# Why is my moss turning brown?



## mmccarthy781 (Jul 7, 2011)

Hey everyone, I have some taiwan moss on driftwood in my shrimp tank and it has started to brown in some places.

Here are some recent parameters:
Temperature: 75-78 Fahrenheit
Ammonia: 0ppm
NO2-: 0ppm
NO3-: 0ppm
pH: 6.6
Cu+: 0ppm
GH: 71.6ppm

I don't fertilize this tank because i was under the impression that moss could grow fine without fertilizer or co2. The tank is 10 gallons. The light is a single 19 volt t8 bulb on 9 hours a day. And the only fauna are around 20 rcs and 5 amanos.

Im also not sure why the ntrate is so low when this tank has been up and running for six monthes.

Thank you


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## GeToChKn (Apr 15, 2011)

Nitrates are 0 because your moss is probably eating it all for food and turning brown cause its not getting enough. Yes, moss can do with extra ferts like EI dosing and wackload of micro-nutrients that other plants need or benefit from, but they do need some sort of food. If your bacteria in your filter is eating all the ammonia and nitrites, which it should having been setup for 6 months, then the end result is a small bit of nitrates, which 25 shrimp isn't going to produce much of a bio-load in the first place. I have some moss like that and my floating frogbit in my tanks started to die a bit so I started dosing with a bit of Seachem flourish which has trace minerals and a bit of nitrogen based compounds as well, so the plants get some food, it does add a bit of calcium and other things too which the shrimp can use and so far, I haven't seen any ill effects of dosing it.

Basically, its like having a person that can live on 1 cracker a day, but when they don't even get that cracker, they're going to start dying. Moss requires very little food but still need something!


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## Chrisinator (Jun 5, 2008)

If there are other mosses on top that's shading the taiwan moss, you're most likely seeing a die off due to a lack of light.


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## livingword26 (Oct 28, 2010)

Are you sure your nitrate is 0, are you confident in what you are using to test it with. If you have a lot of plants, then you may need to add some Nitrate. You can use the Seachem Flourish line, Nitrate, Potassium Phosphate, ect, or possibly something from the Root Medic line. In any case, I would dose at the least some Flourish Comprensive once a week.


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## mmccarthy781 (Jul 7, 2011)

GeToChKn, could it be possible that my biofiltration is to much for only shrimp? Also, is seachem flourish all I will need?

Im pretty sure that my test kit is good. It is the API liquid kits, which I hear are pretty reliable.


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## livingword26 (Oct 28, 2010)

If you don't shake the heck out of the number 2 bottle, you will always get 0ppm nitrates. For a low light, non co2 injected tank, you should only need Flourish Comprehensive. But like I said, if you have a large plant mass, you could need more. Test for phosphates. If both nitrate and phosphate are 0 the you might need to dose a little NPK along with the Flourish Comprehensive.


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## diwu13 (Sep 20, 2011)

mmccarthy781 said:


> GeToChKn, could it be possible that my biofiltration is to much for only shrimp? Also, is seachem flourish all I will need?
> 
> Im pretty sure that my test kit is good. It is the API liquid kits, which I hear are pretty reliable.


You can't really have "too much" biofiltration as the bacteria will adjust their numbers to match the bioload in your tank. So if you only have shrimp there will actually be less beneficial bacteria in your tank compared to the same sized tank containing 25 fish. So it's nothing to worry about.

Seachem flourish should be good enough for moss. You pretty much need something with KNO3 to supplement nitrates. If you want to get fancier use some flourish excel (make sure to underdose) for extra carbon.


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## fresh.salty (Jul 2, 2010)

I had a 20g that had a few fish in it and the moss filled almost 1/2 of the tank, literally. I transferred all the fish to another tank and within 6 months all the moss died off. The only ferts this tank was getting was in the form of fish food.


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## mmccarthy781 (Jul 7, 2011)

seachem flourish contains KNO3? If I use just flourish, how much should I use in a 10 gallon low light tank with shrimp and moss?


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## Redflame (Dec 4, 2011)

My tank is similar but a larger scale 25g, trates are 5-10ppms and my moss grows like a weed on my driftwood tree I have to cut it back every two weeks but I am using t5s and have about 50 rcs.


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