zozo
Member
Or just simply to fresh..
The older and softer the wood the fermer they can and will attach. In nature epiphytes grow on bark or rather aged wood.. I've noticed it with Spiderwood i use emersed it took me over a year to finaly get some mosses surviving on it. The orchid i planted to it died wihin months, couldn't keep it moist enough with sphagnum only. This wood is to hard and to fresh to hold any water for longer than a few minutes. It stands emersed opun another submersed piece of wood. It very slowly soakes water up, each month a few milimeters higher. Where mosses have grown by now are actualy also helping i guess.. Very gradualy i see the moss climbing up and the wood soaks the water a milimeter higher then the moss. The moss follows.. A creepy multi year project.I have some pieces of spiderwood in little closed bottles. Also over a year now, still can't get mossos to grow to it.
Even submersed i noticed significant differences in how fermly epiphytes attach, one tank contains Opuwa, a very dry and hard Savana wood from afrika, probably never got wet all the time laying around before collected. it was very fresh and very hard. Everything attaches rather loosly, i've nocked my fair share plants off the wood doing maintenance. And the other tank i got Mopani, also a African savana wood, but it was stored outside for years at the LFS backyard and was rather weathered and way softer. Something we like to avoid, but i did it anyway, noticed the epiphytes grow beter and attach more fermly to it. It also leached as hell for over a year, but had no further issues. Its a low tech and it grew more mosses to it in a shorter periode than the high tech with fresh Opuwa ever did.
