# Sphagnum moss layer needed?



## soulembrace (Aug 28, 2017)

do I need a layer of Sphagnum moss? 

some sites says it's needed and neherb says you can (a layer of 1/4-1/2") but you don't have too and that some plants don't grow in it and that it can restrict airflow because it breaks down quicker.

so what's your all thoughts?


----------



## S2G (Jul 5, 2016)

Makes leaf litter soggy and breaks down quicker. Holds too much humidity. I think its a practice leftover from the days of totally sealed enclosures


----------



## thenatureterrarium (May 13, 2017)

I have never used it. Sometimes people use it in grow out tubs or deli cups when they sell frogs or ship frogs. I think it has its purpose but not really for a display terrarium.


----------



## soulembrace (Aug 28, 2017)

I have some half cork rounds I have mounted in the tank and thinking of using the ends to plant some Bromeliads in.....you think it will be a good idea to put some of the Sphagnum moss inside there?


----------



## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

I have yet to meet an old school frogger who practiced putting a layer of sphagnum down on your substrate, so I'm not sure I'd call it a holdover from the days of sealed tanks.
Sphagnum moss layered on your substrate causes your leaf litter to break down quicker. It slows down air from diffusing through your substrate. It looks unnatural. I've never seen a rairforest shot that included a sphagnum moss floor, but I've sure seen a lot with leaf litter. Sphagnum moss retains water...lots of it. Orchid growers planting in pots of sphagnum (similar to a sphag substrate), must be very careful not to overwater. An orchid in a cup of sphagnum is more likely to suffocate it's roots, than other methods of planting. 

Can anybody explain to my what the purpose is in creating an expensive, well thought out, well drained, yet moisture holding, substrate, only to completely bury it a layer that does nothing but hold vast amounts of water? Seriously, where does this practice come from? I hate to suggest the only thing that makes sense. 
Retailers in our hobby tell us to put sphag down. The same retailers who will be selling you replacement leaf litter about 4 times as often as to those customers who ignore such practices.
There is really only one other possibility, and it's rather ridiculous. It could be to raise the internal humidity. Of course, you went to all the trouble and expense to build a false bottom. A false bottom that holds an inch or so of water, BELOW the substrate, where it doesn't attempt to nuke your whole vivarium, along with all bugs, plants, and frogs. That inch of water...what do you think it is doing for your internal tank humidity? So we are really going to have 2 things to accomplish the same feat? Why do we need both? More importantly, ask yourself which method makes sense, and which one sounds so utterly ridiculous, that even beginners in our hobby think to question it.

The last problem I have with such a crappy practice, is my biggest objection. If you create a constantly waterlogged substrate (which is absolutely what you will be doing if you follow that advice), then you also create the very real, and high chance of bacterial infections. These can shorten the live of your frogs, or even kill them outright. Terribilis frogs, in particular, are very susceptible to bacterial infections from wet feet. You can go to bed with all your frogs seemingly fine. Wake up, and their feet and legs could be rotted away to the bone. This has unfortunately been proven many times over. I've seen at least half a dozen threads on rotting feet and dying frogs, from nothing more than a wet substrate.

When a retailer continues to post bad advice that has no apparent benefits to your microfauna, frogs, plants, or even simply the beauty of the vivarium, but HAS been PROVEN to kill frogs...that pisses me off.

Soul Embrace, thank you! Of course you should be questioning this. It makes absolutely no sense! If it doesn't make sense, and in fact, seems so very opposite of what does make sense...QUESTION IT!!


----------



## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

Hat's off to Neherp for saying _why_ it's not necessary.


----------



## soulembrace (Aug 28, 2017)

thanks Pumilo! that help me understand why it's not needed and also S2G.

can it be used inside of some half cork rounds I have mounted in the tank and thinking of using the ends to plant some Bromeliads in or just not use it at all?

thanks again


----------



## Eloquentidiot (Feb 28, 2013)

<can it be used inside of some half cork rounds I have mounted in the tank and thinking of using the ends to plant some Bromeliads in or just not use it at all?>

IMO it depends how humid your tank will be. I used to do this with broms but find that in a consistently very humid tank it's not really necessary to embed the base of the brom in sphag and this might promote rot if you restrict airflow too much. I've had more luck drilling a hole into the cork round, pushing the 'stem' (sorry, I don't know the formal nomenclature for bromeliad pups) into the hole, and draping a bit of sphag around where the roots should emerge*. For already rooted broms a lot of people will use zip ties or fishing line to actually 'tie' the brom root ball to the cork which I have found works well too.
In less humid tanks it may be necessary to have more sphag for the brom to root, but I will still often use a mix of sphag, orchid bark, charcoal, etc. to help keep this somewhat closed area a bit more porous.

* Note - once the brom has grown in a bit I find this an excellent place to attach pleurothallids or other high-humidity, lower light orchids.

- Paul


----------



## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

Sphagnum moss has it's uses, including as a part of your substrate, like ABG mix, but that, of course, does not utilize it as a layer. I use plenty of sphagnum on my walls, both to mount epiphytes, and to provide them with rooting area, and a "reservoir" of moisture.
Broms however, are an entirely different story. Broms do not collect moisture through their roots. Broms use the water that collects in the axils of the plant. Broms use their roots solely for grabbing onto the wood they are mounted on. Broms require zero sphagnum. In fact, sphagnum can actually be detrimental to broms, in that constantly holding moisture against and around the roots, when it's not supposed to be there, can allow rot to set in, killing the plant.

So my direct answer to your question is no, I would not fill the log with sphagnum for the purpose of mounting a brom in it. 

My indirect answer to your question is yes, you could fill the log with sphagnum to plant something else in, like a shingler "vine" running up the wall, or a peperomia trailing down the log. Your brom, of course, would be mounted traditionally, directly attached to the outside of the hollow log, where it does not touch the sphagnum.

If you wanted to plant an orchid in the log, rather than on it, I'd look at eloquent's suggestion of sphag, orchid bark, and charcoal mix. If it were mine however, I'd mount an orchid on it, rather than in it.


----------



## soulembrace (Aug 28, 2017)

sounds good. will not be putting the moss in it and will mount the boom to either wood or the out side of the cork log. I have two Half logs mounter to the glass of the tank and one in on the back wall and one on on of the side wall that i'm thinking of putting a Pilea depressa 'Baby Tears' in the top of it one and a Peperomia 'Cupid' in top of the other. the center one is going straight up and down and the one on the side is at an angle. I ordered the faults bottom and the ABG mix from josh's frogs and I order one extra bag of the ABG mix to fill at least one on the logs up with or would the moss be a better. also should I put some kind of hose coming out of the logs to drain the water, since the bottom will probably be covered with great stuff?

is the two plants I have in mind a good one for what I wanting to do?

thanks


----------



## rosicakes (Oct 28, 2017)

Thanks everyone for this post! I was wondering about this myself and it answered all my questions.


----------



## freezedried74 (Sep 2, 2017)

Pumilo said:


> Sphagnum moss has it's uses, including as a part of your substrate, like ABG mix, but that, of course, does not utilize it as a layer. I use plenty of sphagnum on my walls, both to mount epiphytes, and to provide them with rooting area, and a "reservoir" of moisture.
> Broms however, are an entirely different story. Broms do not collect moisture through their roots. Broms use the water that collects in the axils of the plant. Broms use their roots solely for grabbing onto the wood they are mounted on. Broms require zero sphagnum. In fact, sphagnum can actually be detrimental to broms, in that constantly holding moisture against and around the roots, when it's not supposed to be there, can allow rot to set in, killing the plant.
> 
> So my direct answer to your question is no, I would not fill the log with sphagnum for the purpose of mounting a brom in it.
> ...


Thank you. I am new and thought I needed to keep the brom roots moist. Great information.


----------



## serial hobbiest (Mar 5, 2017)

Pumilo said:


> Can anybody explain to my what the purpose is in creating an expensive, well thought out, well drained, yet moisture holding, substrate, only to completely bury it a layer that does nothing but hold vast amounts of water? Seriously, where does this practice come from?


When I picked up my frogs from the breeder back on Aug 30th, I asked her about the usage of sphagnum, as she recommended it, and I had no intention of initially using it for all the reasons you mentioned here, Doug. What sold me on giving it a try, is that the frogs will get between the leaf litter and the substrate, and inevitably pick up bits of the substrate (namely the tree fern fiber) on their skin and it stresses them out. It makes sense when you consider how coarse and scratchy TFF feels against your skin, so imagine how uncomfortable that would be, having the thin, delicate skin of a frog, and having to live with that irritant stuck to your body for the duration of your life. I'm sure you must have seen a frog go flipping mad trying wipe off something stuck to its back, right?

All that being said, I'm ready to yank out my sphagnum. Although the leaf litter (and sphag.) around the front & sides of my viv remain pretty dry & intact, I've gone through two batches of magnolia (where damp) in two months. I have a relentless mold problem (black mold, and a stinkier one), and surely the sphagnum isn't helping.


----------



## cold-blooded12 (Aug 20, 2012)

I know I'm a little late to the party and that everything has been answered, but I wanted to give my opinion and experience on the sphagnum layer. 

I used a sphagnum layer on top of my abg mix in my first viv, and after my experience with it, I don't use it as a layer anymore. Mine did exactly what Doug stated. It held water and too much of it. Let's just say my plants paid the price. 

I still use it but as a filler for cork bark, mounting epiphytes, etc. Sphagnum has great uses but I don't believe a layer under your leaf litter is a good one.


----------



## Deanmachine (Aug 22, 2018)

Old thread but decided to put in my recent experience. I too had a layer of sphagnum above the substrate in my viv for the last few months. There are a lot of youtube vids and vendor how-tos that say to do this for the reasons stated by other above.

At first everything was good, but in the last few weeks I noticed that the substrate was holding way to much water and thus killing my terrestrials. Mounted plants up above suffered from lack of water as I cut down misting to try to address this. Moss is out now, and within a week I can see a major improvements in most plants. I left very small patches of sphagnum around plants that seemed to relly thrive with the extra moisture. Frogs seem just as clean and happy.

TLDR: Sphagnum layer above substrate would have eventually killed everything in my viv besides the frogs


----------



## PBM3000 (Oct 4, 2019)

What _are_ people using in place of sphagnum? Or is it just leaves over substrate?


----------



## Fahad (Aug 25, 2019)

PBM3000 said:


> What _are_ people using in place of sphagnum? Or is it just leaves over substrate?


I now use a calcined clay substrate with lots of leaf litter directly on top. It's great for springtails.


----------



## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

PBM3000 said:


> just leaves over substrate?


Yes, this.


----------



## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

PBM3000 said:


> just leaves over substrate?


Yes, a couple layers of leaf litter over ABG.


----------



## ItsFebreze (Oct 19, 2019)

I usually put some in the soil mixture, but never a thick layer on top. I enjoy the way it looks, especially on top of wood features. But a thick layer at the bottom sounds like a good way to get way too soggy.


----------

