Nice start. You may want to using fertilizer. A little flourish couple times a week and a root tab under the sword would go a long way in helping revive it. With good lighting, the moss should come back on its own. I'm interested in the led you picked up from lowes, do you have any more info? Thanks and good luck with your new tank.
Getting back into the game with some OLD java moss
Edit: So, uhh... after posting realized I have been a long time lurker but never posted lol, so hi everybody!
I got started with a planted tank about 5-6 years ago with a 30g breeder and a 78 watt t5ho fixture, and basically had great luck by setting the tank up next to a sink, and doing a 30-40% water change every time it evaporated enough where the noise was bothering me. I started off with a fist sized clump of java moss in that tank which nearly carpeted the tank in a huge bush of the stuff before many life changes ensued and I couldn't keep the tank, so I have kept the java moss in a 10g tank for the past 3 years. It's always been under some sort of light, but has generally been neglected. I have had a problem with cyano for nearly the whole 3 years. Moving a lot I eventually left the tank at my moms house where it's maintenance dropped to pretty much nill.
Not being particularly proud of my poor tank husbandry for the past 3 years, lets fast forward to now. So I picked up my tank a few weeks ago which had about 6 gallons of water in it, dried cyano on all sides, and a stalled HOB filter. I wound up emptying the tank, buying a bunch of new plants, and kept the java moss seperate (kept having outbreaks of cyano stemming from the moss), rinsed the substrate thoroughly, and started clean. After about a week in an unlit bucket rinsing off the java moss every day or two to rinse off the dead bits as best I could, I added it back to the tank. Here's how it stands today (cycling, have some diatoms right now):
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Started off with the easiest combination of plants I could think of: 2 guppies, an amazon sword, some anacharis, java fern, crypts, and of course the java moss. I also think the thin bladed plant is a cyperus (correct me if I'm wrong). This is in the 10g still, and I put a 15w 5500k par38 LED from lowes on it.
Don't remember what substrate... eco-complete maybe?
Amazon sword looks healthy but isn't really growing, crypts have had a lot of new growth, anacharis has had a lot of new growth, and the moss is looking a bit dull. Any advice on things I could do to help revive the java moss or stimulate the sword? I wasn't sure how the cyperus would do in this tank anyways.
I got started with a planted tank about 5-6 years ago with a 30g breeder and a 78 watt t5ho fixture, and basically had great luck by setting the tank up next to a sink, and doing a 30-40% water change every time it evaporated enough where the noise was bothering me. I started off with a fist sized clump of java moss in that tank which nearly carpeted the tank in a huge bush of the stuff before many life changes ensued and I couldn't keep the tank, so I have kept the java moss in a 10g tank for the past 3 years. It's always been under some sort of light, but has generally been neglected. I have had a problem with cyano for nearly the whole 3 years. Moving a lot I eventually left the tank at my moms house where it's maintenance dropped to pretty much nill.
Not being particularly proud of my poor tank husbandry for the past 3 years, lets fast forward to now. So I picked up my tank a few weeks ago which had about 6 gallons of water in it, dried cyano on all sides, and a stalled HOB filter. I wound up emptying the tank, buying a bunch of new plants, and kept the java moss seperate (kept having outbreaks of cyano stemming from the moss), rinsed the substrate thoroughly, and started clean. After about a week in an unlit bucket rinsing off the java moss every day or two to rinse off the dead bits as best I could, I added it back to the tank. Here's how it stands today (cycling, have some diatoms right now):
Started off with the easiest combination of plants I could think of: 2 guppies, an amazon sword, some anacharis, java fern, crypts, and of course the java moss. I also think the thin bladed plant is a cyperus (correct me if I'm wrong). This is in the 10g still, and I put a 15w 5500k par38 LED from lowes on it.
Don't remember what substrate... eco-complete maybe?
Amazon sword looks healthy but isn't really growing, crypts have had a lot of new growth, anacharis has had a lot of new growth, and the moss is looking a bit dull. Any advice on things I could do to help revive the java moss or stimulate the sword? I wasn't sure how the cyperus would do in this tank anyways.
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Just updating the thread a little since I dug out my old (decent) camera so I figured I'd add some pics that aren't cell phone pics. The guppies also had fry so I figured that was worth an update as well.
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and I also took a video and put it on youtube to show the shimmering effect of the light in case anybody wanted to see:
http://youtu.be/sPO2J0S7okw
I also realize that my aquascaping is very haphazard right now, and no that is not my best effort
just playing around right now and when I figure out which plants do well I'll start coming up with a better idea from there. The Java moss is doing a lot better, I can see new growth all over it. The java moss is the hardest one to figure out what to do with it in a tank this size. They can be detritus traps so I don't think I want to do a carpet with it... and it's a pretty small tank to fit some driftwood trees into but I've always loved the way that looked.
and I also took a video and put it on youtube to show the shimmering effect of the light in case anybody wanted to see:
http://youtu.be/sPO2J0S7okw
I also realize that my aquascaping is very haphazard right now, and no that is not my best effort
just playing around right now and when I figure out which plants do well I'll start coming up with a better idea from there. The Java moss is doing a lot better, I can see new growth all over it. The java moss is the hardest one to figure out what to do with it in a tank this size. They can be detritus traps so I don't think I want to do a carpet with it... and it's a pretty small tank to fit some driftwood trees into but I've always loved the way that looked.
1 - 7 of 7 Posts
