# exploding marimo



## Straight shooter (Nov 26, 2015)

zoate said:


> I just had a marimo moss ball explode into little pieces that covered everything and sent little pieces floating around. What should I do?:help::eek5:


Clean up the mess and move on with life?


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## zoate (Nov 27, 2015)

Straight shooter said:


> Clean up the mess and move on with life?


Um... I've tried that. It doesn't work. Any _real_ solutions?!


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## Izzy- (Jun 11, 2014)

Have you tried making macaroni salad?


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## brandonhauser (Nov 6, 2015)

Can we see a picture? I'm not even sure what to make of this..


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## serenityfate (Jan 29, 2014)

The real question is how did it even explode in the first place?

Just clean up, water change , or go to the extreme and breakdown the tank and restart..theres not much of anything else you can do..


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## sohankpatel (Jul 10, 2015)

Why did it explode? use a net to pick up all the little pieces and buy a new one if you want.


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## Yukiharu (May 3, 2014)

Just clean it up and do a water change. Marimo are an extremely slow-growing cladophora algae and if you do end up with a clado/spirogyra outbreak it's from a different source. The worst part is that the invasive algae will set up inside the moss ball, so there's nothing to do but throw it out at that point.


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## randym (Sep 20, 2015)

I had one "explode." Well, it fell apart, anyway. It was a very, very old moss ball. At least 10 years old. It had gotten very big, and as happens with large marimo balls, it was hollow inside. When I tried to move it, it more or less dissolved.

I siphoned the pieces out, and put them in a glass jar in a window. (I've heard people revive dying moss balls by putting them in the fridge. They like cold water. They can grow under the ice of frozen lakes in their natural habitat.) It's winter here, and the moss ball pieces are doing well on the cold windowsill. I swirl them around in the jar every once awhile, and they have become many small marimo balls.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them, because I don't want a dozen moss balls in my tanks, but I can't bring myself to throw them out.


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## zoate (Nov 27, 2015)

After reading your comments, I don't think it was real marimo. When it exploded, it attached itself to everything, and when I tried to pull it out, it just came back the way it was before.



Izzy- said:


> Have you tried making macaroni salad?


why macaroni salad? i don't even like it


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## Curt_914 (Oct 6, 2007)

randym said:


> I had one "explode." Well, it fell apart, anyway. It was a very, very old moss ball. At least 10 years old. It had gotten very big, and as happens with large marimo balls, it was hollow inside. When I tried to move it, it more or less dissolved.
> 
> I siphoned the pieces out, and put them in a glass jar in a window. (I've heard people revive dying moss balls by putting them in the fridge. They like cold water. They can grow under the ice of frozen lakes in their natural habitat.) It's winter here, and the moss ball pieces are doing well on the cold windowsill. I swirl them around in the jar every once awhile, and they have become many small marimo balls.
> 
> I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them, because I don't want a dozen moss balls in my tanks, but I can't bring myself to throw them out.


Randy i would be willing to take a few off your hands  let me know if your intrested


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## zoate (Nov 27, 2015)

Here's an image.


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