I have a tank that contains 3 moss balls and a large amount of java moss as well as some other plants. All are growing well. There is/was also a moss ball that nearly died when I first got it - and the little bit that was left has grown into a marble sized ball. There were some tiny pieces of this ball that were floating around in the tank - I thought as soon as they got big enough I might roll them, too.

I noticed some extremely fine, bright green "hair" growing up my airline hosing, as well as a mass of it growing at the surface of the tank. It does not match the java moss - java moss is quite large leaved compared to this stuff. It looks just like moss ball moss - but in fine dispersed hairs - on the airline and covering the anarcharis and java moss - mostly on the surface of the water.

Is this hair algae? Is this moss ball that is not balled? (I know they are really algae balls). Is this stuff worth saving? Will the goldies eat it, or will I infest another tank if I introduce it as food to a goldie tank? Shall I roll it into a ball?

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I don't know daryl what it is, but I would like to know. I think I have something similar in one of my tanks. It isn't unattractive. It looks like a little hummock of bright green fine moss, like the moss of a moss ball.

I don't know where it came from since I have never had a moss ball, although I do purchase live plants, so maybe a tiny bit was stuck on one of those.

Same here - I have that fine hairy stuff growing on the glass of my tropicals tank. Unfortunately, I have both in my tank, mossball and yava moss, so its hard to tell from which plant it came. My Chinese algae eater doesn't touch it either. I scrape it off with the algae sponge, but it come back eventually. Not that it looks horrible, and I wouldnt' mind if it didn't pick the glass of all places!

I might have found it. Take a look at this webpage, especially the second post by Karen Randall.
http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/Algae/cladophora.html

moss balls are cladophora and apparently there is another similar type of cladophora that can appear in tanks. It sure sounds like what I have growing on my bogwood

It might very well be something like that. I pulled it all off the ancharis and the rocks and rolled it into a ball, thinking it was perhaps a spread out moss ball growth. It floats - it puts out so many oxygen bubbles that I can watch them bubble up and the ball fill with them. It bounces around. I do have a lot of light in that tank - it is my"planted" tank.

Hmmmmmmmmm......

I will not throw it out yet.