Dirty Java Moss

[Marnol D]

Hello,

In my community tank my Java Moss tends to get covered in mulm. ( I gravel vac the open areas but tend to stay away from the planted area) The java moss tends to be attached to the base of the Anubias (havent seen any negatives to this some of the anubias have actually started blooming which I didnt know was a thing and has probably been surrounded by the moss for a year, I have recently started blasting co2 so my growth has been good on the plants) Is there anyway to clean the java moss? I have recently added ghost shrimp (ten and i can still find all ten) to see if they would help but its only been a week and they are still hiding in the amazon swords so  no change with them yet. I had 17 mystery snails in the tank before (friends wanted them so I gave them away) and they never really cleaned anything honestly. 

So any recommendations on how to clean my java moss? (i have a 5 inch rainbow shark thats not super aggressive but bullies anything larger than itself) tank is a 55 gallon. 

 

 

[FlyingFishKeeper]

I don't have any experience with plants or moss, but do you think that just creating a fairly strong current focused at it could work? 

[Marnol D]

@FlyingFishKeeper i probably should try that. I have low circulation in the tank anyways since i only run a sponge filter.

[Alesha]

You might want to try some neocaridina shrimp. Mine live in the java moss & do a fair job of keeping it clean.

 

[Wes L.]

I suggest this.....get a piece of some kind of open weave fabric, like cheesecloth, or I use a scrap piece of shade cloth (which is on the attached picture) that I had left over from a backyard project and just us a rubberband to secure it around the end of your syphon hose. Lowe's and Home Depot sell this stuff by the yard, but you only need a little square. This slows down the flow a bit so your plants don't get ravaged, and the open weave still allows you to suck out the small particles of detritus or mulm. I use it on all my mosses (and other plants) and it works perfectly without doing any damage to the plants. And I also agree with Alesha above, I have neocaridina shrimp also in my tank and they do a really good job keeping the mosses clean.