What is this stuff?

[Baccus]

G'Day All

I was hoping somebody could tell me what this curse of a plant is. It tangles itself around any other plants and gets really thick even though it is made up of thousands of single strands. When taken out of the water it holds little water droplets at each node along its length.

It is a nice bright apple green, but the rate that it grows and masses around my stem plants is fast outweighing its nice pale green colour.

Thankfully its only in one tank, but I would love to get it out of even there, without having to throw out all of my plants.

First two pictures are just a small clump still in some water

Next is out of the water showing the actual strands and the nodes

And finally these couple of stands back in water

Help please, thanks

[smicko]

Looks like java moss.the best way is to remove the plants and pull all the moss off, have a bucket of water to rinse the plamts before they go back in. If you even leave one strand it will grow back. Most fish will eat it if yoube got any or it can be used to grow a mass wall. good luck getting rid it.

Cheers mick

[Baccus]

No, not Java moss I have heaps of that, the modified leafs on Java moss is darker green and much thicker, this stuff is thinner than a strand of cotton. Also as soon as you start trying to remove this stuff little bits break off and float away to help create a new bunch of it. Also it doesn't attach itslef to structures like Java moss or other mosses willl.

Thanks for trying.:)

[mr_c265]

Not Java moss, i can second that. It's a type of bladderwort i think, try ultricularia gibba into google.

[Squiggle]

It looks like Cladophora, I had it recently & had to get it out of my tank as it grows so fast & was taking over, have a look at the thread I started on it, I lost most of my HC to it. I thought it might be a form of hair algae but it wasn't soft enough

http://www.shrimpkeepersforum.com/forum/showthread.php/2195-Is-this-hair-algae

[blindfisherman]

Not Java moss' date=' i can second that. It's a type of bladderwort i think, try ultricularia gibba into google.[/quote']

It's U Gibba for sure. like duckweed it takes a few goes at removing it as all the tiny strands get tangled in the moss

[Baccus]

Thanks, it certainly is a pest to get rid off and none of my fish seem even slightly interested in eating it.

[Squiggle]

Tell me about it, I spent an hour & a half pulling it out of my nano tank with tweezers & I still don't think I got it all

[Loach]

Its defenitely U. Gibba bladderwort. Nothing like java moss at all though. Just get rid of as much as you can and if it grows back, repeat the process lol

[Baccus]

Its a shame its such a pain, because the flowers I have seen online that it produces look quite nice.

[2OFUS]

Its a native carnivorous plant

[smicko]

Thank you all for the correction. I bought some fantralis moss from an lfs a while back and was told that it had some java moss growing through it, turns out after a close look it was the same as the pics that baccus put up and has now over grown the fantralis. I wasn't worried when I thought it was java but now thrown it out. Thanks for putting this post up and for the solution to a problem I didn't know I had lol.

Cheers mick

[Baccus]

No problems, glad my issue was able to help somebody else. And I am in the painstaking process of pulling every strand out of my plants, maybe in 6 months time I will finally be free of the stuff.