Benefits of having a mangrove? How much nutrients can they export?

[Tanster2]

Hi all, I am setting up a new 22 gallon bookshelf reef. The tank will be arriving tomorrow and I am so excited to start this little project.

For those of you who have experience with mangroves, would you consider them a replacement for macro algae? Would a baby mangrove or perhaps 3 small ones export too much nutrients too fast? I plan to feed this tank very frequently! Is there a way to keep them small, like trimming a bonsai?

Finally, any tips for keeping a mangrove in a nano?

This is the sort of look I am aiming for(replace the plants there with mangroves:

 

[hzheng33]

in my experience, mangroves were there for the looks, not for nutrient export. i saw no difference between having them (i had 2 of them) vs not having them.

 

[ichthyoid]

Most people I know that had mangroves ended up getting rid of them due to size.

While intriguing, I don’t know if they will tolerate being trimmed. I suspect not.

I grew up in Florida & was around them a lot. They grow into good sized multi branched trees. I would choose growing macro algae over a mangrove for nutrient export.

 

[sharis100]

Inappropriatereefer - YouTube and Instagram has a mangrove tank. Mangroves are more decorative unless they are of significant size or if you have a great enough number in a system of them attached to your tank to pull nutrients. I have several and keep them for interest, not nutrient export.

 

[Tanster2]

Awesome good information everyone. I will keep one for decorative purposes until it gets too large then. Looks like they're very easy to grow nonetheless.

Sharis I will check out his video, love his channel!

 

[ActiveAngel]

Agreed. Even with beautiful mangrove forests at 1 mangrove per gallon, my friends don’t see much export to my knowledge. But they are beautiful.