# what's up with my marimo?



## registereduser (Jul 30, 2010)

It's in an extremely low light tank. 
Is it growing? 
How should I "mold" it .......
I'm thinking just roll it around in my hands?
The other one isn't growing as much.


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## Cez (Nov 13, 2012)

What a strange moss ball you have there! Are we sure it's not another type of algae taking it over?


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## registereduser (Jul 30, 2010)

I'm pretty sure, I haven't touched it yet, tho. 
I was hoping someone has had the same experience :-D


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## Bsalem05 (Oct 30, 2012)

Heard you have to wash and squeeze them out once in a while .. like a sponge.


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## Cez (Nov 13, 2012)

Bsalem05 said:


> Heard you have to wash and squeeze them out once in a while .. like a sponge.


Mmm, you do! Just squeeze them gently a couple of times in old tank water during a water change and it'll do the trick. If they don't get much current they'll need to be manually rolled about, too. But this doesn't seem to be a problem stemming from either of those points.

Hopefully somebody here has some experience with this type of growth!


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## ao (Feb 29, 2012)

some say that if you see rapid growth it's another type of algae. i dunno. marimo actually comes from fairly dimly lit cool water environments and is itself a type of algae.


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## paloverde (Nov 9, 2012)

All of the above, you squeeze him in tank water, then you gently roll him as though he was a little green meat ball. That is what they look like when they are growing but not rolling and bouncing.


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## registereduser (Jul 30, 2010)

Thank you all, I kind of like the way it looks with the wild hairdo :lol: but I plan to roll it around and see what happens


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## OrangeAugust (Jul 23, 2012)

Ew, it looks creepy. I wouldn't want to touch it. lol


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## JackisLost (Feb 26, 2011)

i think these require high light or direct sunlight. i never had success with it in my tank, i have medium strong LED 7000k. when i put it in direct sunlight directly in front of the window, it floats and makes bubbles. i don't need to form it. at night it sinks and stays still. pretty neat.


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## Kytkattin (May 15, 2011)

That is a type of hair algae growing on your Marimo there. I get this sometimes too if one decides to float too close to the light source. Just pull off the "hairy" part, and do as other have suggested above and squeeze it out and roll it around a bit. If you can move it to a darker part of the tank that should take care of your problem.


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## registereduser (Jul 30, 2010)

OK so I finally had time to clean this tank today. The "hair" is actually part of the marimo, not something growing ON the marimo. I squeezed it all out and rinsed it and rolled it. The photo shows it floating around in the cleaned tank before it finally sank :lol:

I'm assuming this is how it grows?

It is in a low light tank with a few hours of direct sunlight every day. However I placed them in the other side of the tank so now it will get less direct sunlight.


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