# little help with moss



## tkavan01 (Mar 17, 2004)

as you can probably tell i'm a begginer, i'm building up a viv right now, i've got a question about moss...

this is the back drop of my tank so far, its all made of bluestone...
i'm posting a pic here, what i want to do is get some type of moss to grow in the cracks... any suggestions on how too do this? what should i fill the cracks with to promote this? what kinda moss would work best?


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## Guest (Mar 31, 2004)

pillow or club moss would work great. grows really tight and small. 
you would have to make sure that it would get enought light in the cracks thou. and enough water. 

I have this moss growing at my new house all over the place and it seems i cant get rid of it if you want to PM me your mailing address, i can send you as much as you want.


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## kyle1745 (Feb 15, 2004)

First where did you get the rock?

Second, you may want to use silicone and then some eco earth to cover the cracks then put the moss on that. It may attach to it a little better.


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## AlexB (Feb 15, 2004)

You could also use java moss if it is kept wet enough. I have a handful of these in my new tank and theyre already starting to grow crazy.


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## tkavan01 (Mar 17, 2004)

the rock is called blue stone at the landscaping center, i bought several large stepping stones and split them myself, i was thinking about siliconing and then using coco husk stuff put on it, but i'm afraid it would trap water behind the rocks and stuff...


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## tkavan01 (Mar 17, 2004)

will the pillow or club moss survive with this amount of water flowing?
i plan on misting by hand twice a day right now, and maybe in the future setting up something automated...
for lighhting i'm gonna use a 1x55 watt setup from AHsupply, with a 6700k
bulb, will that be sufficient lighting?


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## Ryan (Feb 18, 2004)

That looks great, most moss cant live under constant water llike that. I think java is the best choice.


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## tkavan01 (Mar 17, 2004)

anyone wanna see a video of it?

http://home.comcast.net/~akirafound/P1010007.MOV

i have to change the rate of flow, slow it down a bit so its more of a trickle...


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## Guest (Apr 1, 2004)

Thats AWESOME! i would really like a few more details on how you built this back wall. i have been wanting to do something similar to this, but havent really worked out the details. you think you could post a "step-by-step" of how you did it? would be greatly appreciated. 

Also, how much does that weigh? with that much stone, are you worried about the glass bottom giving out?


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## tkavan01 (Mar 17, 2004)

i'll defn put up a step by step when i'm finished, i'm currently using my time to actually finish! the back ground is a combo of eggcrate and 
bluestone slate, its only about 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick so overall the background weighs in at 7-10 pounds(icould be totally delusional so i'll 
weigh it when i get home tonight) i think it very light weight, and should not put more stress then 20 gallons of water would have on the floor, 
also as i type this i remembered that i replaced the floor awhile back
with 1/4 lucite from lowe's, and the whole thing sits on top of eggcrate false bottom so ican't imagine it being too heavy...


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## tkavan01 (Mar 17, 2004)

ok so i weighed the rock background, its 11 pounds wet, 
i made an attempt to fill in the cracks, here's what i've got so far...
does this look about right to anyone else? can moss grow on this stuff if 
its damp enough? 









also here's kinda a rough look at the setup, minus the soil and water...
(sorry about so many pics, but i'm excited bc i found out comcast will 
host about 25 megs worth of stuff online for me, and if i don't use it i'm 
not getting my 40 bucks a months worth)


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## Arklier (Mar 1, 2004)

Where did you find the thin slate pieces? All the slate I can find around here is far too thick and heavy, being huge pieces of 2"-3" thickness.


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## tkavan01 (Mar 17, 2004)

it started out being 2-3 inch think slabs of slate,
the trick is to find the pieces that are made of the most "sedimentary"
layers, that is if you look at the rock from the side you can distinguish all 
the different layers that made up the rock, if the bluestone is one
consisten color all the way through its no good...
basically the best trick is to look for the leftover rocks that are crumbling,
luckily the ones you want are the ones most people avoid, 
the flakier they are the better and easier they will split...
also on a side not, usually if you bring up a broken slate they will
sell it at a rather large discount, at the place i go they will charge me
the rate for gravel per pound...


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## Guest (Apr 2, 2004)

i think that that waterfall is great looking. 

I guess i need to swing by the hardware store this weekend......

i dont know if i really like the vertical pieces of rock, i would have maybe overlaped a few pieces or put some at an angle to give it a more natural look, but i do like the big flat piece at the bottom of the fall, that will look really nice with water pooled on it. 

Great job, keep us updated with pics and plant selection. i cant wait!


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## tkavan01 (Mar 17, 2004)

the flat rock against the wall is kinda space filler/backdrop,
i saw some guy at a reptile show who had done the back of his tank
this way and i thought it was great, the original intent was to have it
all like this, but then i wanted a water fall...
also adding more dimension to the rock meant eating up more floor 
space, and adding weight, this tank is gonna house green and black auratus, so i'm trying to keep as much space as i can,

plant selection and the such will depend on the lighting i'm able to 
afford, i want to do a pretty decent amount of light over the tank...
but future plans for the tank mean that its goin to work with me,
so i don't want to invest too heavily in plants for it...
probably gonna be mostly ground cover.

this tank is an exercise in preparing for my larger tanks...
i think i might start posting updates in the begginer section,
this has kinda drifted off the topics of plants


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## Guest (Apr 2, 2004)

topics drift, it happens. i still think it looks great.... and the MOSS will look good in there too.....

there, back on topic =)


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## benmz (Feb 18, 2004)

I really like your terrarium. It will look top notch. I think you will be able to grow both java and the pillow moss on the waterfall. The Java will grow where it is extremely wet and the pillow should grow in the dryer areas. The background wall will be challenging. It's going to be hard to establish moss on the vertical surfaces, even with the misting. How much ventilation will be available to the background. The more ventilation there, the dryer the moss will become, therefore harder to establish. It will also be hard to set up any plants there. A background is a perfect place to experiment with plants. It provides greenery and some interest. I know some bromeliads and maybe some other epiphytes will definately try to attach themselves to the rock and slate, but you will have to hold them in place for a while. You may want to glue some cork pieces on for little ledges to help with either the moss or plants you choose.

-Ben


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## tkavan01 (Mar 17, 2004)

will the moss and other plants root to the cork bark?
i've been dabbling with the idea of using some liquid nails
to glue some to the rocks...
i think my first plants will be low light plants bc i don't have a good enough light setup for this tank...

tonight lots of progress will be made on the tank hopefully, 
i'm calibrating the water heater to the temp i want it to keep the water at
73-74 degreesjust to keep the ambi temp up


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