First ‘Dry’ Start

[Lee Pedersen1]

Hello! I am doing my first dry start for an aquarium. I am on day eight in a 5 gallon tank. I am using some seeds from Amazon. The long grass is crushing it and the mini leaf variety is just sprouting.

My worry is that some of the seeds are fuzzy and white. Some sources say, mold some sources say it’s common for the sprouting. I’m just posting some pictures to see how everything‘s going. Any help is always appreciated.

[jwcarlson]

It's probably mold.  It might affect the moldy seeds, but the ones that have germinated *should* be OK.  It could also be the initial root on a seedling which can be very fuzzy, but it is tough to tell from the pics.

Fuzzy root:

[Lee Pedersen1]

Thank you so much for the feedback! This is as close as I can get for picture. Is there a way I need to proceed with this if it is mold? I should be adding water in the next seven days or so. Do I need to do something before that?

[jwcarlson]

I have exactly zero experience with dry seeding an aquarium.  But when dealing with soil fungus on indoor started garden plants, I have had decent luck dusting cinnamon on top of the soil as it's anti-fungal.  I have no idea if that would be a good idea for you or not.  It looks extremely wet so any seeds that don't almost immediately germinate are likely to mold.  Maybe you need to keep it really wet to dry start.  But most of the time the surface of soil shouldn't remain wet.  

The moldy seeds are probably already goners and usually seeds that germinate at a drastically different time than their cohort are not viable anyway.  A lot of times it is a race between germination and mold for some seeds, especially ones that take awhile to germinate (like peppers).  Fast ones aren't typically an issue.  In short, it's probably too late to "save" any of the seeds that aren't already sprouted.  I would add water whenever the guide you are following said to add it.

Again, this is vegetable related information from me... not dry starting an aquarium.  So I might not be correct at all.  

Edited March 14 by jwcarlson