[wantsome]

I set up a 5.5 moss tank about 10 days ago. I added peacock moss a couple of days ago.

I have a 14 watt flourecent light, and good filtration, temp is 74 digrees. Light duration 10 hours. I also have 3 fish.

My moss is dieing.

Friday I recieved the moss and put it in the tank attached to some wood.

Saturday I dosed 2.5 ml of excel and just a couple drops of Flourish.

Sunday I dosed 2.5 ml of excel and it looked like my moss wasnt doing to well so I freaked out and did a 20% water change.

Since doing the water change alot of the moss is turning brown and translucent in color.

Could someone point me in the right direction to help me get my moss to recover?

My water is crystal clear although I dont know the perameters.

1. Should I hold off on dosing excel and flourish for now and wiat till the moss recovers? If I dose how often should I dose?

2 How often should I do water changes? How long should I wait before I do another one. It seemed when I did one yesterday my moss took a dive.

 

[cjyhc4]

IMHO, 2.5mL is too much excel for that size tank. I dose .5mL/day in my 5g and 1mL at water changes with great results. Most moss is somewhat sensitive to ferts. I've managed to kill Java moss with FloraPride, lol. Tone down the excel and remove the dead portions.

Good Luck!

 

[wantsome]

Thx for the reply

I was just doing some searchs on the forum and I came to the same conclusion that I was dosing too much.

After my disaster yesterday I've been driving myself nuts trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong.

I went to the drug store and picked up a dropper and I dosed .5 ml. The moss is sprouting new shoots everywhere.

After doing my search's I was also thinking of dosing 2 drops of flourish once or twice a week. And doing water changes every 2-3 weeks.

 

[macclellan]

consider throwing some floating fast growing stem plants in to absorb any excess nutrients. I've done this in my 2.5g moss tank with success. The endler's love it too.

 

[wantsome]

consider throwing some floating fast growing stem plants in to absorb any excess nutrients. I've done this in my 2.5g moss tank with success. The endler's love it too.

I'm kinda new at this could you sugest a few. I was thinking about some cryps would they work even though thier slow growing?

 

[Rion]

Water sprite is a fast grower that I'm using for this purpose. Crypt would not work to the same effect because they are slow growing, anything that you can grow like a weed will work. You could use just plain old duck weed since it multiples like rabbits on Viagra, at least in the pond at my summer job. Out of curiosity, what fauna do you have in the tank?

 

[wantsome]

Water sprite is a fast grower that I'm using for this purpose. Crypt would not work to the same effect because they are slow growing, anything that you can grow like a weed will work. You could use just plain old duck weed since it multiples like rabbits on Viagra, at least in the pond at my summer job. Out of curiosity, what fauna do you have in the tank?

Not sure what fauna is, but I have a ton of peacock moss tied to a tankfull of swahalla root wood. And I have 3 pearl danios.

I read somewhere that more fish means more biproducts for the plants. I am out of funds till next month. Next month I was gonna add 5 psuedomugil furcata rainbows, a otto catfish and maybe 1 or 2 amano shrimp. I was hoping to get the tank started before I swaped out the fish for new ones.

The moss seems to be recovering for now. When I came home it was bright green and had sprouted a bunch of new shoots everywhere.

I have a very slight algae problem a little bit of what I think is staghorn and hair. I'm not sure if its hair algae or lint from putting my hands in the tank.

The other algae is brown gunk growing on dead moss. I cleaned most of it out.

Some of the moss has leaves that have turned brown or translucent but thier sprouting new shoots.

 

[Rion]

fauna = critters
flora = plants

 

[wantsome]

Thx for the help everyone I woke up this morning and it seemed as though alot has died off over night. I dont get it everything was going so well last night before the lights went out. I finaly got my temp down to 72 digrees.

I woke up and dosed .5 ml of excel I'm thinking of cutting back to every other day.

Should I turn my air pump on at night?

 

[macclellan]

moss response is slow. If you OD'ed excel, it may take awhile to show. Back off the excel (or stop for awhile) and do a waterchange. My moss grows pretty fast even without excel...

 

[dufus]

i think excell is not needed here, moss does better, IME without it.

 

[cjyhc4]

i think excell is not needed here, moss does better, IME without it.

Hmm... My Christmas and Peacock really took off when I started dosing Excel. They were doing alright without it, but better with it.

 

[dufus]

oh, well, my java moss pretty much died when i added it, maybe it got too much.

 

[wantsome]

Ok that for the help I'm gonna lay off the excel for now. I'm gonna do a 50 percent water change and just wait it out.

 

[wantsome]

I did a 50% water change and the moss turned bright green. It was dark green with patches for browning spots.

I also took out the wood the moss is attached to and swished it around in a bucket of declorinated tap water.

I noticed when I fill the bucket with the tank water it was realy brown. Is this an idication of something?

I'm not gonna dose excel until things get under control. The I might dose lightly once a week or something.

I'm realy hoping I can save moss and figure out what to do.

Any peacock moss experts? whats the best temp for this moss?

 

[cjyhc4]

I did a 50% water change and the moss turned bright green. It was dark green with patches for browning spots.

I also took out the wood the moss is attached to and swished it around in a bucket of declorinated tap water.

I noticed when I fill the bucket with the tank water it was realy brown. Is this an idication of something?

I'm not gonna dose excel until things get under control. The I might dose lightly once a week or something.

I'm realy hoping I can save moss and figure out what to do.

Any peacock moss experts? whats the best temp for this moss?

Sounds like you're on the right track. The brown is the driftwood releasing tannins, you can boil it to speed up the process or just leave it be. It won't hurt anything.

 

[wantsome]

Sounds like you're on the right track. The brown is the driftwood releasing tannins, you can boil it to speed up the process or just leave it be. It won't hurt anything.

I kinda thought it might be the wood. I had 3 peices of it in a previous tank and those peices release most of thier tannins, But I added one new peice when I set the tank up.

Just within the past 15 minutes since doing the water change the moss closest to the light is pearling.

Since the water change was so befnaficail I'm wondering how often I should do one. Right now I'm contimplating once a week.

I also have the top of my tank sealed with a glass lid. I'm thinking about removing the backing on it so that some water can evaporate and I can do some top offs.

 

[dufus]

i Do Water changes 2x weekly on my 1 gallon.
if your tank has a lot of fish in it(comparitively) then biweekly is good, otherwise, once a week will do.

 

[wantsome]

i Do Water changes 2x weekly on my 1 gallon.
if your tank has a lot of fish in it(comparitively) then biweekly is good, otherwise, once a week will do.

I'm still learning about a planted tanks even if it is just moss. Being the tank has only been running less then 2 weeks and the moss being in it less then a week. I was afraid to do such a large W/C thinking it would interfear with the cycle and through the tank out of ballance.

I'm gonna stick with no ferts and one weekly water change for now. I'll see how things go from here I was told it could take 3 weeks for my moss to ajust. Then I might give excel and flourish another try but very lightly.

I'm thinking since its such a low light tank and the moss being such a slow grower that the excel might have been to much for now.