# New Zealand Spaghnam Moss



## bluedart (Sep 5, 2005)

Question- is it possible for dried, dead, NZ Spaghnam moss to start growing new moss on itself? And, would it be possible to treat it somehow, plant it in a new tank, and it spread away from the dead moss? Thanks!


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## chuckpowell (May 12, 2004)

The dry moss contains spores that can start to grow given the right conditions. But I don't know of a way to treat moss in a tank and make it grow again. Most moss, especially sphagnum needs high light levels to grow properly. 

Best,

Chuck


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

Sphagnum moss, at least the native stuff around here, grow in open marshes/bogs - lots of light.

Occassionally the sphagnum moss does come back from the dried stuff - this is the exception, not the rule. There is no way to treat it to make it come back to life, or have spores germinate - either it will or it won't. There are some people on the board that are lucky enough to have access to clean bogs and can supply live starter bags of the native stuff during warmer times of year.


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## bluedart (Sep 5, 2005)

Thanks. As I believe atleast Corey knows, my azureus died recently. What I'm worried about is the off chance he died from a parasite. I believe it much more likely that it was STS, but I'm worried about the other chances that it COULD have been something else. The only plants I have are the ones in my tanks, some fig, a couple broms, and a nice White Arrowhead. I wouldn't see any problems salvaging the pup, would you?? It was never exposed to the frog. The moss is growing from thedead stuff- would it be safe to take some from this tank, maybe grow it in a stock tank for a while, and then transplant it to the new tank? I'm building an imi tanks right now.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

There is no way of honestly knowing why that animal died unless you got a necrospy - I wouldn't assume it was a parasite unless you had proof (and STS is more of a symptom than the actual problem). Unfortunately since you really don't know why he died, I wouldn't use anything that came from the tank the animal was from, if its had direct contact with the frog or indirect (such as plants placed in the tank in contact with stuff thats been in direct contact with the frog).


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## bluedart (Sep 5, 2005)

Right. I suppose it's all going to be destoryed... shame too. about 100 bucks worth of materials in the tank.


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## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

Josh,

I've had New Zealand sphagnum moss come to life on multiple occasions in my vivs. It's a fairly slow process but kind of neat to watch. I can keep track of the viv age by how the moss is greening up. Basically, good light and moisture help the process along.

Bummer about your azureus but I agree that unless you know the cause of death, caution is the best policy.

Bill


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

Yeah, it really sucks to have to tear down an established tank, especially a display tank with $$$ of supplies involved. This is one of the main reasons I keep my frogs in simple and cheap set ups when I initially get them. While juvies, I grow them up to sexable size in these tanks, I keep adults in these tanks til I figure out what I want to do with them (get more and make a group? What sexes do I need? Keep it only to what I have?). 

Half the fun of the frogs is creating the environment they live in, but sometimes we also have to take steps to protect our investment and make sure the frogs are 100%.


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## slaytonp (Nov 14, 2004)

I have used the long brown New Zealand type sphagnum moss for about 50 years for various growing purposes. The milled product, a finely ground version was my "secret" for growing rare cacti seed such as Frailia from the Ritter Expedition to South America in the 50's. Mixed with sand, it absolutely prevented "damping off," which was the bane of starting seed from these tiny cacti from the totaly dry high costal plains of Peru and Chile where fog is their only source of moisture. There appears to be an "antibiotic" quality to this particular dried moss that discourages many bacteria and fungi that cause rot. I used it for years to start bedding plant seeds, difficult alpine plants, all manner of succulents and cacti with incredible success, and I still use it in vivariums for its somewhat "magical" qualities in high humidity and rot-prone situations. 

Long ago however, it always seemed to come alive eventually, and grow on its own over the flats and in terrariums up until the late 80's. Now, my bulk sources of New Zealand sphagnum never do this, although I do have one tank in which it is now growing in one area on some cork bark-- a rare event. I wonder if there has been some kind of change in the processing that now kills off the spores before packaging and exporting it. I've been curious about this for a long time, but have never been able to find anything about how it is now treated before shipping. Perhaps it is now heat/steam treated to sterilize it, which would also kill nearly all of the spores.


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## twisner (Jul 7, 2005)

sort of an off topic question, what is milled sphagnum moss?
can you "mill" regular NZ sphagnum?


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## slaytonp (Nov 14, 2004)

Milled sphagnum is just the regular brown sphagnum ground up into smaller pieces for seeding. It used to be readily available in that state, but I haven't seen milled sphagnum on the market in several years. If you wanted to have milled sphagnum for some reason now, you could just chop it up in a blender.


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## bluedart (Sep 5, 2005)

Much is probably killed of in sterilization for smaller packaging. I got my moss from a guy who orders it in BULK. Like... 100's of pounds of the stuff. Sad they're tearing up all that moss though...


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## Guest (Dec 28, 2005)

I noticed some of mine is coming back. I had to service my pump the other night, and folded back the moss to get to the door. All along the back of the viv sits by an east window, that gets filtered light. And the sphagnum has started to grow under the moss. I plan on cutting some of this new growth off and starting some for future vivs.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

It used to be that they just let it dry out in the sun I thought to get it dry... maybe they did start using another faster way to dry it out so they could package it faster?

Sphagnum moss in its ideal habitat grows incredibly fast - esepcially the aquatic stuff which is just clumps of massive stuff (hard to walk thru too, geez what a work out). You can pull out enough to FILL a 29 gallon up to the top, and in a couple weeks you won't even be able to tell where you pulled it from in the pond. This is a renuable resource easily if done right.

In the parts of MD where I saw lots of this stuff This growth rate seemed to be an evolutionary advatage. The prime spots to find the stuff in the early summer completely dried out over the later summer killing the moss. I have a feeling come thaw again in the spring, the moss will sprout again and use its fast growth rate to cover those areas yet again!

This moss needs so much light tho its hard to replicate this in our tanks, but they still show ok to decent growth (if they showed full growth they'd take over the tank!).


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## sports_doc (Nov 15, 2004)

AT BLACK JUNGLE THE FELLAS HAVE A FEW TANKS THAT ARE ENTIRELY LIVE SPHAGNUM. BROUGHT BACK TO LIFE SIMPLY BY USING IT ALONE IN A TANK, UNDER HIGH LIGHT. 

RICH TOLD ME AS LONG AS HE DOESNT LET IT CONTACT COCO, DIRT, ECT (I ASSUME DO TO SOME SMALL AMOUNTS OF DISSOLVED SALTS), IT WILL GROW BACK FROM THE DRIED STUFF READILY......TAKES A FEW MONTHS BUT MAKES A REALLY NEET LOOKING TURF OF BRIGHT GREEEN. 

HE GROWS UP SOME OF THE JUVI THUMBS IN THOSE TANKS BY PLACING A PLASTIC CONTAINER RIGHT IN THE CENTER OF A 10 GAL. THE CONTAINER IS FULL OF 'SOIL' AND SPRINGTAILS AND A FEW LEAVES, WHILE THE REST OF THE BARE TANK IS LIVE MOSS.....

SHAWN


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## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

I had to dig this photo up but here is an example of New Zealand sphagnum 'coming back to life' - in this case in the quarantine viv of a man creek pumilio. You can actually see the old sphagnum underneath in places. It looked like this roughly three months after rehydrating the sphagnum and laying it down.










This process has repeated itself across multiple vivs.

Bill


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