# Fissidens Zippelianus and Hyophila Involuta



## Felf808 (Mar 21, 2006)

I originally purchased both from aquaticmagic(along with the dredded starmoss) about a year ago and finally got both to attach to wood and grow. I hope the fissidens spreads and the hyophila decides to spread faster lol Sorry in advance for my the quality but here are some pics...


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## spypet (Jul 27, 2007)

can you please elaborate on the timeline of when/how long each moss was kept emersed and submerged.
http://www.flowgrow.de/pflanzen/Hyophila-involuta-Tortula-ruralis-289.html
Hyophila Involuta aka Plagiomnium Trichomanes aka Star Moss are all one in the same emersed growth plant
so what did you mean by "the dredded starmoss" when yours is doing fine.
Please be more responsible to other people in this hobby by elaborating on your experience with these plants,
as not to drum up more misled business for AquaticMagic to prey on.
BTW his Fissidens Splachnobryoides aka Fissidens Zippelianus aka Zipper moss is also an emersed plant that
were later photographed submerged. hundreds of hobbyists have been deceived by this guy.
he did not even take his own ebaY photographs - most were ripped off from German and Dutch hobby sights, 
devoid of any emersed/submerged context.

If he honestly sold these plants for Paludarium use, I'd have no qualms with him.
I know how long it takes these plants to acclimate and grow emersed, so despite
the controversy, I'm impressed with your Splach moss results. kept submerged it
should survive, but if you want Splach to keep spreading, you need to emerse it.
also, is it actually growing attached to the wood or is it still in the mesh plastic
squares AquaticMagic sells it, and you simply tied that plastic to the driftwood.


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## vicky (Feb 18, 2010)

Spypet, your not helping the discussion when you use the wrong terms. Immersed and submerged are the same thing - both mean underwater. Emersed means growing out of (above) the water.


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## spypet (Jul 27, 2007)

vicky - thank you - corrected now


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## vicky (Feb 18, 2010)

Ah, good. Much less confusing this way.


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## Felf808 (Mar 21, 2006)

spypet said:


> can you please elaborate on the timeline of when/how long each moss was kept emersed and submerged.
> http://www.flowgrow.de/pflanzen/Hyophila-involuta-Tortula-ruralis-289.html
> Hyophila Involuta aka Plagiomnium Trichomanes aka Star Moss are all one in the same emersed growth plant
> so what did you mean by "the dredded starmoss" when yours is doing fine.
> ...


spypet, I'm sorry if I unintentionally misled anyone, I'm just very excited that SOMETHING grew from one of many orders of starmoss/fissidens splachnobryoides/fissdens zippelianus. I said, "dredded" because I too was misled and stumbled across the many threads regarding the true nature of the plants aquaticmagic is selling. I think I ordered several batches of each starting two or three years ago maybe nine months inbetween? If you absolutely want specifics I can go back into my records and try to find exact dates...

My experiment was to grow one portion of each type of plant on stainless steel mesh in my 20g long high tech tank. The mesh sheets were originally sitting on the substrate in direct light, but nothing really grew until I tied the plants to manzanita maybe six months ago and even more so when I switched from dosing EI with DIY ferts to pfertz about four months ago. EVERY portion I received and tried to grow ended up having the plants that you see in my second and third picture (Hyophila Involuta, the name that had the most matches on google) and every once in awhile would have the plant in my first picture (fissidens zippelianus, also the name that had the most matches). On several occassions, I attempted to remove what few strands of the fissidens I could find and tie it to driftwood, but it would always die off or get smothered by fissidens fontanus or mini pellia. Here are my current tank specs:

20g long
ADA amazonia I w/PS special
4x24w tek light (2x11k giesemann, 1x giesemann 6k, 1x ecolux 3k) lighting times spread 7hrs total
pressurized co2 3-4 bps
1/15hp chiller 74F
pfertz Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium, Micros 1 pump each per 10g per day
50% tap water changes 1-2x per month
ph 7.2-6.5


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## Felf808 (Mar 21, 2006)

Btw here are some pictures of my "starmoss" growing above the waterline


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## Felf808 (Mar 21, 2006)

Btw here are some pictures of my "starmoss" growing above the waterline


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## spypet (Jul 27, 2007)

Felf808 - your patience, experimentation and investigative spirit in this hobby is to be commended - thank you for elaborating :wink:
is it fair to conclude that under ideal conditions of high light, compressed co2 and fert dosing that Hyophila Involuta may slowly
grow and spread submerged only after a long acclimation period? will it attach submerged or always depend on mesh to contain it.


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## Felf808 (Mar 21, 2006)

spypet said:


> Felf808 - your patience, experimentation and investigative spirit in this hobby is to be commended - thank you for elaborating :wink:
> is it fair to conclude that under ideal conditions of high light, compressed co2 and fert dosing that Hyophila Involuta may slowly
> grow and spread submerged only after a long acclimation period? will it attach submerged or always depend on mesh to contain it.


I believe that the key is to to indeed have ideal conditions i.e. high light, co2, ferts, etc but more importantly keeping the temperature at 74F and below which happens to be ideal for fissidens and CRS as well. Even with everything else listed above I still struggled to grow java moss until I purchased a chiller because the ambient temperature here is usually between 82-92 during the summer.

As far as acclimation...I would have to say that it acclimated very quickly, however, it did/does not spread very quickly. Basically, terrestrial leaves would start to sprout submerged leaves within a week or two, but the bunches would not spread horizontally (to cover either the mesh or driftwood) nearly as fast as it grew vertically. Driftwood seems to be the most ideal thing to tie the hyophila to because slowly but surely tiny leaves are sprouting in random places on the same piece of wood unlike the mesh which seems to prevent horizontal growth(maybe lack of nutrients/soft media/gaps too wide?).


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## XMX (Feb 17, 2011)

Thanks for the great information. I purchased some star moss a few years back only to have it die off. Maybe I'll try it again with the method you stated.


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## Felf808 (Mar 21, 2006)

XMX said:


> Thanks for the great information. I purchased some star moss a few years back only to have it die off. Maybe I'll try it again with the method you stated.


That's cool but the starmoss aka cement moss will end up only growing emersed like it is in the last pics I posted (if it wasn't obvious that the driftwood is out of the water).


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## Vasteq (Feb 23, 2011)

I bought also from AQ Zipper and Splachno and they sent me: Fontannus , and other emersed moss looks like my milimetre Moss (but very smaller). By the way i am looking people to exchange rare mosses but i cant put the advertisement yet I am from Poland


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## Felf808 (Mar 21, 2006)

Vasteq said:


> I bought also from AQ Zipper and Splachno and they sent me: Fontannus , and other emersed moss looks like my milimetre Moss (but very smaller). By the way i am looking people to exchange rare mosses but i cant put the advertisement yet I am from Poland


I'm not surprised that they substituted it for fontanus, I'm actually in the process of removing all of my fontanus because it's becoming too invasive. I look forward to seeing what you have as far as rare mosses


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## Vasteq (Feb 23, 2011)

I'm not saying that AQ selling ugly or wrong mosses - he often mistaken the names. Trichomanes is Hyophila involuta (selling as emersed but growing good in submers), splachnobryoides is some kind of star mosses, similar to milimetre but very smaller. Quite good growing. I bought also Plagiomnium affinis which is truly ... something vermiform moss. Looks quite good (but with algae :/) In real looks better:










So buing from aquamagic is like a roulette. We can sometimes get a realy rare and beauty mosses.


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## Felf808 (Mar 21, 2006)

Interesting stuff you got there Vasteq, but not my cup of tea


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## Felf808 (Mar 21, 2006)

Anyway, I've been really busy with life, so I haven't had the chance to update. Amazingly, the zippelianus is actually growing, even if it is an algae magnet I have about 5 times the amount in the picture. I redid the tank and got rid of all the mini pellia and fissidens fontanus that was overrunning everything so now it's just Java fern, Zippelianus, and Hyophila.


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