the technical stuff, says it's all in the CO2. I don't know about that but most of my mosses grow well without CO2 injection. I also hardly ever add liquid fertiliser. JS who joined the forum recently said his mosses grow like crazy without CO2 and filtration. Some fish shop owners say you mustn't have high fish loads or the mosses won't grow. This could be true but I'm not sure as my fish load varies from one tank to another. A fish shop here which grows their mosses beautifully says the secret is in the Kh. The owner said you must keep it somewhere at around 2. Anything higher and the mosses won't do well. I can't confirm if this is true as I hardly monitor the Kh in my tanks but the last time I checked, it was around 6 for my main tank where the Taiwan is growing like crazy.

We know mosses don't need high lighting but the fish shop I mentioned that grows mosses beautifully uses metal halides and their tanks are so bright you have to wear sunglasses to look at them

The professor who's an expert at identifying mosses but not at growing them, says we should inject oxygen instead of CO2. But there's no need to inject oxygen if you want more of it in your tanks. As far as I know, aeration will do the job just fine. I use undergravel filters in some of my balcony tanks so there's a lot of aeration. My Erect Moss which died in most of other tanks is doing okay in them. Not exactly growing very well but it isn't turning brown either.

So you see, Dom, I just don't know what's the secret. It could be many things or none at all.

We need someone who's a real expert at growing the mosses, maybe someone like Dennis (Mr Sing) or Tony (Gomer) to conduct experiments and tell us what exactly is the thing that will get the mosses to thrive.

Tom Barr who's widely acknowedged to be an expert on aquatic plants says it's all in the CO2 but I don't believe him until he shows me his mosses Dennis and Tony, I believe, because I've seen theirs.

Loh K L

[Robert]

Hi,
I don't know if I'm considered an expert in growing mosses but they look in my tanks at least as nice as in Dennis'. I have no time nor possibilities at the moment to take good pictures, sorry.

Most mosses, except erect moss, grow very nice under the same conditions. The KH is not important. I have 18dKH and my mosses grow well. The ph can even be 8 without any bad effects. What you need is a balance of light, nutrients and CO2.

Lots of light and lots of nutrients (liquid fertilizer) but no CO2 cause a stringy growth, even for weeping moss or Singapore moss. Algae are always a problem under these conditions because CO2 is missing. Often I get such stringy, rather stiff algae which can be easily removed wih some a pair of pincers. You have to dose the fertilizer very carefully to get a acceptable growth of algae.

Lots of light, lots of nutrients and CO2 can cause a good growth but algae are still a problem. Mosses grow slowly in comparison to other plants, so it's hard for them to compete with algae under high light conditions. It's very hard to find a good balance. especially if you keep stem plants in the same tank. Give your mosses a shady place in such a high light tank.

Few light, few nutrients and no CO2 cause a slow but steadily growth. Weeping moss becomes significantly smaller. Singapore moss becomes large but gets no triangular fronts. Taxiphylum species like Java or Taiwan moss grow well but develop no triangular fronds. Algae can be a problem. If there is too less CO2 you get BBA. Butoften you get only little algae at all.

Medium light, medium to few nutrients and CO2 injection cause the best growth. The fronds become thick and triangular, at least for Versicularia species like Singapore moss (it can become very beautiful) and weeping moss. Taxiphylum species like Taiwan moss grow well but become quit large. The growth is rather fast. Don't add too much nutrients or algae will be a problem, even if there is good moss growth.

All in all, I keep about a dozen or more moss and liverwort species. If you want to keep mosses with little effort only, use low light tanks and dose the liquid fertilizer carefully. Mosses like weeping moss become still nice but smaller and they grow slowly. CO2 is not really necessary for the growth of the moss but if you have BBA, it is a sign that there is too less CO2. The bioload also makes no difference in my opinion. I keep various mosses also in tanks with high bioload e.g. tanks where I raise guppies, which are fed 5 times a day.
I can't say much about the temperature because I keep most mosses at 22-25°C. I also got good growth at 30°C+ but this temperature was caused by my lamps. So it was under high light conditions. The mosses looked rather stringy and light green.

The hardest to grow moss is the genuine willow moss in my opinion. My variety is used to cold, fast flowing streams and is very hard to keep in my tanks. It survives but never grows as fast and nice as in its natural habitat. Erect moss does not really grow well under water. I test it under lots of conditions but got no good results at all. It survives but that's it.

best regards

Robert

[timebomb]

Robert,

I have moderate success with the Willow Moss. I'm not sure if it's the same variety as yours but mine does not need fast flowing water. I gave some to a fish shop and they grew tons of it under very high-light, cold conditions.
Under high-lights though, the Willow turns a very light green and the leaves become almost translucent.

By the way, you wrote of using low nutrients to grow your mosses. I have to say I'm quite positive mosses need hardly any nutrients as I rarely ever add liquid fertiliser to my tanks. There's very little information about aquatic mosses but I've seen some websites on terrestrial mosses where they say the mosses need no fertiliser.

Loh K L

[timebomb]

Just to add on to what I said earlier - The 3 emersed mosses shown in this thread were grown without ever having liquid fertiliser added to the tank. There's no base fertiliser in the substrate either. But even if there was, the mosses won't be able to get them as they are grown emersed on a piece of driftwood.

The tank has some fish but not many. The water hardly ever gets changed, maybe once every few months. The tank is outside the house so I'm just too lazy to do the maintenance work.

Loh K L

[strung_0ut]

Mr. LOH wrote:

We need someone who's a real expert at growing the mosses, maybe someone like Dennis (MrSing) or Tony (Gomer) to conduct experiments and tell us what exactly is the thing that will get the mosses to thrive.

Haha, how dare you call me an expert . Most everything I know I learned from you and most the rest is off AQ and killies. My key is just the experience and passion I have in them (more than a couple years). I'm sure if I put more focus in a plant like tonina I'll eventually be able to grow it without explaining all the techs. I'm terrible at explaining.

[PeterGwee]

Loh, how's the main tank doing? Mosses do need nutrients but probably not that much as compared to some nutrient hogs like riccia/glosso (Tap water do have nutrients in them by the way as do fish waste/food). I'll still stand by Tom's quote on the CO2 since he has academic and experience in the field of aquatic plants (over 300 spieces...). Get the CO2 high (30ppm) and stable throughout the photoperiod only (not 24/7). The nutrients are easy to add once you get the CO2 right.

Regards
Peter Gwee

[timebomb]

Loh, how's the main tank doing?

The tank's doing fine, Peter. I have some Black Brush Algae but it's not a big deal.

As for Tom, I have the greatest respect for him but I wish he show us his tanks more often. Come to think of it, I've only seen a tank by Tom once and that was a long time ago. You would imagine, with his wide experience, he would have plenty of planted tanks to show us.

Loh K L

[imported_bpt]

Wow KL, I'm drooling how long did it take to cover the driftwood like that ?

[timebomb]

I think it's about 2 months, Budi.

I'll be tearing down the Taiwan Moss driftwood soon. It's time to try another moss emersed - Weeping Moss. I'll make sure I'll take weekly pictures this time so you all can follow the progress.

Loh K L