Supershrimp mossball reproduction

[Mustafa]

They can reproduce at any time really...sometimes it takes a long time before you see any "baby" mossballs, but the babies start out so tiny that it's easy to miss them...and then "suddenly" you have a bunch of "babies" in the tank. I have some over 10 year old mossballs that are pretty "huge" (for this species). They're about 1.5 inches in diameter...they seem to just keep growing slowly. Not sure what their maximum size is going to be. I may make some bigger ones available for sale at some point.

[Mustafa]

Thanks for the awesome picture Malikta!

Here is a baby mossball, you can see the bigger one as a comparison. I'd say it's been 5-6 months since I purchased these from Mustafa. The baby could have been growing already but if it was, I didn't see it.

[Super Jess]

I noticed a little ball that turned up last week. It sits about 2.5 inches from the original mossball. Is it a baby mossball?

[i<3Opae]

Definitely so! Congrats!

A bit of update from my tank as well:

Since I took out the half eaten moss ball out of tank A to tank B, it's been doing better. Funny enough, after a month or so, more and more visible tiny offspring of the moss ball started showing up in tank A (perhaps 8+). It made me wonder whether the mother moss ball wasn't getting enough nutrient, therefore it out competed all the tiny ones.

[Super Jess]

Yay! Thanks! I guess I could feed slightly more as Mustafa mentioned. I hadn't thought about the increased nutrient needs of a reproducing mossball Glad to hear yours is improving. I wonder how many you will end up with?

[Mustafa]

I noticed a little ball that turned up last week. It sits about 2.5 inches from the original mossball. Is it a baby mossball?

Did you get that larger mossball from Petshrimp?

[Super Jess]

Did you get that larger mossball from Petshrimp?

Yep It's been doing well! I actually found a second baby mossball last week, so I guess it's happy.

[Mustafa]

Wow! Awesome! I was just asking because it seems to have grown *a lot* since you got it. LOL I know the approximate size of the mossballs I ship and yours quite a big bigger now. Glad it's doing well and reproducing for you!

[Super Jess]

Wow! Awesome! I was just asking because it seems to have grown *a lot* since you got it. LOL I know the approximate size of the mossballs I ship and yours quite a big bigger now.

It is definitely bigger! I ordered it from you about 13 months ago. The last of the chaeto disintegrated, so apart from the bits of hair algae I'm battling the mossball has the tank to itself. It's lighter in color than when it first arrived, and interestingly the two babies are not exactly the same: one is dark like the original color and one is lighter like the current color. They all move around the tank a bit, probably from a combination of tiny bubbles and snail activity underneath the substrate.

To anyone on the fence about a Mustafa mossball purchase: IMO it was totally worth the price.

[Mustafa]

Awesome! The different colors of the "babies" stem from different types/amounts of light exposure. I have some balls here that are almost multicolored...one part lighter, the other one darker. But generally, over time, all the balls in the same tank should be a similar color. I love this species! Still need to find out what exact species they are though...

[Super Jess]

Soooo if there is a mossball reproduction season this must be it Today I found a third baby mossball while I was plucking out some stray hair algae strands. At first I thought it was one of the two I saw earlier, because they do move around the tank a bit, but then I saw all three at once! I'm just as excited to be a mossball mama as I was when my first shrimp berried

[Mustafa]

Awesome! Yeah, once the mossballs get going, they keep pumping out quite "babies" continuously. It's kinda fun to watch the tiny balls grow over time.

[JoeG]

I know this is an older post but are there any new lessons learned or info about these mossballs? I just received mine the other day and was wondering how long they took before you saw budding/reproduction? Anything I need to know about growing them successfully?

[Super Jess]

I know this is an older post but are there any new lessons learned or info about these mossballs?

The lesson I learned was I ought to have bought several at once and saved on shipping

For real though, they are super slow growing but mine seem to grow best in the warmer months. No heater in my tanks, and winter temps in my house get down to 60F sometimes. I moved my original big one to a new tank and left all the babies in the old tank. Waiting to see if the babies grow faster without the big mossball competing for nutrients.

I spotted the first baby about a year after I ordered the original, but no idea how long it had been in there before I noticed it. The babies are tiny and super lightweight, and get pushed around the tank a lot.

[Mustafa]

Yes, the babies are super small when they start out, just fragments. Very hard to to notice in the beginning. It takes a very long time (months, years) before they become noticeable. That's why they demand the price they do, because I can't just produce lots and lots of them quickly. They also split bigger pieces off sometimes, which are immediately noticeable because they can be 1/3 or even half the size of the original mossball. Multiple balls can even attach to each other, or a ball can attach to something like a rock and grow a bit flatter on the rock. This is a very interesting and versatile plant. Apart from it's super slow growth it's a tough and almost perfect plant.