# Riparium Plant: Christmas Moss



## Hoppy (Dec 24, 2005)

About 5 weeks ago I bought some Christmas moss on the Swap n Shop forum, and spread it out and tied it on a riparium raft. It has been in my nursery tank, with minimal care, since then. Last week I noticed that it is now growing very well, and looking good. Clearly this plant will grow emersed very well, so covering rafts with it is a cinch. When I redo one of my two big ripariums I will be adding this raft, and maybe another one I have a tiny bit of it growing on.

I'll bet if you were to link a couple of rafts together this stuff would soon cover both of them, creeping from one to the other. You can't get a much lower foreground plant than this.


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## Craigthor (Sep 9, 2007)

Nice!


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## hydrophyte (Mar 1, 2009)

Wow. That's fantastic. You can't see the foam at all--and five weeks for that nice coverage seems pretty quick. Is that the regular trellis raft or the nano?


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## londonloco (Aug 25, 2005)

Can we get a pic of it in the tank?


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## Delslo (Feb 5, 2010)

Nice and a pic would definitely be nice


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## Hoppy (Dec 24, 2005)

The raft is a nano trellis raft minus the center insert, with just the open hole there. I don't have it in a scaped riparium yet, so the only picture I can get is in my nursery tank (swamp?). It has grown so much the outer edges are back under water, reaching down towards the substrate. But, the first 2-3 weeks it looked like nothing but dark green scum on the raft.


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## hydrophyte (Mar 1, 2009)

Again, Wow! Nice work. 

I gotta get me some a that moss.


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## hydrophyte (Mar 1, 2009)

Hoppy can you see if the moss has actually adhered to the foam at all, or is it just sitting on top?

If you stick those dumbbell floats underneath they will help to hold the raft up higher while the growing moss weights it down.


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## CL (Mar 13, 2008)

Oh yeah, all aquatic mosses work very well emersed. Heres a few shots of different mosses I used in ripariums (singapore, taiwan, flame among others)
flame








singapore








taiwan mostly (also some other mosses mixed in on the wood, I forgot which ones, though)
















All of those pictures are of the moss before it took over. I took out a good 3 pounds of taiwan moss from the ten gallon vertical alone.
riccia works very well too (6 year old cell phone picture lol)








as does hc (2.5 gallon)


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## Hoppy (Dec 24, 2005)

Wow! Those are impressive pics! I wish I had known that mosses all grow well emersed when I first set up my first riparium. It's like getting a whole new media to compose a picture with.


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## Hoppy (Dec 24, 2005)

hydrophyte said:


> Hoppy can you see if the moss has actually adhered to the foam at all, or is it just sitting on top?
> 
> If you stick those dumbbell floats underneath they will help to hold the raft up higher while the growing moss weights it down.


I can't tell if the moss is attached to the foam or if the many turns of thread are all that holds it. I turned it over and nothing sagged down, so I suspect it is at least loosely attached to the foam. It isn't nearly heavy enough to need the floats on the raft, and I doubt that it can get that heavy. I like the effect of the moss feathering down into the water too.


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## RipariumGuy (Aug 6, 2009)

Very nice Hoppy! I wonder if you could put moss over all the rafts in a tank, to cover them.


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## Craigthor (Sep 9, 2007)

Hoppy said:


> I can't tell if the moss is attached to the foam or if the many turns of thread are all that holds it. I turned it over and nothing sagged down, so I suspect it is at least loosely attached to the foam. It isn't nearly heavy enough to need the floats on the raft, and I doubt that it can get that heavy. I like the effect of the moss feathering down into the water too.


 
Hoppy,

I'm going to try some Peacock Moss as soon as the seller has some again. Would be interesting to see how it grows out.

Craig


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## AlexXx (Dec 1, 2009)

wow those are some impressive tanks.


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## Hoppy (Dec 24, 2005)

JakeJ said:


> Very nice Hoppy! I wonder if you could put moss over all the rafts in a tank, to cover them.


That was what I wanted to do originally, but I started by just covering a raft to see how it would work. I'm not sure if the moss would soon grow to cover any other low plants on a raft, but it does grow slowly so that should be manageable.


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## hydrophyte (Mar 1, 2009)

That stuff would look really fantastic growing around the edges of an Epi-Trellis Raft planted with _Anubias barteri_.


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## macclellan (Dec 22, 2006)

Yes, aquatic mosses are great emmersed. My all-time favorite is peacock moss. So thick and lush.


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## hydrophyte (Mar 1, 2009)

Hey Hoppy another question has come to mind. 

Do you have this moss going in a closed-top, high-humidity setup, or in a tank with more air circulation? I just wonder about the humidity requirements of this moss(??).


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## Hoppy (Dec 24, 2005)

hydrophyte said:


> Hey Hoppy another question has come to mind.
> 
> Do you have this moss going in a closed-top, high-humidity setup, or in a tank with more air circulation? I just wonder about the humidity requirements of this moss(??).


I don't have any high humidity tank to experiment with. I grew that raft of moss in my nursery 10 gallon tank, about half full of water, open topped. For a week or two I was dunking the raft under water every couple of days, just to make sure it didn't dry out, but then I quit and ignored it for quite awhile. It doesn't seem to require much care of any kind.


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## hydrophyte (Mar 1, 2009)

Thanks. This is good information to have. 

Gotta get me some!


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## Craigthor (Sep 9, 2007)

hydrophyte said:


> Thanks. This is good information to have.
> 
> Gotta get me some!


 
Devin- when I get ready to send your package lmk I'll see how the peacock moss is doing and send some along.... The stuff looks great spread on the rafts. I coverd a large and a nano raft with what I got.

Craig


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