Marimo Moss Ball Care

[TheCheese909]

No, my fish were fine. You may be able to save it but i'm not sure. I had thought about taking a razor or scissors to mine because it only seemed like it was at the surface and not all the way through it.
Maybe you could try trimming all the gray off if you'rs is just mainly at the surface?

[Unity]

Will work on it today and keep you all updated.

[goldfishyman]

Well if its a real Marimo ball. Your supposed to be able to make it grow better with some salt added to the water. Give it a shot but not too much.

[PaintingPintos]

Ahhh....
When I had my Ghost shrimp Ash (RIP little buddy) in a 1 gallon tank with some gravel, flower pots, and a Marimo moss ball, the thing thrived.
I have never had any problems with mine. I've had it since around March.
I don't do anything special to my water....
We have well water right under our backyard, we live in the middle of nowhere with no pesticides or anything. The water is very acidic and hard, and maybe a Marimo prefers that water?
I know I can't add salt to the water because it would kill my future shrimp, so scratch that idea.

Anyway, good luck with all your Mosses

[Unity]

Two grays have cleared up completely - one is going into the mulch garden. I spoke with a couple of experts on this subject and most blame food resting on them for this. I just can't seem to buy that as an explanation in ALL of my well oiled tanks.

[PaintingPintos]

Originally Posted by Unity

Two grays have cleared up completely - one is going into the mulch garden. I spoke with a couple of experts on this subject and most blame food resting on them for this. I just can't seem to buy that as an explanation in ALL of my well oiled tanks.

Before my Ghost shrimp died, he was sitting on the Marimo ball and I had 10-15 food pellets resting on the moss for around 30 hours in hopes that he would find one and eat it (he was extremely weak).
I've never had problems with food resting on them.

[BlueStar]

Couple of my moss balls turned brown then gray so they where all kept in a half gallon jar (not in tanks). I tried adding a little salt after reading that also when they where kept outside of the tank, but it didn't seem to help any.
Read to bath them in club soda would help but it is toxic to fish so I only did this when they where kept out of the fish tank and only for about a minute if that long. Did it once a week for about 3 weeks. They where not put into the tank until about 3 weeks past the last use of club soda. Not sure if it helped any or not.

Last thing I've done is added a tannin to the water (light orange color from soaked wood) and a lot of flake fish food (well water so no other added water treatments) that rested on and under them.
About once or twice a day I stirred the water.
I varied giving them 48 hours of light/darkness to 12 hours of light/darkness (lamp light with low watt flourscent bulb nearby) in the cool bathroom (they prefer cooler temps).
Sometimes weekly baths and water changes, other times not.
They all seem to be more dark green now with one still a little brown and all except the smallest where put back in tanks.

If I had to guess I would suspect the amount of light, pH and water temperature as being the main problem with them turning gray. Bottom of lakes have very low light and the water temp is coolest there. I've even read if it gets really hot to put them in the refrige to keep them cooler. Since betta tanks are kept warmer, it may be the reason they don't do well in them. People who took them out to give them more light in fact where giving them probably a cooler temperature than the tank had which helped them more than amount of light.
My well water has a high pH, thus not long after I had them and they lost color I put them in some real dirty messy tannin (oak leaves)/food saturated water and they improved so pH does play a part I would guess.

As far as food or messy water harming them, mine would all be dead if that was true since they spent about a month in that type water and about a month & 1/2 in the bathroom. I was treating the tanks for parasites so they where kept out of the tanks until the medication was well gone from the tanks.