# Moss Only (or Heavy) scapes



## Paulthewitt (30 Mar 2021)

Hi All

As is often the case with me, when i get 'into' something, I don't do things by half! - The amount I know about the make up of gold balls from when I played at uni is quite shocking!
Anyway - having got one small tank at Christmas(the Fluval Spec - journal in my sig) with Orange cherry shrimp in it, I decided to get a bigger one and settled on a 60cm tank as a balance of size, etc... not to mention the floor it will be kept on.

However, in my search I found a tank which was for sale at a price that was too good. - A 50x30x30cm - 45l tank. This came with lovely velvet blue shrimp, some celestial pearl danios and an endler. So I bought this.
But I still wanted a 60cm tank with more volume as I would like to keep some Apistos and forktail rainbow fish and don't want to keep them in anything smaller. Anyway - I now have exactly that. So I have 3 tanks. So I have to decide exactly what to do with them all. My plan is as follows:

1) Rescape the 45L tank into a moss only/heavy tank with a view to breeding the velvet blue shrimp. It came with a nest of Java Moss - so My main idea would be to reuse that.
2) Scape the 60cm tank with a view to this being my main/favourite tank. Move the orange shrimp in here along with fish - hopefully the shrimp survive and I will give them plenty of hiding places.
3) Fluval spec - Pretty much continue as is as far as scape goes. I may remove the dwarf hairgrass as it isn't exactly thriving. but isn't dying off either. However, with the orange shrimp gone into the other tank, my hope is to make this a combined baby shrimp tank. When I notice a berried shrimp - orange or blue - move them in here, once laid move them back. Once babies are big enough to see and colour, move them into the appropriate main tank. The idea being that this tank will have no predators, so will help me have a higher survival rate, but that shrimp will be moved out before they can interbreed. I imagine the orange shrimp ini the main tank will not grow huge in numbers due to the circle of life, but the blue shrimp I would like to be able to sell to help fund/soften the blow of the costs of the hobby.

So the main question from all of this is about the 45L tank and rescaping it into a moss (mostly java) based scape. Looking on the internet I cannot find much/anything in terms of moss only scapes where you can see how it was made. I have found a few end products that look good, but thats all. It is entirely possible that when searching on here I have been rubbish of course! but if anyone can point me in a direction that would be great.
I am hoping to maybe do a moss carpet from java moss, then cover some stone and branches in moss for the scape, with maybe a little flame moss or weeping moss for effect - make it super shrimp friendly, but also very low maintenance (hopefully), with just a few small fish to make it more interesting. It has a oase thermo 50 internal filter at the moment, which whilst ugly - seems to work well. I have a Oase filtosmart thermo 100 I could use instead?

Suggestions and ideas please - either on scaping tips and possible links to previous journals if you know of them; but also on my 3 tank 'baby farm' solution - or whether it is just better to have 2 tanks and not faff about so much!

many thanks


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## ceg4048 (30 Mar 2021)

Hello,
          It's not really clear what your question is. You can scape your tank with anything you want. If you want an all moss tank then just get some super glue and glue the moss to whatever surface you desire. If you want a moss carpet then simply follow the guide in the Tutorial Section of the forum=> *Moss Carpet Step by Step Guide*

Hope this helps.

Cheers,


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## Paulthewitt (31 Mar 2021)

ceg4048 said:


> Hello,
> It's not really clear what your question is. You can scape your tank with anything you want. If you want an all moss tank then just get some super glue and glue the moss to whatever surface you desire. If you want a moss carpet then simply follow the guide in the Tutorial Section of the forum=> *Moss Carpet Step by Step Guide*
> 
> Hope this helps.
> ...



Looking back over my post you are right...I got all sorts of distracted! Thanks for the link, its an interesting post that I may use.

I guess I am asking primiarily if anybody has any start to finish journals of moss only or very moss heavy scapes, to see how other more experienced people have done this before as I can't really find anything like that...but that could be due to my own failings in knowing where or how to look

thanks
Paul


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## Ash_bash (31 Mar 2021)

Paulthewitt said:


> Looking back over my post you are right...I got all sorts of distracted! Thanks for the link, its an interesting post that I may use.
> 
> I guess I am asking primiarily if anybody has any start to finish journals of moss only or very moss heavy scapes, to see how other more experienced people have done this before as I can't really find anything like that...but that could be due to my own failings in knowing where or how to look
> 
> ...


One of my favourite moss only scapes is at aquarium gardens.

They can be abit of a nightmare to upkeeps as when you trim the moss any loose bits that float around will start to grow when they land, best thing to do is siphon just above where you cut so it vacuums it all out as you go.

 It's 3.10 on video.


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## Gill (31 Mar 2021)

I have used this seller a few times and been very happy with his ready made moss sheets etc. 
Moss Sheets


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## shangman (31 Mar 2021)

Hello!

I have a moss-heavy tank - The Mossy Spider - my third tank and first journal!
I keep some other plants as a carpet at the bottom and have a few things like hygrophila mixed in, but the feature is the wood with a variety of mosses. It is a very low-maintenence tank, I've never had to trim the moss or anything, I just change a bit of water weekly. I don't use CO2 so it grows quite slowly.

If you want a moss-heavy tank, the no.1 thing I think you should do is a dry start. This means that your moss will go a long way (making it quite a cheap technique), because you blitz it in a food processor with some water and a bit of yoghurt, and then paint it on your wood/rocks (wood ideally pre-soaked) and then keep it in the tank with only a bit of water at the bottom with clingfilm on the top for 3 - 6 weeks. This allows the tiny bits of moss to attach themselves to your hardscape, and then when you flood the tank with water they grow in a much more natural, even and bushy way. It takes 2 - 3 months to get looking really good, but it works perfectly. I found that it worked best with fissdens and mini christmas moss, but it also worked with mini pelia as well. I personally wouldn't use java moss as it is one of the least pretty mosses - fissidens fontanus, christmas moss (especially mini) and weeping moss are much nicer looking. 

The only thing that didn't work very well was putting it on the sand floor, I think because it doesn't have a good anchor point moss doesn't grows well on it and always looks tatty. I think if you want moss on your floor you should either do the mesh technique above, or cover the floor with large flat wood/stones/pebbles (ideally with some texture rather than super smooth) and do the dry start method on that.

This video has a good tutorial on the dry start:


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## Paulthewitt (31 Mar 2021)

thanks all - there's some super helpful stuff in those posts.
I agree with you @shangman  about java moss not being the prettiest ...but it is one I have a vast supply of in the tank that I will rescape - so it is a cost cutting measure! I'm hoping trimming will keep it in check.
Its looking like I may nee to rethink the moss carpet idea in reality ... but then an island effect with a sand surround could look good too
Your scape looks lovely too btw. I may go more iwagumi (rocks or wood...i know, thats not iwagumi!...but not so tangly either way) just for easy maintenance and to force the shrimp to be more visible.

@Ash_bash that scape is lovely, a really nice example - thanks.

Nothing will happen quickly here - so I have time to give it thought!


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## glasscanvasart (31 Mar 2021)

I really like this aquascape that I found on Instagram and it’s a similar size to your own.


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## Paulthewitt (1 Apr 2021)

glasscanvasart said:


> I really like this aquascape that I found on Instagram and it’s a similar size to your own.View attachment 166121


Thats another incredible scape - I just can't see me ever making something that impressive! Hopefully with time I will


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## PARAGUAY (1 Apr 2021)

You will get something very good and java moss is a good start picking out nice pieces of branched wood to glue or tie it to. The advice is to always spread it on thinly and regular trim as it grows( important) to get it looking lush. Java moss is a great survivor l put two pieces on wood in the plany house outside the buckets frozen solid on thawing the moss looking great.


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## aec34 (1 Apr 2021)

...if you _don’t_ trim this is what a small portion does without CO2 in 5 months (20l cube)...


Shrimp love it. Wish me luck sorting this out at some point!


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## Paulthewitt (1 Apr 2021)

Good luck! I can empathise... this is what I inherited:


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## Cor (10 May 2021)

Paulthewitt said:


> I guess I am asking primiarily if anybody has any start to finish journals of moss only or very moss heavy scapes,


Maybe this is helpful.


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