# Moss during fishless cycle



## Andrew M. (Aug 28, 2012)

I've read that moss should be fine during fishless cycle so long as you keep lighting hours to a minimum to minimize algae. In specific I have fissidens and mini pellia in a 5 gallon that been in the process for 6 days. I've noticed the tips of the fissidens are a bit faded in colour but that may just be from handling and transportation. Should i take out the moss or leave it in or does it even matter?

Edit* i think i may have posted the same question before but hey what the heck. the more info the better


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## effox (Apr 21, 2010)

Fissidens isn't the easiest of mosses to grow. I'm pretty sure it requires high(er) lighting at least. I know you'll see it die quicker than you'd notice it grow in size, at least that was my case.

After I failed with that, when I had a planted tank, I used a seeded filter, so I'm not sure if it's just because the plants absorbed everything prior to "algae" outbreaks, or if I just lucked out, but I kept the lighting on 8 hours a day. I fiddled with photoperiods off\back on in between and total duration, fertilizers and co2 afterwards, but if I didn't have plants that cost me a substantial amount, I would have just kept the lights off until I knew it was cycled since there were no fish\invertebrates in there.

You may just be better off putting it into something with higher lighting, or a lower depth bowl\dish of sorts where the light source would be closer\penetrate deeper in the meanwhile.

I wasn't successful with keeping fissiden fontanus in my low-med lighted tank. I'm still kicking myself because it's so great looking, and I got about a baseball sized portion of it. It was a complete waste, and a bad experience. If it was java moss, I'd say go for it, my brother pulled a rock out, scraped most of it off, it dried brown, and I put the rock into one of my tanks desert bone dry and it's still going wild a year later...


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## Andrew M. (Aug 28, 2012)

well, its in there for the time being and i guess ill just have to wait to see how things turn out. since i am dosing ammonia every now and then, i will pull it out if i see it starting to get overrun by algae. the bulb i'm using is a 6500k daylight 13 watts. i guess i have medium-ish light. maybe soon, i'll post pics of the moss progress. btw, i do have seeding material in my filter from my larger tank.


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## effox (Apr 21, 2010)

13 watts for 5 gallons should hold up with the right photo period. The WPG rule is pretty much been debunked, but I still use it generally to get some sort of measurement since the majority of us (including me) don't have PAR meters.

What sort of algae are you worrying about anyways? Almost every time I started a new tank I only saw green spot, brown, and then cyano algae. Only one of them are actual algaes, but lighting can affect all three.


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## Andrew M. (Aug 28, 2012)

Usually its brown hair algae that come in blooms in my larger tank so i expect it to grow out during the cycling of the 5 gallon. My fear is either the mosses will outcompete the bacteria i'm trying to build (thus taking forever to cycle) or the mosses may die/covered by algae, or both cases.


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## effox (Apr 21, 2010)

Brown algae is actually diatoms. Brown thread algae is filamentous diatoms. You should be able to brush it off plants lightly or vacuum it off, or otherwise just tweeze them and hope to not disturb the moss meshed\twined in. I haven't had the filamentous variety, but I've read it's caused by silicates (in the water column and substrate) and can be assisted by lighting.

When I had brown algae (common for newer tanks, typically after a month I bleieve). I just brushed the rocks off, and vacuumed the bigger leafed plants and substrate, and dunked the canister afterwards to remove the rest of the diatoms from spreading about. I only found the cyano bacteria on the plants to be a bigger issue down the line than anything, up until recently with thread algae.

One way to get the best of both worlds would be keep the lighting at 8 hours, if you see it threading, lowering it from there and do water changes. Keep adding ammonia dosing after water changes and check your parameters in between. If you don't see the moss browning any further keep reducing lighting until you find an equilibrium.

If it's just a small amount fissidens, then don't worry about it, let the tank fish-less cycle with the lights off.


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## Andrew M. (Aug 28, 2012)

Here are some pictures
i dont know if you can see, but the tips of the fissidens are a little faded but the rest of the stem seems ok.


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## ckmullin (Aug 4, 2013)

Regarding the pics. I'd be concerned as tips are the newest growth. If new growth becomes iffy the plant can just die back.


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## Andrew M. (Aug 28, 2012)

hm, i'm not sure whats the problem then..light seems to be ample. temperature is 25-26 C.


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