# Moss Ball



## Tabatha

Has anyone divided their moss ball and encouraged it to grow on rock? If so, how?

Thanks!


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## Zebrapl3co

No, but I find is hard that I want to encourage it to grow. If you are working with a hard scape tank and the only plant is the moss ball, it's will definately be fun.
But for a planted tank, it's the worst nightmare you can possibly have. Why?
a) you have to constantly trim it to keep it round. This causes free floating little hair all over the tank. Alternately, leave it the way it is, and it will grow fussy and release free floating algae hair all over the tank. And that's just the begining. The algae hair will attach itself to your plants and starts growing into a big pile of mush. Carpet plants like ricca, HC, hairgrass, all kinds of java moss will find itself attached to a mush of hair.
b) Fish don't eat it. Even algae eating shrimps and fish avoids this stuff.
c) chemicals can't kill it as it will also kill your plants as well.
d) once it's in your tank, you can't nuke it. It's in your substrate. I even tried to nuke the tank by drying it up and bake the substrate in the sun for a month. I tried to blow out the dried mossball hair. But once I dump the substrate back into the tank, it comes back alive and starts growing again.

The only good thing I can say about the moss ball is that it's does cause any grieves in a sand bottom environment.

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## Tabatha

Holy frig! I've read a lot about moss balls an no one has said any of what you have! My shrimp practically live on the ball, I hardly ever see them off of it.

They had it growing on driftwood at Big Al's...


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## ozi

I dont know much of it, all I know is that it is possible to grow it attached to rocks or wood, but it takes a long long looong time for it to grow.


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## Tabatha

I just read one woman's article where she cut up one of her balls and it was yucky inside but all pieces were fine in the long run. None of the problems mentioned by Zebrapl3co. Still reading...


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## Ciddian

i hurrased my balls too much... (LOL)

I couldnt seem to leave them alone so they browned out on me. However.. I did half the last one and they grew very very slowly.. i tied them down to some river rocks. 

I enjoyed them when i had them  A bit too much lol


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## Tabatha

While rereading our thread, I thought some might take this conversation out of context (LOL)!

I cut up my MOSS (ball) this past weekend and, as you did, tied pieces to the rocks. We'll see what happens to it. Do you have CO2 in your tank? Do you use ferts?


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## Ciddian

No co2, but the gravel itself has some fert disks in it and i have used tabs too. I dose with excel when i remember.. 

I used cotten thread but it dissolved eventually and my algae eaters used to love snuggling underneath it.. >.>


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## Katalyst

Ciddian said:


> No co2, but the gravel itself has some fert disks in it and i have used tabs too. I dose with excel when i remember..
> 
> I used cotten thread but it dissolved eventually and my algae eaters used to love snuggling underneath it.. >.>


My rotten creeps did the same thing Ciddian lol, between the snails, pleco's, whiptails/red lizards & shrimp everything apart from fishing line gets chomped on and then I find everything sucked into the filter or a shredded mess. I've given up on everything other then moss balls and amazon swords which the pleco's chew as well.


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## ozi

here's an article with lots of pics, that might give you some more info on moss balls: http://aqualandpetsplus.com/Plant, Japanese Moss Balls.htm


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## pat3612

*This might help*

I recently have a new tank cycling I wanted a coconut shell with moss so it looks natural what I did was get a hair net(dollar store) or drug store, cut your moss arrange it put the hair net on to keep it in place, gradually it will cover anything you could do this with rocks to.


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## valerie27

i did, and my moss ball is doing great !!! i had a big 5 inch ball i cut it in half and made an other ball and a carpet, you can either cut it with a knife or use an elastic (wich takes longer) to make the carpet open up the other half and tie it up to a rock or wood it will then grow


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