Keeping Marimo in aquarium tanks

Most owners keep their Marimo in small containers/glass bottles. However, do you know that Marimo can also be keep in large aquariums with fishes and other aquatic plants? There's a few things that owners should keep in mind when keeping Marimo in aquariums,  we will try to cover as much as possible in this article.  

Chemicals?
Keeping Marimo in an aquarium is possible as long as some precaution is taken. First of all, Marimo is part of the algae family, so dosing any algae removing medicine in your aquarium is a big no-no. Try to avoid using chemical in your aquarium, if you are going to use fish medication, remove the Marimo before dosing the medicine. Furthermore, some aquarium plants fertilizer might not work on Marimo and some of the fertilizer might actually contains chemical that harm algae (therefore harming your Marimo) while helping the aquarium plants to grow.


Tank Mates?
The tank's mates of Marimo must also be carefully chosen, good tank mates are those that will not actively harm aquarium plants, this include but not limited to Guppy, various tetra and platy. However, some fish that are known to leave the aquarium plants alone might attack them during starvation or because of their different personality. Tank mates that need to be avoid include goldfish , silver dollar and other plant-eaters.


 Another suitable Marimo tank mates is the shrimp such as cherry shrimp and crystal shrimp, they coexist very well with the Marimo and you can often see them scavenging for food on top of the Mairmo. Many people have asked us whether keeping Marimo with aquarium snails is possible? Our answer is yes but we do not recommend it. We have successfully kept Marimo with red ramshorn snails before, however the snails must be well-fed all the time or else the risk of them attacking the marimo will become higher.


Lighting and temperature?
 Marimo generally lives under the pond/lake in their wild habitat, so they do not require much lighting or any other special lighting requirement. However, strong lighting should be avoid. Marimo prefer colder environment and should be keep in place below 30 Celsius.

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