I know for sure it is harder to move small trees vs propagules. It took me 5 tries to finally get a small tree to grow in my aquarium. I started with brackish water, organic potting soil, and a few months before getting to full saltwater. I’m not sure how root rot happens, but it seems more common in freshwater, Ime, than saltwater.
Yes, and very slowly. I start in brackish water, which seems to be the easiest and best environment.
To answer the second question, I have a similar plan. If you are wanting to grow prop roots then its best to do that outside the tank in brackish water. Mangroves grow fastest in freshwater, but are more susceptible to root rot and algal leaf spot ime. Full saltwater slows the prop root growth to a crawl, but root rot and algal leaf spot are pretty much out of the picture. Brackish is a nice in between aim for a salinity of 1.010-1.015.
If you don't care about the prop roots then I would buy from Algae barn and just plant the mangroves directly into the substrate in your tank. Algae barn sells mangroves already acclimated to saltwater. They will not grow prop roots once they have hit the substrate.
No need to wait.
So do Mangroves just filter the Water or do they have other benefits ?I have been keeping, messing with, and experimenting with mangroves for years. I have read information far and wide, and utilized experience of other refers on here as well. I hope this becomes the one stop spot for inspiration and information. I hope that other mangrove aficionados join in with their displays and to honor us with their advice. Some of which I will post here that I thought was very clever. For now, I’ll save spewing out info on them, and just start by posting pics of my use of them in aquariums. I first started using them in my display refugium of my sps dominant 93 gallon cube. Here is the tank at some point in
I’ll share pics of it more mature as I go along, but I built a custom display refugium and frag tank for the sump, all contained within the footprint:
Mangroves and fuge day 1:
Way cool little piranha what do you feed them ?If you see, I began adding barnacles to the section. I’ve always kept nano creatures in this area, but this began my obsession with the lovable little barnacle blennies. There are at least 5 in this first shot, and a yasha goby. I had 3-4 yasha gobies in my display, but small fish LOVED to travel down into the sump:
They look nice/cool but really they take very little out of the tank compared to macros. You would need a lot to do much noticeable filtering. Root structures when large enough can provide places for pods to shelter as well as small fish and cuc.
So you mentioned that a lot of people failed. One thought why not write an article for here ? At least go into more detail for me to start an ignorant mangrove wanna beI’m going to keep posting progression shots, as well as other projects I’ve done using mangroves. I’m also going to keep tagging people as I think of them to share their mangrove pictures, like @rmchoi. This shot shows an experiment I did with adding clams to aid in filtration:
This is showing how my mangrove refugium and frag tank was ever evolving as a display:
Looks good how you planted it. Important is to run white channel of your lights at or near 100%, blue light does nothing and might even harm mangroves. It is a slow process and as long as leaves don’t yellow you are fine. Young trees should not drop or yellow leaves, only mature trees do.Added a slightly rooted propagule to my tank, wondering if there is a better way to secure it. See attached photos.
What is the best way to "plant" a new mangrove?
I buried the existing root structure (very small, maybe 4" at the longest) and have it where I want it, in about 2" of sand. Will it anchor itself here, or how to I make sure it stays in place without falling? Should I do something completely different?
I am stuck with about 2" of sand, so if it's not going to make it because of that, so be it, but I would like to give it a good chance as I like the aesthetics of the plant.
Mine in gravel anchor down by themselves fairly well, however I placed a few rocks around them for more stability and one of four is tied to my lights. After a year or so mine seem to be very stable.
The root structure will grow and grab rocks near by. Mangroves will also grow prop roots, I had mine for 3 years and they did not but they were firmly anchored in the substrate by the time I took that system down. I had mine in a display fuge which was an odd shaped tank. The tank was an elongated octagon, I had it set up so the 2 angled panes and the shortest pane were at the front and back of the tank kind of like a peninsula tank. Across the back from angled pane to angled pane was a rock wall and I filled that empty section with sand and crushed coral there was about 4" of water above that section. I originally put 5 propagules with small root structures in that deep sand bed. 2 withered and 3 grew leaves and branches. When I took the system down about 3 years later most of the deep sand bed was filled with mangrove roots. They never put down prop roots and I have heard theory's as to why mostly because they were stable enough to not need to.
