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Clueless in Singapore



At 10:12 PM +0800 1/10/02, someone wrote:

>I wrapped the Christmas moss in some plastic mesh netting (the kind you can
>use to attach Riccia to rocks), and it is now floating in my current tank.
>I do not intend to attach it to anything until I set up my new tank at the
>beginning of February.  However, it is merely surviving.  It doesn't seem to
>be growing very much, even though I have plenty of lighting, CO2
>supplementation and my water parameters are where there should be for a
>heavily planted tank.  It seems to have become a dark mass inside the mesh
>netting with a few green fronds poking though.  I'm sure there's something
>I'm not doing right.  Can you offer any advice on growing Christmas moss?

Hi, folks,

Someone sent me the above message.

You know, I find it hard to understand why quite a few of the folks who
got the moss told me that the plant isn't growing despite the fact that they
seem to be doing everything right.  Maybe it's the water or rather, I should
say, something in my water.  To be absolutely honest, I really don't know
why the moss grows very well in all my tanks.  I used to believe that it was
because I have cooling fans which keep my temperatures low.  But how cold
can my tanks be when compared to the hobbyists living in the US of A and
Canada.  Singapore is so near the equator and over here, normal room
temperature the whole year round is 30 Centigrade (about 86 Fahrenheit)
and even with my cooling fans blowing non-stop 24 hours a day,
the temperature in my tanks hover around 27 C (about 81F).  I'm sure their
tanks are much colder but why isn't their moss growing?

I'm quite sure it's got nothing to do with lighting as the moss grows in the
darkest corners of my nursery tanks that do not have artificial lighting.
Very
high lighting does not seem to bother the moss too as in my 100 gallon tank
where
my new moss wall is forming beautifully, I now use 6 four-feet flourescent
tubes.
I don't think CO2 injection would make much of a difference as I have seen them
growing just as well when I didn't have CO2 injection before.

I kind of suspect that there could be some fish inside their tanks which are
keeping the moss's growth in check.  A nice lady living in the US of A wrote
me just 2 days ago to say that she found compelling evidence that her Cherry
Barbs had been munching on her Christmas Moss.  I discovered myself too
recently that adult SAEs eat the moss.  Maybe there's some other fish that
treats the moss as a delicacy too?

I'm forwarding his question here because I hope that those of you who are
living in the US of A and whose moss is growing well can help him
better.  I can't offer him any good advice.  I'm an idiot, really.  Up to this
day after having been in the hobby for more than 30 years, I still can't figure
out the relationship between Ph and Kh.  And don't even talk about phospates,
nitrates and all.  I haven't got a clue what those things do to my fish and
plants.
All I do is change water and add fertiliser.  Speaking of fertilisers, I
never add
any to my nursery tanks and believe it or not, that's where the moss grows
best.

Loh K L