Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

No one warns you what these actually are! Everyone raves about these things, so I got some. Some websites even recommended opening them up to make flat sheets to decorate your aquarium floor, so I did. Hope you can learn from my very costly mistake. But even the tanks into which I only put intact balls have been infested. A few weeks later I noted long strands of darkish green, hair-like algae starting to appear on everything, but especially tangled in amongst my favorite plants. It was hard to detach and with a sewing thread strength. After spending hours on some "Identify that Algae" online articles, I found out what my tanks had was a cladophora algae infestation. The name seemed familiar so I checked and sure enough marimo "moss" balls are actually balls of cladophora algae. Over time, little micro strands get loose from the moss ball into your tank and start to attach to everything and then grow like wildfire. That's probably why marimo promo websites have maintenance recommendations to take them out and "gently roll them" to "keep their shape." Ha! That's to tangle longer strands back in to the ball. Won't work in the long run though. I fished them all out and binned them but too late, the damage is done. I have a daily, exhausting battle trying to pull the strands out of plants and off rocks and driftwood. It's like Mirkwood's spider webs in my tanks and my dwarf shrimp keep getting caught in the strands, which seem to grow overnight. Forget fish trying to swim in there. They'll probably get garotted. Cladophora also nets, straightjackets, wraps and binds your plants together so they can't grow properly. Every day I spend 2-3 hours with aquarium tweezers cleaning the clumps and stands out and sadly pulling out many other unsalvageable, infested good plants and throwing them away. Plants for which I paid $$$$$, especially the fine textured ones or ones with delicate, easily breakable stems. For example, the java moss, weeping and flame moss is unsalvageable. Might even have to throw the $$$$$$ driftwood away. It would actually be quicker and more fun to just set a pile of fifty dollar bills on fire in the backyard. The next day it has grown back again, like I never touched it. This stuff is a vigorous alien Audrey. "Feed me, Seymour!" Soon it will overgrow the tank and eat me and my children, then come for you.... It's probably OK for a dedicated "marimo CLADOPHORA ALGAE ball" tank/vase only. But I hate it with a vengeance now and will never put marimo "moss" balls in my tanks again, ever. If anyone knows how to nuke this stuff without killing everything else in the tank and could post it here, I will worship the ground you walk on, ha ha.