Plants above the water line and a reef you don't want to miss!

[Dom]

I would love to try that but the only downside about that is you can’t have a lid. Every fish jump

Wow... never thought of that.

 

[nonstopfish]

Previous setup of mine. Doing a bigger setup and a little different this time, but same mangrove rock going in the new tank.

 

[Jase4224]

This thread is two-fold!

1. Have you seen this amazing tank?

2. How do you feel about plants growing above the water line and have you ever tried it?

ENJOY this reef from Garrett Morizio!

This is just beautiful, those corals are so much more appealing to me than a stick tank. I do love Acro’s but the colour and movement of softies seems so underrated in my opinion. The plants are nice too but mangroves don’t grow in the same environment as air plants so I would do it differently but the tank as a whole looks great. Well done

 

[4FordFamily]

I don't dislike it, but I wouldn't do it, personally. Beautiful tank though!

 

[sde1500]

I'd love to try this with a couple mangroves, to get the roots going all the way to the bottom of a 60g cube. Scape it nicely and add some seahorses, I think it would be awesome.

 

[themcnertney]

Here was mine when my 55 was running...

 

[User1]

One of the challenges of building a reef is taking the vision one has and then implementing it within our confined space / box of water. Take a reef crest for example. You set up the substrate, the rock formations, then corals, their respected placement, then fish and inverts. The layers of that you would see while scuba diving is amazing but a challenge if not difficult to do at home.

Think of it like a tide pool or shallow waterline. It is different across the board with fish, snails, inverts, corals, etc. It can look just as amazing just difficult to take from vision to reality. I've thought about it several times while sitting on a boat somewhere while diving. The life you see in the shallow area is pretty impressive not to mention near a cliff/edge/shore.

 

[hart24601]

For my chameleon I use a mister on a timer. Something like this but the brand I have isn't around anymore:

https://www.mistking.com/Starter-Misting-System-v4-MKMSS-125-50.html

I would like to try plants and just have RO/DI mist the plants a few times a day, it wouldn't be all that much water and should wash the salt off and keep creep down.

 

[Tamberav]

My fish would jump and my cats love to play with air plants.

Air plants don't like reef lighting and tend to dry out and die. You can see dead/dying plants in the photo you posted. Although they still look nice dead.

I think mature mangroves look amazing in reef tanks but they take a lot more time to grow out and need to be trimmed and so on.

 

[Timfish]

Here's one of my systems. Unfortunately mangroves are the only plant readily available. Other plants like sea aster or saltwort are not readily available.

 

[fish farmer]

Here's one of my systems. Unfortunately mangroves are the only plant readily available. Other plants like sea aster or saltwort are not readily available.

I just found saltwort seeds from a place I was going to buy from for my garden needs. https://www.johnnyseeds.com/herbs/saltwort/saltwort-seed-2677.html

I've seen sea asters at the beaches in Rhode Island....I was wonder what those big daisy looking flowers were. Literally growing at the tide line.

Just found a Texas based supplier of sea aster seeds https://centerofthewebb.ecrater.com/p/27291432/rare-edible-wild-sea-aster, most of the others were in the UK.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

This thread is two-fold!

1. Have you seen this amazing tank?

2. How do you feel about plants growing above the water line and have you ever tried it?

ENJOY this reef from Garrett Morizio!

Thanks for sharing, I've tried only red mangroves, did great
Try finding pictures couldn't find, bummer

 

[Cmedeiros]

Beautiful wow just beautiful

 

[Timfish]

I just found saltwort seeds from a place I was going to buy from for my garden needs. https://www.johnnyseeds.com/herbs/saltwort/saltwort-seed-2677.html

I've seen sea asters at the beaches in Rhode Island....I was wonder what those big daisy looking flowers were. Literally growing at the tide line.

Just found a Texas based supplier of sea aster seeds https://centerofthewebb.ecrater.com/p/27291432/rare-edible-wild-sea-aster, most of the others were in the UK.

 

[Mike from TN]

Reviving an old thread but I just did this today. Sandblasted grapevine and air plants. I still need a few more plants though.
I can also still get the lid on to keep the snails in at night. Crazy “party animal” snails go exploring every night if the lid is off.