flame moss

I'm not quite sure what to do with flame moss. It is definitely growing- nice waving strands reaching up- but it is so very tiny hard to admire unless you put your nose against the glass. I took the moss off a basket (turned it into another start of subwasser bush) and two stones in the thirty-eight, and tried something else. Bought plastic mesh- the finest one I could locate at craft store- and tried to fasten the moss to it.

I've got a technique down for making subwassertang baskets, but this was something else entirely. I looked at a few tutorials. First separated all the strands out. Tried to sew them onto one strip of mesh. That was really hard. Had to keep the moss damp so it doesn't dry up and die- but then it comes free with motion of the thread and all my tidy arrangement becomes a mess. Halfway thru the job I gave up and resorted to using superglue. Lots of people use superglue in the aquarium- its fine if no additives. But I never had before- I'm a purist about that I guess- I want to know that the plants in my aquarium are holding on by themselves, after their tethers of thread or rubber band are worn away...

It worked. Still tricky. Second strip I made, I laid the moss out across the mesh and superglued another piece of mesh on top to make a sandwich. I superglued small pebbles on the bottom too, to keep it from floating up. Did two like that. I'm making narrow strips of it, hopefully to look like narrow bands of grass across the low foreground of the tank, and small enough I can lift the pieces out to trim in a separate container.

I won't show it to you now. It looks ugly up close and tacky from a distance. It will take several weeks to grow up through the mesh I think.