Mud and Mangroves

[Okeewanfonokee]

I currently have about 8 mangrove trees that have a few leaves and good root systems growing. I plan on making a refugium that is above my main tank and I wanted to use reef mud and mangroves. I have a house that before I bought it had the carport enclosed and I am working on remodeling it with new walls, carpet etc. I have a window that before looked out into the carport from the main house, now that it is enclosed is a wierd window to no where. I want to place a 10 to 20 gal in the window and have this as my refuge that would drain into the lower enclosed room where I have a 55gal tank that I bought years ago and have never used. I am still working on the overflow-return system and have some friends that will help me from the LFS. Has anyone tried mangroves before? I have read some really cool benefits from reef mud but I do not know any one in person that has tried it before.

 

[killingseed2000]

i have been using mangrove from sometime now. at first i had them in a cup but never like it. when i made my new sump. i made a section just for them with an 8 inch sand bed. workrd a lot better then the cup.

your setup sound something like what i want to do with my new inwall. have the mangrove tank drill , works best, and feed water using a pump up to it. another member in my local club had done it that was as well using like 25 to 50 mangroves.

here is a video of my current sump, somewhere along the end you can see the mangrove section

 

[Pitcom]

I know several people with mangroves and mud in thier refugium. You are either for or against the mud. Personally I like it and so do alot of reefers in my area (at least the ones i talk to). One inch of mud provides so much more denitrification then sand. I'm actually picking up a mangrove for my refugium this week. My LFS got a bunch in but the roots got tangled together so it took him a while to finally get them seperated. Your only supposed to keep the mud around 1 inch deep, so i believe my friends keep theirs in a little plastic basket for the roots to grow through. I'll give somone a shout and find out.

 

[Pitcom]

i have been using mangrove from sometime now. at first i had them in a cup but never like it. when i made my new sump. i made a section just for them with an 8 inch sand bed. workrd a lot better then the cup.

your setup sound something like what i want to do with my new inwall. have the mangrove tank drill , works best, and feed water using a pump up to it. another member in my local club had done it that was as well using like 25 to 50 mangroves.

here is a video of my current sump, somewhere along the end you can see the mangrove section

I really like your mangrove section, totally cool.

 

[Pitcom]

Mud only needs to be 1 inch deep for denitrification purposes and for possible h2s build up since the bed isnt being stirred up.(Ive only seen this where somone made a 4" deep bed on an aquaclear) I don't know anyone who has any shifting stars or type animals in a mud refugium as you dont want the fine particulates getting stirred up through your system. I have never heard of it crashing a system. I love how people like to claim things yet don't use the product themselves. I'm no guru on the subject, but the owner/maker of a popular marketed refugium system helped my LFS build thier refugium for thier 1300 gallon display tank, which is over 10 feet long and full of mud and various macro algae. My info has been garnered through thier experience and other local reefers. I have a thriving refugium system and never had any bad algae breakouts in my tank. Wether or not the mud has helped, I'm satisified with using it.

 

[Okeewanfonokee]

Thanks for the info and I loved the video. I guess I have to rethink my plan. I saw in the video that the mangroves were to one side of the sump. My idea was to place the mangroves in the middle part of a refugium with rubble rock and some mud beneath that. I wanted to create more a natural buffer and a place where bugs/pods could grow and drain down to main tank. I wanted macro algae in one of the outside baffles to help filter as well. I think it was on GARF that I saw a grunge or grunge plus, a bug/pod, booster, that was just for a mud type environment, but if you say that stirred up mud could become a problem, I will have to change plans. I might be able to place a sand/mud bed at the end. My hope was to have the roots mostly exposed and small shrimp and crabs in view, as close to the real environment as I could get.

 

[killingseed2000]

the main thing about mud is it provides iron for plants, ie maro algea, mangroves as well as provide food for worms , pod and other small creatures.

one of the other reason for my mangrove section is the height which allowed me to do a DSB and inturn the mangrove root keep the sand shifted.

as for it crashing dont think it happen if done right. some people use sand in the refuge but doesnt provide the other things i listed.

there are three things in my refuge

LS, which we all should know a about ,and i needed to fill up the mangrove section and make up space.

Refugium Mineral Mud, which i gave some of the info for
and you can read about here.
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=7319

Marine BioSediment, which Slowly releases calcium, magnesium, strontium, potassium, carbonates, and other minerals

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=7418

 

[Pitcom]

I talked to my friends who do the mangrove and mud combo and they all use the small plastic baskets in thier systems for the roots. I would be more than happy to take some photos for you if you want. just send me a PM if you need any or wanna talk about the mud further. Im actually looking forward to getting my mangrove tommorow and putting it in my system. Good luck with your setup.

 

[oceanparadise1]

one plus of the mud is its a fine sediment and will allow a large ammount of bacteria population and will help out for denitrification, thats one plus but i still say DONT do a deep mud bed, IMO thats asking for trouble


Also I dont know if you have seen the chemical breakdown for the mud but it has a ton of metals, thats what worries me the most

 

[Okeewanfonokee]

Killingseed, in what ratios do you have the mud and biosediment? is that something that can possibly be layered? I will look at your video again and see the DSB and mangroves. Was wondering who helped you put video together? Looks to me like George Lucas and ILM helped out.

 

[Nate82]

guys just out of curiousity i can see the positives of the mud but... do you think it's worth it? i mean miracle mud seems so dang expensive at $35 so do the benefits justify the cost? oh and do you need mud to grow mangroves or does it just help to grow them?

 

[killingseed2000]

okee, i use about 1 inch of the mud, which was 1 gallon. as for the Marine BioSediment i use the larger bucket. i moved the tanks once and ended up mixing the Marine BioSediment and mud so its no longer layered. Marine BioSediment is sand in the long run but sand that desovles over time. which is nothing but good for hard coral. yes its costly, so i wouldnt spend that kind of money for a sand bed in a tank but you can. because of the cost i use most LS in the DSB / mangrove section as a fuller so i didnt spend more $$ on the Marine BioSediment just to full it. i come up with it myself. there is a lot fo threads on DSB so i came up with that and knowing the root of the mangrove are always growing i came up with the mix of the two. i did layer the 3 in the mangrove section and it still is.


this setup has been running for over a year. movers drop my first sump so i made the sump bigger this time and the old sump was running for more then a year as well.

running this setup or mix of substrate for more then 2 years.

nate, you dont have to use any mud of any kind but its design to feed iron and other things to the plants you might be growing in the fuge.

 

[143gadgets]

I'm going to make this VERY clear. I have tried to stay out of arguments that have been posted, because I think we are all adults and can act as such. I am not the enforcer type. However, if I see anyone make another personal attack, YOU WILL BE BANNED. This is just ridiculous. If you have a problem with another member then take it to PMs. We will not tolerate it any longer. It is really sad that we have to resort to these measures, but because some of you want to act like children we have no choice. I hope that from this point you all can get along.

We will also be more active in removing any off topic or uninformative posts that are made in a thread.

Take care and Happy Reefing

 

[Garth Schafluetzel]

well i turned an old 35gal into a refug my first DIY lol and in the refuge area it hols abou 14 gal so i put in a 2 inch sugar grain live sand and araognite that i mixed in with it and for the top layer i put an inch of the miracle mud and my refuge couldnt be happier the calerpu that survived my tangs pruning lol during the set up of the refuge i left for 10 min to get more SW and came back to only 4 little pieces out the hundreds that were there befor any ways i love it no mangroves yet theres just no room under my stand realy or is there have just recently wanted to try them myself. i was thinking of adding another overflow to my tank and plumbing it into the room beside my tank and building a 3 1/2 foot by 3 1/2 foot and about 20 inch tall and put to 10 inch tall blockes inside to hold a 9 inch DSB and i thought i would suspend a high pressure sodium light about and add maybe 10 mangrove trees this would almost double the water volume of my 75 dt and 35 gal refug and 29tall sump already.

 

[TritonsGarden]

Got mangroves in the sump but no mud.

Jack

 

[oceanparadise1]

jack what are they going in?

 

[TritonsGarden]

They're just in a piece of PVC sitting on top of live rock. They have been growing pretty fast since this picture was taken. The sump/fuge is a large Rubbermaid stock tank with a DSB, live rock, cheat and mangroves.

Not sure how well the mangroves help but we have 0 nitrates.

Jack

 

[oceanparadise1]

so what are there roots connected to?

 

[TritonsGarden]

Some roots are attached to the LR but most are just hanging in the water column. I'll see if I can get a better pic.

Jack

 

[Okeewanfonokee]

Those are about the size I have, but not as many. I am trying to get the ones I have now to grow onto some small rubble rocks. I started my guys out fresh and now I am slowly adding a salt mix to them. I am getting some great ideas from everyone, many thanks to all.