Anyone ever blow a hole in their Marimo Moss ball??

[Guppysnail]

On 10/13/2021 at 9:55 PM, lmhicks101 said:

@Guppysnail the store still has the little light brown ones. Is I go buy them and pop them in my tank will they improve? How would I check for the zebra mussels? 

I have no idea. I’ve never seen a brown one. I had one get a brown spot on its butt from sitting still too long. It grew back months later. 

[lmhicks101]

Thank you. I’ll get one and see what happens. 

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

@lmhicks101 I was going to explain them but the internet does it best:

This velvety green orb is neither a moss nor plant, but a species of green algae known as Aegagropila linnaei that gets its unique shape from tumbling about the bottom of freshwater lakes. The nickname “marimo” roughly translates from Japanese as “water plant that's kind of like a bouncy ball.”

...What I find great about them is they're essentially a plant you can move around (sometimes your fish do it for you) The one in this post is 2 years old but I have two other small ones I got before the scandal broke out. They aren't readily available but if you can find them....

Sounds like the ones at your LFS aren't well taken care of. You can try and buy one and get it back to green- though they may decline to sell them to you- which might be why they're still there. They were saying that you may not be able to tell if they have mussels as they are small and slow growing. I chose to keep the 2 smaller ones because I dump my tank water outside on my container garden- the concern is that people dump aquarium water in their sink or waterways (like the gutter) and they would then infest those areas and cause big problems. I have seen no evidence that mine have them. 

They will get brown from sitting in one spot for too long, you're supposed to rotate them. Sounds like all brown ones have other potential issues. 

[lmhicks101]

Okay. I may stay away from them then. 

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

Hi all, just wanted to update with a post-op picture. Frankenball has been recovering very nicely from his unprofessional surgery. He apologizes for his current state as he was just released from QT with a pack of Nerite snails that were rather messy- he's covered with some food residue still. You can see where the blue thread kind of pops out but for the most part you can't see the middle stitching (just a little if you really look, I enhanced the pic so it is more prominent) just the ends, telling me maybe he's growing back together and may eventually absorb his stitches. Just wanted to post this in case someone wonders whether or not this might work. It seems to- just keep your stitches loose!

 

Edited November 29, 2021 by xXInkedPhoenixX