Aquarium Install
Saturday, August 28th, 2010
What kinds of moss is used for floating in your aquarium?
I saw moss balls in a PETCO that looked like moss right off a tree, and the fish were nipping off it like crazy. I look online and I see only java moss examples… Could I just collect any moss from the trees and safely install it in my freshwater tank?
What you saw were Marino moss balls. They’re getting to be more common in fish stores. Java moss is another one you can find. I like Riccia which isn’t a moss, it’s a liverwort, but it can be harder to find without ordering it online.
A good place to find more exotic types of moss is Aquabid.com http://www.aquabid.com/ but it’s shipped from overseas and you have to pay for the shipping on it. But if you combine a few types from one seller, it lowers the cost by having them shipped together.
Moss from trees isn’t aquatic, it’ll rot if you try to keep it in water.
ADDED Java moss doesn’t really float, it should be tied to driftwood so it will attach to that. The riccia will float for a while, but as it grows it gets too heavy and will sink. I’ve found that with power filters, it’s hard to get anything to float, the water coming out of the filter pushes everything underwater and it gets caught an the bottom of the filter intake tube. If you want something to float, don’t use a moss or anything small like duckweed or frogbit. Get something large like water sprite or Anacharis and let it grow all the way across the top, but even some of this will get pushed down by your filter. Floating plants only work well if you have a canister filter or internal filter.