I already mentioned that I started with a lot, acquired from club members in trades for fish. I figure I had, combined, a bag about the size of a human head which I spread through a couple of tanks. It seems to have taken off in other tanks. I guess I let pieces travel on nets.
I can't figure out why it grows in some tanks and not others. Certainly, it is thriving where the water doesn't move it around a lot. The lighting isn't as strong or its in shaded areas of the tanks its growing in. It seems a bit parasitic, and will catch onto other plants and especially onto driftwood I thought was softening up too much to be viable long term. It hasn't grabbed fresh new pieces of hardwood in the same tanks - it's colonized the pieces several years old.
It died back to almost zero, and has now grown again in its weird way. I'd say there's a fine line between it and a lowlight algae, for how it grows. My head sized starter clump would fit inside a baseball now, but it wasn't even to be seen just weeks ago. It's on the comeback and I like it.
@Magnum Man I've never been convinced your aufwuchs project would get off the ground, because somehow you needed a starter to get the right kind of algae growing with the right kind of organisms in it. The only aufwuchs I've ever seen was under natural sunlight so bright I could see mollies 50 feet down in clear water. It was an astonishing habitat. But this plant could do some of the functions of aufwuchs in low light. It attaches, it forms amazing cover for other life and it seems tough enough for grazing. I really like the stuff.
I just have no idea what I'm doing right or wrong with it.
