MARIMO

Marimo are cute freshwater green algae balls, also known as Cladophora balls or Moss balls in English. They are famous features of Lake Akan in Northern Japan and Lake Mvatn in Iceland. Read more about them on Wikipedia. Ive had 3 mini Marimo that I bought on a trip to Hokkaido for around three years but I figured plopping them into a glass jar and changing the water now and then was all that was required. But while raising Marimo is very simple, there are still a few more instructions you should follow to keep your Marimo healthy You can buy your own Marimo (both big & small) from Amazon.com.

Raising your Marimo! Basic Care Guide

Marimo come from the cold, clear water around Hokkaido (Northern Japan). When you add a Marimo to your family -no matter where you live!- its important to try and recreate an environment as close as possible to their natural habitat. Change the water regularly! When Marimos water becomes dirty or warm, please change it! Brown gunk accumulating is a sign of dirty water change it as soon as possible! It is recommended that you change Marimos water once every 1-2 weeks during summertime and approximately once every month during wintertime. Marimo likes cleanliness! When the water is left uncleaned, Marimo will quickly become weakened. Around Marimo and the container, a hard-to-remove algae will form. This algae can also cause harmful insects to appear, so please try to always remember to keep the water clean. CAUTION! : When changing Marimos water, be careful not to mistakenly wash away Marimo itself. There have been many unfortunate cases in which Marimo have been accidently washed down the drain. During water-changing, please move Marimo to another container. Pick up Marimo! Taking care of Marimo is more than just changing the water regularly. Marimo also needs to be kept clean and tidy! Place Marimo on the palm of your hand. While rolling Marimo back and forth, GENTLY wash Marimo with water. Finally, make sure Marimos ball-shape is firmly intact.

It is often difficult for clean water to reach the center of larger Marimo. Make sure to softly press the dirty water out from the inside as if gently squeezing water from a sponge. Be very careful not to smash Marimo. > If Marimos surface becomes brown-colored or whitish, please clean it as soon as possible. CAUTION! : Please be careful not to squeeze Marimo too strongly or put Marimo directly under streaming water. It is very possible for Marimo to crumble into pieces. Once the pieces become disconnected, it is extremely difficult to return to the original shape. Find a Proper Place for Marimo! As a plant, Marimo grows through the process of photosynthesis. Therefore, Marimo cannot be raised in a lightless environment. However, Marimo does not require a strong light source so the normal indoor lighting of a room should be sufficient. We recommend placing Marimo somewhere that receives weak sunlight such as near a covered (with curtains/blinds) window. CAUTION! : Absolutely avoid placing Marimo anywhere that receives direct sunlight. Overly strong light will weaken Marimo, as well as raise the temperature of the water. Also, please be careful about placing Marimo in a hard-to-spot location - or else you might accidently forget all about Marimo! Keep the water cool! Marimo is a plant raised in the icy cold waters of Hokkaido (Northern Japan). Therefore, please do your best to raise Marimo is a cool place. In particular, the temperature of the water often rises during summertime so be careful! A suitable temperature for Marimo is between 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit) and 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit). Try not to let the temperature rise above 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit). Its okay to put Marimo in a cool room with stronger air-conditioning in the summer and a room with lower lighting and heating in the winter. Theres even been people who keep their Marimo in the refridgerator every summer for fifteen years! Dont put Marimo with Goldfish and/or other fish! If you are raising Marimo in a fish tank, please refrain from placing Marimo in the same tank as a goldfish or other grass-eating type fish. For fish, Marimo is a delicious feast. In the blink of an eye, Marimo will be eaten up. Its extremely dangerous! Although sometimes Marimo might be sold with guppies, its possible to even see evidence that Marimo has been chomped on by his hungry companions. Furthermore, Marimo likes clean water and in a populated fish tank, the water quickly becomes dirty so we dont recommend mixing Marimo and fish. HELP! What happens when..? If your Marimo becomes blackish.

There may be a possibility that your Marimo is decaying or that another type of algae is forming around your Marimo. If you split open your Marimo and find it decaying inside, remove the black sections and re-roll Marimo into a sphere-shape with only the green healthy sections. Your Marimo may become smaller, but it will start growing again. When a Marimo becomes large, it becomes difficult for clean water to be soaked into the center. Therefore, the inside can easily rot and become a hollow cavity. Even some of the large natural Marimo found in Lake Akan ( ) in Japan have developed hollowed centers. > A Marimo dies from the inside-outwards, so even if the outside of your Marimo is fine the inside of your Marimo may be black. If your Marimo becomes whitish. There may be a possibility that your Marimo has received a sunburn from exposure to direct sunlight. Please move your Marimo to a place that does not receive direct light. Other than sunburn, another cause of whiteness may be another type of algae forming around Marimo. If your Marimo becomes brownish. There may be a possibility that part/all of your Marimo ball has died. A Marimo is a plant. When it dies, it becomes brownish or blackish colored. A Marimo is made up of small algae collected into a ball-form. If there is still some green healthy sections of your Marimo ball left please just remove the brown, dead sections. The picture below shows a greenish-brown algae completely covering one of my Marimo, along with pieces of algae that I scratched off another Marimo. Intruder algae may fool you into thinking your Marimo is just a bit fluffy or discolored..while it completely takes over your Marimo! Be careful! Compared to Marimo, this algae had a very slimy texture.

Marimo is floating!? There are two different reasons for a floating Marimo. 1) Marimo is in the process of photosynthesis. Many small oxygen bubbles around Marimos body causing Marimo to float. This is a temporary effect and Marimo should sink again by the following day. If you dont see bubbles and Marimo never sinks, you may be in trouble.. 2) Marimos center has decayed. Marimos inner core has become hollow which is causing Marimo to float continously.

Marimo is spliting up (crumbling)!? When a Marimo becomes large, it becomes difficult for it to retain its spherical shape. As some Marimo grow larger, they will start to divide into several smaller pieces and these new Marimos growth cycle will start anew creating more and more Marimo. In particular, cultivated Marimo (souveneir Marimo) are often artifically rolled and therefore, the ballshape can crumble easily. Theres something around/attached to Marimo? There may be a possibility that a different type of algae (other than Marimo) has formed. The intruder algae is often stronger than Marimo and if left unchecked to grow closely around Marimo, Marimo may die. Thin thread-like algae, slimy algae, and other types of intruder algaes tend to have a different texture then Marimo. When you notice them, please remove them. If they appear once, they tend to appear again and again - so until the intruder algae has completed disappeared, change the water often and carefully wash Marimo. -The thin thread-type algae often looks just like a tip of Marimos hair at first glimpse. You may think it is just Marimo growing. However, if you look closer the thread is thinner than Marimo hair and white-colored. Yuck! Theres a bug!!! During summer, you may notice that your Marimo has a new friend or two. In rare cases, small living creatures such as microbes or mosquito larva may appear. Although these creatures cannot cause any harm to Marimo they are not exactly pleasing to the eye.

Mosquito Larva - Take care of the problem as soon as possible! Female larva mature into bloodloving mosquitoes in about a week.

Water Worm Water worms appear when the water is dirty, so take their appearance as a sign that its time to clean your water. Body length is 2-3mm.

Planarian Planaria are harmless and have cute faces. Quite a few people actually like them! A big Planarian is around 5mm.

??? - Body length is around 0.5mm. They are extremeley small and often go unnoticed. Quite a number of them can appear. They will hop around the surface of the water.

http://www.bleakhillycoalcountry.com/blog/marimo-%E3%83%9E%E3%83%AA%E3%83%A2/ http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/2092409/all