Is it too late to acclimate my mangroves?

ThePurple12

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Around two weeks ago, I bought three mangrove trees from Ebay, and they arrived looking great. I put them in my tank, making sure their leaves were above the water level. I positioned a lamp with a daylight LED bulb over them because they weren't under my tank lights. I've been spraying them with freshwater every day.

They slowly declined, and now most of their leaves are nearly black and several have already fallen off. I did some more researching, and found that you need to acclimate them to saltwater if they were grown in freshwater, which they were. So my questions are:

Are my mangroves dying due to no acclimation?

Is it too late to acclimate them? What is the best way to acclimate mangroves?
 

luckylepgw

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Around two weeks ago, I bought three mangrove trees from Ebay, and they arrived looking great. I put them in my tank, making sure their leaves were above the water level. I positioned a lamp with a daylight LED bulb over them because they weren't under my tank lights. I've been spraying them with freshwater every day.

They slowly declined, and now most of their leaves are nearly black and several have already fallen off. I did some more researching, and found that you need to acclimate them to saltwater if they were grown in freshwater, which they were. So my questions are:

Are my mangroves dying due to no acclimation?

Is it too late to acclimate them? What is the best way to acclimate mangroves?

Unfortunately, i made the same mistake a few weeks ago and salt shocked/killed 5 mangroves. Was not able to save them.

Got me another 7 but double checked with the seller and he grew his in fresh. So i filled a 10 gal with fresh, floated my groves, and waited almost a week before i started salting the fresh water.
From what i have been able to find, adding salt slowly for at least 2 weeks to give them time to adjust. I am probably going to stretch it out over 3+ weeks.

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Also added some "dirty" sand and old tank water from a water change to give the little guys some nutrients as my first salt addition. So far they are doing much better than the last group.

Good luck
 

laverda

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I know nothing about acclimating them to salt water. Mine came with out leaves or routs and I have no idea if the came from fresh or salt water. I just stuck them in my sump slightly above the water level in some rubble rocks. Took about a month befor they took off. Now less than 2 years later they are 24” tall and growing out of my stand.
A day light LED is really not the light they need. The red and blue LED grow light work much much better. You may also want to consider you nutrient levels. Mine are what most would consider high with nitrate at 20-25. I also dose small amounts of iron for my ATSs and macro algae.
 

luckylepgw

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I know nothing about acclimating them to salt water. Mine came with out leaves or routs and I have no idea if the came from fresh or salt water. I just stuck them in my sump slightly above the water level in some rubble rocks. Took about a month befor they took off. Now less than 2 years later they are 24” tall and growing out of my stand.
A day light LED is really not the light they need. The red and blue LED grow light work much much better. You may also want to consider you nutrient levels. Mine are what most would consider high with nitrate at 20-25. I also dose small amounts of iron for my ATSs and macro algae.
Yours were just pods, they will sprout in any water without acclimation.
 

luckylepgw

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Thanks for the replies. Hopefully they won't die...-
From what i have read, salt shock kills them. Sorry man, that's why i tossed mine and just bought new. And their leaves where just yellowing, transferred to fresh water, continued to decline.
 

luckylepgw

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Question, are you tree base (pod) soft or hard. If soft and wrinkly, they gonners. Firm, you may have a chance.
 

luckylepgw

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The green, i never checked the brown, but the green on mine went soft, wrinkly and bendy pretty fast once the leaves started turning. My current 7 (even the one that lost its top during shipping) are all really firm.
 
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ThePurple12

ThePurple12

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Question, are you tree base (pod) soft or hard. If soft and wrinkly, they gonners. Firm, you may have a chance.
I'm not sure if they're firm or not. They feel kind of soft, but not really soft. They're not wrinkly either. There are two tiny leaves that seem to be improving.
 

luckylepgw

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I'm not sure if they're firm or not. They feel kind of soft, but not really soft. They're not wrinkly either. There are two tiny leaves that seem to be improving.
You may have gotten lucky, my luck sucks. But heck i only paid $12 for the first 5 i lost, $15 for the replacement 7 so still not bad since they run $20 a piece in the local shops [emoji23] hope they survive for ya.
 

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