Do marimo balls survive in brackish water? (Experiment)

[JoanToBa]

Hi, while my tank is cycling I want to do a little experiment, can marimo balls survive in brackish water (without adapting it before)?

Here’s the first pics:

By the way, the tank is still cycling, therefore, there are still no shrimps.
To clean the moss/algae I’m using a paint brush.
Salinity is 1.013 SG.
PH around 7-8
I think all parameters are okay and that the tank is already equilibrated.

I will update weekly.
Hope it helps!

[JoanToBa]

By now it's doing very well, it has bubbles and doesn't float.
The light brown stains from the start seem to disappear a little bit.

Remember I didn't acclimate the Algae balls to the water.

[mike.d]

I had marimo in my 10-gallon tank under a strong LED light. They did quite well. A month or two later I had an infestation of hair algae and the marimo were tangled in it. I removed the marimo and the hair algae to a 50-gallon fresh water cichlid tank.

I'm not sure if 2 months is enough time to evaluate how they did in brackish water, but they seemed to do fine. They regularly pearled with bubbles. One even floated up a couple of times, due to the pearling.

[JoanToBa]

I think they will maybe survive. About the hair algae: I have a little bit in my tank (without shrimps) and it seems as it’s very loose and not too healthy. It keepsnup but not too well.
I hope I will have no hair algae infestations.

[JoanToBa]

Because i didn’t acclimate the marimo it seems it’s diying and the light brown spots have gotten bigger.

I’ve moved it to a brackish tank of lower salinity and separated it into pieces.

Fortunately i kept another marimo in the less salty tank and it looks very healthy, so I moved it into the original tank.

[JoanToBa]

Sidenote: I think there's a chaeto growing in there. It's growing visibly fast (1cm or more a day) and it's stringy. The little strings are from 0.2mm to 0.1mm.
I don't know how could have it gotten in my tank, really amazing.

[JoanToBa]

Pics of the mistery plant:

[mike.d]

I didn't acclimate my marimo and they stayed green throughout. What kind of lighting do you have on your tank?

I wonder if they need fertilizer/waste from something living.

[JoanToBa]

I have a 9 watt fluorescent desktop light.
I think that maybe the first marimo is ill because of some disease or I don’t know.
Right now, the small balls I’ve made with the first one look really good.

[JoanToBa]

By now everything looks quite normal...
Can’t wait to recieve my shrimps this monday!!!

[JoanToBa]

Marimo looks very good although I can't really tell.
This monday, shrimpies!!!!!

[Mustafa]

The real test if a Marimo ball can make it in a Supershrimp tank is if it actually multiplies. Just sitting there "surviving" for months being green isn't a real test as a lot of freshwater plants can also do this (java moss, java fern, Suesswassertang etc.) but they are just slowly dying or are already dead but staying green.

I have yet to see marimo balls multiply in a Supershrimp tank.

As for your mystery plant...let it grow some more and take some clearer pictures. It may just be string/hair algae.

[JoanToBa]

The real test if a Marimo ball can make it in a Supershrimp tank is if it actually multiplies. Just sitting there "surviving" for months being green isn't a real test as a lot of freshwater plants can also do this (java moss, java fern, Suesswassertang etc.) but they are just slowly dying or are already dead but staying green.

I have yet to see marimo balls multiply in a Supershrimp tank.

As for your mystery plant...let it grow some more and take some clearer pictures. It may just be string/hair algae.

As for the mistery plant... I took a closer inspection and it looks like some kind of hair algae that was chillin’ on the rock

The marimo looks like it recovered from the light spots it had from the shipping. A little branch of it (about 7mm) separated when i placed it in the tank, it looks as it has grown 1mm or 2 from when it was initially introduced.
The big ball still pearls as a normal marimo would, it looks in good shape, and the shrimps take care of it

I have hopes that it will eventually reproduce, although I would prefer it to be more like a carpet on the rock and look really cool.

If it grows over the years, I guess then, that I will have had quite some luck.