Who uses Mangroves?

[coolsurf]

Thinking about adding some Mangroves to my sump. I've read and heard a lot of positives regarding them...more positives than negatives. It seems they are a more natural way of filtration. Thoughts prior to ordering them?

 

[hackman72]

I left Rit's place a little while ago and he has them in his awesome frag tank. Mojo has them too and his sytem looks great. I've been thinking long and hard about getting some myself. Guess I'm just to sorry to make it happen...lol.

 

[drnecropolis]

I've heard that that have very little effect vs chaeto and other macros.. I might look into getting some but it will be purely for the look of mangroves rather than the ability to export nutrients..

 

[pufferchris]

i have a 30 gallon reef with a 24 gallon aqua pod as a sump and around 25 stalks of mangroves.and i use no other filtration

 

[coolsurf]

What I've read states that they filter very well and makes the skimmer work less with some reefers actually going skimmerless. It seems that they can drastically reduce nitrates and phosphates naturally versus phosphate removers/chemicals etc.

Here is one of the articles I found...

http://www.toptropicals.com/html/aqua/plants/mangrove/mangrove_eng.htm">http://www.toptropicals.com/html/aqua/plants/mangrove/mangrove_eng.htm</a>

Some articles refer to tropical tanks but just as many refer to salt water setups.

 

[corigan]

They have an awesome mangrove setup above the tropical diver exhibit at the georgia aquarium. It has horn sharks and stuff in it. You can see it on the behind the scenes tour.

 

[coolsurf]

PufferChris;460697 wrote: i have a 30 gallon reef with a 24 gallon aqua pod as a sump and around 25 stalks of mangroves.and i use no other filtration

I'm curious as to what your parameters are. I've heard/read that some do not even do water changes because the Mangroves are so efficient in their systems. How often do you do water changes?

 

[lifestudent]

IamRit;460759 wrote: ... Not sure how much nutrient they filter out of the water but they sure look nice. I'm doing for the look more than anything else.

I agree.

I have one mangrove in my refugium that I found as a green pod on the beach in Florida and have had it "growing" for 2.5 yrs now. It now has 6 leaves and has about doubled in height to ~12".

 

[coolsurf]

I just ordered 12 red ones tonight. Guess i'll be a test subject. They say that people usually get frustrated because the results are not instantaneous. They seem to take between 3-6 months to prove what they are all about. I hope they work out.

 

[pufferchris]

i do 5 gallons every 2 weeks and i don't run a skimmer nitrites,nitrates,phosphates all undetectable i also have cheto in there i use 2 30 watt 6700 k lights on them both mangroves and cheto grow really well