FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Z_Y wrote:This thread has motivated me to try to expand my stock of red sphagnum. I took the darkest specimens from around my pots and placed it into this tray. However I'm not sure what the best way to actually propagate sphagnum is, I've only ever just propagated them by having them grow in my pots or in a ziplock bag. What I'm having trouble with in my little cups is algae, it feels kind of slimy to the touch. Maybe I just need to recreate a pot, since the drainage would help with preventing algae.

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My darkest colored moss lives in this pot, which I've tried to spread around to my other pots. Here it is in April. And yes the moss is actually extremely red, it's not just some weird setting on my camera. In real life it's so red it's almost black:

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And here it is today in September.

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You can see the green moss is kind of outcompeting the red ones, although I did harvest a lot of the red ones. You can also see there's some very dark red varieties and some not as dark red kinds. I'm not sure if it's different species.

My orange ones are doing ok in my little cup but in terms of all my colonies in the pots I think they've mostly been outcompeted by green varieties. They also grow super slow, it's been like this for half a year.

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Even in the shade the dark red kind stays pretty red, you can see some poking through beneath the neps here but you can also see how the green kind is way more fluffy and is basically taking over.

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Beautiful sets man looks straight out of strawberry jam, if you join photo contests it would be categorized as desert lol I’m trying to grow some red sphagnum too but prob not gonna be close to this

I needed to update on my moss acquisition. The moss isn't doing much of anything but the pitcher plant seedlings are looking good. There are some interesting ones in there.

An update on my Meadowview moss. With lots of light and high humidity it is starting to show red. Bigger news are the sarr seedlings that came along as hitchhikers.

@elaineo, Any updates on the testing?

You all might like the thread linked below on sphagnum cultivation.

Thread: sphagnum-science-t37893.html

Really good stuff in there regarding different species and why they're different colors. Every species of moss can "tan" to some extent but they won't all get that nice deep red that everyone loves. Until the nutrient level is super low, the red/orange species will be outgrown and outcompeted by the green. But the red/orange ones won't die, they'll still grow and different species will even share sugars with each other. The sphagnum that isn't receiving light is still alive beneath the surface and will green up and start growing if exposed to light again. Once the nutrient level gets so low that the green species slow down in growth, you'll see the red/orange ones start to take over again. If you fertilize a culture of mixed red and green species you can expect the green ones to take over again.

The best substrate for growing live sphagnum is honestly dead sphagnum or nothing at all. Sphagnum doesn't require a substrate as it grows on top of itself so it becomes it's own substrate in a sense. Obviously then it degrades into peat which is what a lot of people try to use as a substrate but it's often too much for the small cultures people try to use it for. The tannins overwhelm the live moss and it struggles to grow. Imo, I'd skip the peat unless you have a really large amount of live sphag to start with.

The recipe at the end of the thread I linked is top-notch, would recommend giving it a shot even over MaxSea.