The ultimate Mangrove thread!!

[GK3]

Another nano goby I added, due to complete insanity, was the very cryptic grisseingeri goby. BEAUTIFUL fish. Very difficult and expensive. Getting them to eat was the main and only focus in my life during that period, lol. At one point I had EIGHT down there, at $150 a piece! I really rarely saw them, I assumed they all died until I broke the tank down and found them, most of them, living in the fuge:

I also kept sexy shrimp in there on the frag rack side:

How often t u spraying your mangrove leaves to remove salt?

 

[reefcubed]

How often t u spraying your mangrove leaves to remove salt?

So, red mangroves do not need to be sprayed, their roots have a type of reverse osmosis membrane that keeps 90% of the saltwater out. This way they don’t excrete the excess salt through their leaves like other mangroves requiring the leaves to be washed with rainfall (RO spraying). However, I would still spray them every now and then as they were super close to my lights, and in nature they live in environments that have absolutely crippling humidity. So spraying only helps!

 

[reefcubed]

H
how big did you let that octopus get before you sold it? Where do you get an octopus and cuddle fish that small

There is a local fish store here in St. Louis that often gets in octopi in very small sizes. They look so awesome I just had to get one. They aren’t as fun as I thought though. They are master escape artists so you need a special enclosure for them. And I’m not kidding that I never saw it. If you get one you should get a tank dedicated to just an octopus so you can create a natural environment for it to be comfortable and float around. The LFS kept them in floating breeding boxes floating in their frag tanks with no cover. Made me sad for them.

There is another great LFS here that is not afraid to get in very exotic/rare fish. They sell cuttlefish eggs there, which are apparently pretty easy to hatch. I bought one of the freshly hatched cuttlefish. They are truly amazing. Their ability to change color, capture prey, use mesmerizing hypnotic color change patterns. I swear if aliens invade, it will be them and we will be crushed lol.

 

[reefcubed]

Here are some beautiful and informative mangrove build/informational threads. I will continue to update this list

http://www.twolittlefishies.com/images/mangrove_manual.pdf

Freshwater Substrate Vs. Aragonite Mangrove Growth Test | Reef Builders | The Reef and Saltwater Aquarium Blog

Mangrove trees are a popular addition to reef aquarium systems, and we’ve recently focused our attention on them with all the newfound space at the Reef Builders Studio. It’s positively easy to simply…

reefbuilders.com

Build Thread - Shallow Mangrove Lagoon - Custom Build - Indian River Lagoon Biome

I wanted to share a tank project I am working on in hopes for a bit of advice, most specifically in regards to lighting. I have a pretty large mangrove that I have had for a number of years. The mangrove is about 6 years old and I have had it for the last 3 years. I have kept a few moderately...

www.reef2reef.com

Build Thread - Brad's Natural Reef Mangroves, Macros, and More

Hey Everyone - Last November I went to the California Academy of Sciences and fell in love with their mangrove displays. Between the visit and Giga's mangrove work, I knew I had to set up a mangrove tank. I quickly gathered up old equipment and made an 18" mangrove macro tank that quickly became...

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Build Thread - 50 Gallon Lowboy Mangrove Paradise

I'll start this off by saying I am HORRIBLE at keeping my threads updated, so this may just be another snapshot in time, but I wanted to show off my 50 gallon Mangrove setup I started in January. I'll also say that this is 100% inspired by brad908's beautiful setups, nothing original here! Have...

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Wawawang's 40 gallon shallow coral reef with open air plants - June 2015 Featured Reef Aquarium

Congratulations to community member Wawawang and his 40 gallon nano reef aquarium for being selected for our June Reef Profile! Below is the aquarium profile...

www.nano-reef.com

MANGROVE TANK BUILD!!!

Check out this video on my new Mangrove Tank build! Thank you for the support!

www.reef2reef.com

Nano Build - Micro Mangrove Build

Hello everyone , this is my fist "build" thread so please bare with me . I'll start by explaing where this idea came from . Ever since I saw Julian Sprung's tank I have been In love and facinated with mangroves . More recently inspired by some of Scott Feldman's "Biotope" articles and then...

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MANGROVES!

I've been growing a handful of red mangroves in my refugium for a while now, with the intention of starting a new, dedicated mangrove reef tank. I have a 12.5 gallon shallow tank (18x18x9) I'd like to use, and the main goal is to train the mangroves to develop the large, thick aerial root...

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It's Mangrove Season!

It's time to start adding mangroves! It's early in the season so most of the propagules collected are pretty small. I suggest starting these in some kind of substrate like Miracle Mud if your phosphates are low enough and you're not prone to algae. My tank is rather new and for my application...

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Of mud, mangroves, and niches: Mission 2018

MISSION: 2018 I’ve certainly spent enough time talking abstract philosophy of late, right? While I’m pleased with the level of discussion, I think it’s time to talk about ways to run a more biologically diverse reef system in 2018. With all of the cool gear around, to me it’s actually more...

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@pelican
@brad908
@Dos Ocho
@SaltyLou
@Julian Sprung
@ewelch
@Scott Fellman

 

[reefcubed]

H
how big did you let that octopus get before you sold it? Where do you get an octopus and cuddle fish that small

Sorry I didn’t answer your question. It was basically the same size as I got it. Didn’t keep it long. See picture attached. That’s the most I saw it. Can’t see it? Me either. It’s in the crack of the rock, lol

 

[GK3]

Sorry I didn’t answer your question. It was basically the same size as I got it. Didn’t keep it long. See picture attached. That’s the most I saw it. Can’t see it? Me either. It’s in the crack of the rock, lol

Mind if I ask where you got it and what you paid? I woulda kept that thing, very cool.

 

[reefcubed]

Mind if I ask where you got it and what you paid? I woulda kept that thing, very cool.

Sure thing. It was years ago so don’t quote me. But I believe I paid $50 for it. I got it from a store here in St. Louis, MO called Gateway Aquatics. If you are willing to pay for shipping, you could probably even contact them and tell them Brandon Costello suggested it, I bet they can work something out with you. Don’t quote me on that price though haha

 

[reefcubed]

Mind if I ask where you got it and what you paid? I woulda kept that thing, very cool.

In the store they let it out of the box and crawl over your hands and stuff. Truly remarkable creatures. I know a guy that bought one here in St. Louis, then literally over like a year later, it just miraculously gave birth to like 50 octopi. Lol. Great personality

 

[reefcubed]

Here is my display. I’ve had this mangrove for about 5 years and believe it’s about 7 years old. I’m starting to think more about pruning it and if supplementing with iron may help growth.

Forgot to mention, pruning, while painful lol, can really make a great specimen. If you look at a branch that has multiple levels of leaf sprouts, you can cut just after one on the stem. And from that point, two branches will grow instead of one. Making it much fuller. You may already know this. But I’ll try and find a pic illustrating. Truly beautiful specimen you have

 

[reefcubed]

Here is my display. I’ve had this mangrove for about 5 years and believe it’s about 7 years old. I’m starting to think more about pruning it and if supplementing with iron may help growth.

Found it. It’s called “pinching”. Also. Cutting off the top growth stem of the entire plant will stop them from growing upwards and start growing outwards:

Pruning Mangroves

Hi all. Just a quick question here. Some of my mangroves are getting pretty tall and I want to move them to a new floater as well. Can i cut the tops off them safely or, will i be harming them if I do? Any thoughts would be great. Thanks in advance, Zoom.

thefragtank.ca

 

[reefcubed]

Another fantastic mangrove thread by @rmchoi

RC40G Mangrove Refugium

Who would ever think of planting a tree in saltwater aquarium? Julian Sprung has done this for years and grown an amazing mangrove tree in his tank. This was the inspiration for this mangrove refugium. Originally, I changed from Zeovit biological filtration back to old school natural...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[reefcubed]

I’m going to start posting inspiration pictures while we wait for other experienced keepers to join in.

 

[reefcubed]

But first real quick I wanted to post a couple more articles/build threads and tag some members I have seen with great mangroves:

Mangroves... The death of Cyano Algae?

All My Cyano is Gone?! A little background - I have been fighting a cyano outbreak for about 6 months in my 390-net system. It had me at my wit’s end and that's an understatement! I did everything I could think of to try and combat the issue; more frequent water changes, feeding less, cleaning...

www.reef2reef.com

My buddy @Afishionado (a mangrove enthusiast himself) with an interview with Julian Sprung about his mangroves.

Reef2Reef TV : Product Review 4 : Acro Power by Julian Sprung

Amino Acid supplementation seems to be the craze right now. All the major brands rolled out their version of their amino acids as well as mixture of other elements. For this episode, we travel to Miami, Florida to speak to Julian Sprung about his Amino Acid product, Acro Power. From what it...

www.reef2reef.com

An article on pruning mangroves for best appearance.

Pruning Mangroves

Hi all. Just a quick question here. Some of my mangroves are getting pretty tall and I want to move them to a new floater as well. Can i cut the tops off them safely or, will i be harming them if I do? Any thoughts would be great. Thanks in advance, Zoom.

thefragtank.ca

And shrimpfish in a mangrove display:



Also hopefully some more beneficial experienced contributors:

@wicked demon
@dcordray@Airborne65
@dragonfish
@Dog Boy Dave

 

[reefcubed]

First I’ll start with the classics. Most of not all of these you will have seen before. They have been around, are beautiful, and have served as the poster children for mangrove displays. One thing that’s always been curious to me, is how most of them have NO fish in them! Even the ones that are very mature. I’d think a school of fish, or some clowns or something would go in with them. It’s the circle of life, the fish help the plant grow. Love to hear thoughts on that. But see below:

@Julian Sprung mangrove tank:

This unique display:

This display at MACNA

The Volcano Tank:

@brad908 first go around with a mangrove display:

This amazing nano:

Equally awesome nano:

 

[reefcubed]

Here are a collection of Two Little Fishes and Julian Sprung’s tanks at conventions, etc. The first two pics are of tanks they are going to put into production solely for the purpose of building mangrove lagoons. I believe they will be called “Little Julians”.

Other displays

Displays:

 

[reefcubed]

This next set are mangrove displays that I love. Nano cubes!

Some shots of @ewelch tank

This one I showed earlier:

Some more @brad908 inspiration

Some fantastic nano’s that are actually the top section of a cascading pyramid:

Orhers:

This one I LOVE

 

[reefcubed]

Ok, final post for now because I’ve been posting too much, this has gone from 7 followers to 1 lol.

Here are some shots of the long shallow mangrove reefs:

 

[Tahoe61]

Love this thread did I say that already?
So I will be changing up the medium and raising the mangroves.

 

[reefcubed]

Love this thread did I say that already?
So I will be changing up the medium and raising the mangroves.

Great! Post your progress here so we can all follow!

 

[Tobe71]

following