# Java Moss Dying



## dabrybry (Jun 27, 2010)

Hey all,

Absolutely can't figure out what else I can do to help the growth of this moss. Every other plant in my tank is doing great except for this java moss. Regular doses of Flourish Excel along with trace ferts daily and coralife t5's. I'm not too sure what else I can do for them?


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## davemonkey (Mar 29, 2008)

What is your substrate, and how mature is it (how long has this scapre been set up)? One possible explanation is that the moss is starving. It's getting trace elements, but not enough macro nutrients since it is only in the water column and you don't dose macros.

Of coarse, that explanation only really fits if you have a well aged substrate or a natural soil substrate where the rest of your plants are getting fed.

So, how about your substrate?

-Dave


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## dabrybry (Jun 27, 2010)

Using a fertalized substrate (i forget the name of it) with a layer of some fine sand over it. The tank has only been set up for maybe 2 weeks, java moss has been in there since day 1.


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## tug (Jul 23, 2009)

Try to float Java Moss from a little chunk of natural corkbark, so that it hangs down like Spanish Moss. Or, another way to aquascape with Java moss is to take a large, flat rock or piece of plastic (the stuff they sell for needlepoint works well) and cover it with a thin layer of java moss. Wrap a hairnet around it, and you have instant carpet plant! The only red flag I see is the Excel dosing. Excel and some primitive plants do not always work well together.


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## trag (Jan 9, 2008)

This won't help, but I thought I'd add my observations. My java moss is also dying in most of my tanks. It turns kind of limp and dark and never quite goes away, but becomes more of an affliction than a pleasant addition to the tank. 

However, in two of my tanks it's still growing nice and green and fluffy. 

The difference between those two tanks and the others is that one is a low light tank and the only other plants are crypts. The moss is pretty slow in that tank, but it hangs in there. The other tank is higher light, but there are no other plants in the tank. it's a 5 gallon maternity tank with a 15watt 6500K spiral CF bulb. The moss grows fantastically in this monoculture tank without fertilizers.

So bright light does not seem to be the problem. 

My observations suggest that competing with other plants is the problem for java moss, but I don't know if that's correlation or causation.

In one tank, it used to grow well, but does not now and the only thing that has changed is that now it is sharing the tank with a ton of java fern and some water sprite (I thin the srpite back to one or two tiny plants every water change, so shading from the sprite isn't the issue).


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## freshyleif (Jan 9, 2008)

What is the water flow like in your tanks? Java moss is sloww growing. If you can cut it back until it is only attached toy the wood or stone. Then add some water movement to the area. This should help but for me it finally took just forgetting about it for a while and then it took off. This has been true for all my tanks: low light no fertz, high light CO2 and fertz, high light no CO2 and light fertz. In fact for me it grows best where it has attached itself to my HOB filter output.Just my humble opinion. Hope you get it to grow.


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## tug (Jul 23, 2009)

+1 what freshyleif said.
Of course I can't see what wasn't said, but poor water flow is a big problem and lighting is a big consideration. Plus, you probably don't dose enough Excel to be a problem. Never add more than 5mls per 10 Gal of tank per day w/ Excel.


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## dabrybry (Jun 27, 2010)

The waterflow in the tank is but the moss is the farthest away from the outflow. Does the moss prefer higher flow? I dose exactly 5ml of excel each day and .5ml of trace ferts. One thing i noticed is that my ph seems to consistantly hang between 7.2-7.4 maybe more c02? Should be switchng over to compressed c02 as soon as i find a good regulator for a decent price


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## tug (Jul 23, 2009)

I tried a google search and didn't find any real concerns about Java moss and Excel, my bad.
Q; What size tank do you have?

Water flow;
I am not sure about Java moss, Java fern likes good water flow.
Q; What size filter do you have? Are you using anything else like a powerhead/Hydor koralia?

It may just be that Java moss is a bigger nutrient hog then one might think. Nutrients will be limiting growth unless you dose them regularly. That means adding NPK and trace.
Q; What exactly are you adding for fertilizer. 0.5mL ? trace. NPK? Lighting? Any algae to speak of?

trag, is the moss in your maternity tank floating or submersed? This is interesting problem. From what I've read this is a difficult plant to keep from overtaking a tank. Maybe dabrybry's moss is just adjusting to the new surroundings.


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## DavidZ (Jan 22, 2009)

Is the moss turning Brown?
No one said anything about the water temp?


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## tug (Jul 23, 2009)

In general, most mosses grow better in a slightly cooler water temperature of less than 28°C. The exception is Java Moss, which grows well even in higher temperature exceeding 30°C.


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## trag (Jan 9, 2008)

tug said:


> trag, is the moss in your maternity tank floating or submersed? This is interesting problem. From what I've read this is a difficult plant to keep from overtaking a tank. Maybe dabrybry's moss is just adjusting to the new surroundings.


I'm not sure of the distinction you're making, so I'll give extra detail.

The maternity tank is a bare 5 gallon tank with a single round air driven sponge filter in the corner. The moss is not anchored, it can float, but tends to sink. Except, there's such a large mass of it, that it reaches up near the top of the water supported on all the moss below it. I keep the tank 78F - 80F. Right now there are no fish (well two young guppies I added because of their interesting lemon color) and billions (well, scores) of cherry shrimp. The moss was growing just as well when I had swordtails (adults and then babies) and guppies (adults and then babies) in there over the past year or so.

Ordinarily I'd thin it, but I'm planning to move most of it to a 20 gallon grow out tank, so the more the better for now. I just need to build the light for the 20 gallon. Too many projects, not enough time. Sigh.

Somewhat irrelevant, but about the tanks where it's dying:

I have a 30 gallon bare guppy tank with three sponge filters, and a HOB Aquaclear (mumble 20 or 30 maybe). That tank has a pair of 39watt T5HO 6500K buibs on it and I keep it about 76 - 78F (my strain of guppies seems to have problems below 74F). The moss used to overgrow that tank and the java fern was struggling. Now the I'm having to thin the java fern, and the moss is reduced to stringy ugly stuff here and there. It may be covered in some kind of algae. It's hard to tell whether it's coated or just unhealthy. I added some cherry shrimp several months ago which are thriving, hoping that if it was algae they'd clean it off, but if anything it's worse. It used to at least grow hanging from the HOB outlet and on the big cylindrical sponge filter, but that's gone.

I have another 30 gallon tank where it's dying. The second tank has an Aquaclear as above and a Penguin 100 for the biowheel. It also has an undergravel filter driven by a Penguin 1140 powerhead in reverse flow mode. There's plenty of flow in that tank--maybe too much for my banana plants. But the java moss is practically extinct. Just some of it hanging from some of the java fern. This second tank has a pair of 30 watt T8 lights. The temperature varies as it will, but it is the upper tank on a two tank stand, so it stays a few degress warmer than it would be on the bottom. Which is weird, you wouldn't think a couple of feet would make the difference, but all my two tank stands do the same thing when I leave the heaters off.

Perhaps I should move some of the healthy stuff from the 5 gallon to the other tanks and see how it fairs, or how long it takes to turn gross and stringy.


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## tug (Jul 23, 2009)

Hi trag/all,
I will be happy to take some of that moss off of your hands when you have it growing out of all three tanks. I thought my LFS was selling me some, but it ended up being Crystalwort. 

So, it looks as if water flow, Excel and temperature can be ruled out. Lighting? I am left with the feeling that light is driving the demand for nutrients which are not there. In the smaller tank the nutrients are able to reach higher levels because, well because it's a smaller tank. The moss is soaking up the nutrients from feeding the fish and the fish waist. Do you add any nutrients to any of the tanks?

I might be wrong, but I think the moss in the other two tanks is using more energy then it can sustain, it's hungry. :hungry:


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## DavidZ (Jan 22, 2009)

wow, nice job!


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## dabrybry (Jun 27, 2010)

Yeah It's turning brown in patches . 10g tank btw, and I just switched over to Fluval 205 filter throttled way back on the flow. I also just added another 2 t5's into the equation, so it should definitely be HIGH light in there. Bah, on the edge of scrapping everything and starting completely over.


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## tug (Jul 23, 2009)

Brighter, bigger and bolder is not always better. I would never rule out the benefits of water circulation completely from any issue, but 180 gph is a lot for a ten gallon tank. Adding a spray bar will increase the head pressure and further reduce the flow.

*:frusty: A combination of high light, limited nutrients and insufficient CO2 - not recommended.
* One T5HO will put out a lot of light! 1.2wpg of T5HO is considered mid to high light and with the plants you mention one T5 is all you should need. You might even try raising it above the tank a foot or more.

Again, what are your goals? If you want fewer water changes and less fertilizer - then reduce your lighting. If you are adding CO2, then start with 1.2 -1.7wpg T5HO and start dosing ferts using the EI method. It is pretty straight forward really. High light/high tech or low light/low tech. And yet...
:icon_hang


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## lanceduffy (Jul 15, 2010)

I had been experiencing the same problems in my tank. 20 gal, 65w pc for 10 hr/day, established but clean eheim 2213, amazonia 2, pressurized co2 w/ drop checker, EI dosing. Tank had java moss, dwarf hairgrass, HC, java fern and blyxia. All plants were thriving except for the moss. It would grow pretty new green at the tips and then turn brown. 
I had been experiencing this for hmm, 8 months. The time when the moss did the best was when I went on a 2 week vacation. I did a water change, a wc dose of excell per seachem directions, shut off co2 and cut lights to 4 hours per day.
When I came back, Bam! Big Green Moss!
Then I resumed everything as I had before and the problem came back. 
Two weeks ago I re-did the scape because there was too much brown moss for me to tolerate. 
Coincidentally, yesterday I was looking at Amano's Online Aqua Journal. In Q & A, volume 005 regarding willow moss he says, "Nutrient-enriched water is suspected if the willow moss turns blackish, or brown-colored rhizoids are growing. One cause of these problems is worsened water contamination due to the deterioration of water quality caused by overfeeding or insufficient filtration capacity. Besides this, a rise in water temperature can also be one of the causes. Willow moss is an aquatic moss which prefers a clean stream. Its appearance will thus be better if it is grown in low-temperature water with low nutrient content."
Now I know that willow and java are different things. They are also sold as the same thing in some places. I'm pretty sure I had java but i'm no botanist. I do know that the time I went on vacay and had the boost in moss growth = no dosing, no fish food, less light and a clean stream. 
I wish I had seen Mr. Amano's comments before I tore all the moss out. 
If I had it to do again, I would go back to the 2 week vacation routine (none of my other plants suffered), then up the light duration and add co2 gas 1 hour per week until I start to see deficiency or algae. Then I would assess and begin dosing very, very, very lean ei and progressively up the dose per week until I hopefully see a balance between the needs of the plants and no algae.


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## Jeffww (May 25, 2010)

Java moss certainly doesn't grow slowly. I get about an inch of growth every 2-3 weeks. I think browning of java moss happens pretty randomly. Just keep it clean and cool and it should rebound.


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## potatoes (Jun 25, 2010)

What are your nitrate levels? I have a tank similar to your setup, but i have a lot less light. I also noticed that since i stopped doing 30%weekly water changes to none in the past 4 weeks, it is looking a lot better and more perky. Although i havnt tested the water, I presume the nitrates are higher then they used to be. I dont add any nutieints to that tank at all besides fish food. This moss ahvs taken over literally 50% of my 10gal.
I also think you have too much light; this plant can live in very low light levels. Why not raise the light fixture higher and see if it makes a difference?


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## lanceduffy (Jul 15, 2010)

Thanks for the suggestions. As for nutrients it was on a light EI diet, I don't think any plant in this tank wanted for nutrients. Maybe the light was too high. I can't raise my fixture, yet  and I can't try anymore ways to bring back my moss. I tossed it all.


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