[golfwang]

I currently have a 20 gallon long shrimp tank with a Marineland Double Bright LED fixture. I've been having trouble growing all types of moss except my Fissidens. I dose nutrients weekly and excel every other day i.e. Phoenix, Christmas, Taiwan, and Flame are having trouble growing in my tank and turning brown by the day.

 

[Barbgirl]

What temp are you keeping the tank at? I noticed that my moss grows better with neglect and cooler water.

 

[acitydweller]

high temps is a good suspect since all but regular java seems to be more tolerant of heat. even with zero dosing and just shrimp, your mosses should grow at normal rate. Browning could also be a sign of zero light for long durations.

 

[golfwang]

My tank is currently sitting at a 70-72 degree range. I tend to keep my light on no more than 8 hours a day I have no clue what I'm doing wrong I thought moss was easy to grow! D:
Here's a photo from my phone that flame moss on the right hand side is browning and the one left from is also flame moss, which was green from my friends tank no more than a few weeks ago now is browning slowly.

 

[Barbgirl]

Sounds pretty good in there to me then :/ Hopefully someone more helpful will chime in!

Shrimp look good though :] Haven't been brave enough to try CRS myself

 

[acitydweller]

That temp should not be an issue.

Another possibility is extremely hard wAter. Whats you ph/gh/kh ?

Also a lack of circulation can pose a problem as most feeding through the water column occurs through water current. Moss being water column feeders as they have no roots.

Another possibility is if you water is in excess of ammonia, nitrAtes and nitrides.

 

[golfwang]

pH: 6.4
gH: 5-6
kH: 0-1

I have lots of baby shrimp and a few berried in the tank maybe it could be poor circulation, but I have a UGF setup so I'm not quite to sure what could be the problem.

 

[acitydweller]

Can you clarify the nutrients you are dosing? Any nitrogen or trace elements?

 

[golfwang]

I'm currently dosing Seachem Flourish and Trace weekly.

 

[acitydweller]

I have left phoenix moss in near darkness for two months and it came our relatively dark green without balding. I had accidnetally buried it under a mountain of moss and temp plants and sort of forgot about it.... And still it persisted which makes your situation very frustrating, at least to me. When was your last water change? What your tds... A low tds lacking minerals may account for something.

 

[golfwang]

My last water change was a few days ago my current TDS is around 137 right now.

 

[Vermino]

Maybe it's the actual Marineland Double Bright LED fixture itself =/. Try to move one of the flame moss's to a corner and use an additional light for that plant itself. I just hear about the color spectrum of some lights not giving certain plants their full potential.

It seems like everything else is perfect conditions.

 

[ddrfreak_tung]

correct me if im wrong but does moss brown when dosed with excel? im not sure if i read that somewhere or if it's my imagination at work again.

 

[acitydweller]

excel is pretty damaging on stuff like pellia. infact, i dont use excel in my moss tanks. They grow rapidly under a single 6500k 26w cfl with new offshoots and fluffy growth the next day. i tend to rotate the moss in the tank to ensure there's no dead spots and all around growth, which has increased the tighter density of the moss as well.

I'd say the marineland light isnt doing this moss any favors, nor is the actual dosing itself...

 

[golfwang]

I had a feeling it was fixture itself guess I'll have to replace it.

 

[150EH]

That light does look very week in your photo with dark areas around the perimeter, also mosses do not like Excel and when you say your dosing Seachem Flourish and Trace weekly, which ferts out of the flourish line are you dosing?

Marineland should label those lights as for fish only tanks, I've seen way too many folks buying them because they don't know it's not enough light for plants, after all they are call Double Bright and they only have 6 or 8 -1 watt LEDs for a 20 gallon.

 

[golfwang]

I went off the PAR data from the Lighting section so I chose this light because of that, but I guess that doesn't help at all with moss.

 

[Vermino]

I dont think it's matters about the PAR on the light - it's about the color intensity for plant growth (from what i google'd for about 30 minutes) I really hope it works out.

 

[thefisherman]

very informative... my moss growth has always been (and remains) a mystery to me lol. but they grow in each of my tanks ranging in parameters. with that said i would like to add another question...
how do folks keep their moss clean?


- thefisherman

 

[acitydweller]

Use dwarf shrimp. They will be your best gardeners for mosses... Not so much amanos as they tend to go for larger things.

In my best moss tank I runa home depot clamp light with a full spectrum bulb. No ferts. Try it and you'll see an amazing difference. Its just that easy... For reference, I use ei dosing in my planted tanks and none for my shrimp tanks.