This is my first terrarium build and I'm not having luck keeping mood moss alive. The grow light is directly on top of the mesh. Is it frying the moss? The moss won't stay damp. Also, what kind of moss should I put on the end of the branches? I'm still in the process of quarantining plants to put in here, but it just looks lack-luster. Any advice?
by chaiony
3 Comments
Have you looked into tillandsias?
It’s likely drying out. Breaking up high humidity/moisture mosses into small bits is like taking a sponge and ripping it up into tiny pieces. The pieces are going to dry out much faster than if it were an intact sponge. Throw in the fact that it’s been displaced from wherever it was previously and now needs to acclimate to a new environment that’s likely not wet enough and you have struggling moss. You can try directly spraying the bits with pure water multiple times a day to see if it hangs on. All of the soil mix looks fairly dry as well, so the moss doesn’t have much to draw water from.
You will probably need some sort of fogger or mist system, moss likes it properly wet. Also, having it on a small piece of soil like the branch ends will dry extremely fast so you may want to create some type of cupped structure under each one to have a horizontal surface and retain moisture. You could use cork bark or pieces of stone and silicone them in.