Anyone Need Riccia?

Couple questions for you Len (or anyone else who has had success with riccia):

I want to try to grow a carpet of this stuff after reading this thread. Can I grow it directly on the substrate? Possibly using some kind of mat or something? Also will it grow in a tank that has nearly 2 watts per gallon of compact fluorescent light? I'm wondering that won't be enough to get a nice lawn effect.
 
No, it will become detached if you somehow manage to stick it to the substrate and will not attach itself. one method to achieve that look is to take steel rods bent into S shapes and you lay them across the riccia.

I'll try to get a picture.

Depends on how big the tank is and how deep for whether or not it will grow, though.
 
You can try growing riccia in a lawn of drawf hair grass, or glosso... something that stays small and will spread out. Riccia won't attach itself to anything, but the plants that its growing in should keep it down for the most part.

HTH
-Richer
 
Alright, I give up. I'm sorry - can't find it. It was a great little picture. It's at Aquabotanic though...somwhere...
 
Leopardess... I think I know what you're talking about. Didn't it involve someone using a cutting board with a couple of screws in it, and bending a thin stainless steel rod?

As far as I can remember, the rods were bent into "S" (or swirls?) shapes, and was used to weight down matts of riccia. After a small amount of time, the riccia would grow enough to cover the rods.

-Richer
 
yes...though Im not sure about the cutting board part. They had a pic of the tank barely grown in after inserting the rods and then again when it filled out. Looked really neat.
 
Yes they are Skitty. I had to move them to mid-background in my show tank.

Capt. Hook, I do stained glass work(when I have time) and I can cut a piece of glass to any size. That's what I use to anchor Riccia. To create a lawn-like affect I'd just cut a large piece and grow a mat to fit, lay it on and tie it down with hair net.
For a while I had a Riccia 'factory' going. I'd trim it right in the tank and the small pieces that I'd cut would float to the surface and 'seed' the surface for another large mat.
As stated previously, Riccia will grow on the substrate @2watts/gal., but not well in deep tanks.
One thing about it......when it's thriving it's beautiful.......when it's not, it can look really sloppy.

Len
 
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Jeremy - that is a really cool link. Kind of what I was talking about - though it's not the same one. This one was more recent and used one large steel rod that was quite thick. But the same principle as that one you've linked:) Thanks
 
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