filter media in a pinch... java moss?

[cellodaisy]

I needed to set up a little holding tank today on short notice, and my QT was already occupied. I hauled out my old Eclipse 5 gallon hex, which I haven't used in forever, filled it up, started the pump, dumped in the fish and a spare heater, and then realized that there wasn't any cycled media in my other filters that would fit in the tiny tray.

Necessity being the mother of invention, the large, unruly tangle of java moss in my endler tank caught my eye and I thought "Woot! Living filter floss!" and grabbed a wad.

The fish won't be in there more than a day, and I'll do a water change tomorrow, so it doesn't really matter if it doesn't work very well in this case, but now I'm thinking that moss could be a nifty bio/veggie component to a sump filter.

So is that:

a) stupid?
b) awesome?
c) old hat?

 

[J double R]

B, good thinking!

 

[guppymill]

I don't think there won't be enough ammonia in the tank in a day to make a difference anyway. Feed very sparingly and it shouldn't matter.

You wouldn't really need to put the moss in the filter. You can just put it in the tank. I would assume there would be some good bacteria on it, but to be safe, I would either cut a piece of filter pad from an established tank to fit and/or grab some substrate from one of your tanks. That is, if the fish is going to be hanging out in the 5g for more than a day.

 

[cellodaisy]

The built-in filters on those little hex tanks have such lousy flow, I figured that putting the moss in the media tray was the only way to make sure that there was enough water flowing through it to make any difference.

I'm not suggesting a moss-only filter, and there's certainly nothing new about using plants for water quality. It just seemed that moss could be a neat combination of plant and bacterial filtration, as long as it was somewhere with at least a little light.

Since this setup is temporary, it doesn't much matter, but it got me thinking... and wondering what my more experienced AC friends would think of the idea.

EDIT: It's perhaps worth mentioning, for those unfamiliar with these silly little hex tanks, that the media tray is exactly that: one very small, very shallow tray. This certainly wouldn't work very well in a deep media chamber where the moss would die from lack of light.