Emerging Plants Other Than Mangroves?

[Teebo]

I am entering this hobby from the freshwater planted tank side, I got bored. I am more interested in the plants than the fish, so you can say I am now 50/50 between plants and coral....the fish are just there to compliment them and I have a much more interesting choice of fish now but that is besides the subject.

I am absolutely doing a display refugium, I may even start off with a planted marine tank and just have fun with that for now. I am almost guaranteed success by entering this reef hobby backwards. Anyways I have just recently moved from MA to FL, specifically South West shore. I have been exploring the coast line and now I am all excited...yes it is all protected but come on I am talking about a very small tank and I will propagate and put the same amount back into the wild where I found it. I am on the hunt now for anything I can see green along the coast, I have red, black and white Mangroves, Railroad Vine, I see what appears to be a green moss in the roots of Mangrove bogs, what else is out there? I know there are many types of micro algae in the hobby already, but I am focusing on emerging plants right now. I heard Brazilian Pepper is invasive to FL trying to compete with the Mangroves, that may be a choice.

Of the three types of Mangroves, which is most common in the hobby? Which is the better nutrient exporter? I see that the white Mangrove has the smallest leaves (rounded) so that may be a major factor in choice...

 

[kireek]

I would love to see pictures of your unique project.Hope you get some more ideas soon! #REEFSQUAD

 

[jsker]

Black Mangrove is more prevalently used. I collected my pods at Long Beach in Sarasota. I started with 6 and I have one that is finally starting to get leaves and I am excited to see it grow. I am very interested to see your progress, there have been a few threads here on R2R. It would be great to see the build and progress.

 

[Shon]

I've pondered Sea Grape myself.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coccoloba_uvifera
Seen some neat bonsai done with them.

 

[Teebo]

I will definitely keep everyone posted on my project

I've pondered Sea Grape myself.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coccoloba_uvifera
Seen some neat bonsai done with them.

I did see some Sea Grape out there among my search, however the leaves are at least a foot in diameter and larger so you would need a full sized tank or lots of head room in your refugium. The only way I could see it possible is as you said Bonsai, a true Bonsai will produce miniature leaves...however merging this Bonsai care technique with a reef tank habitat may not work well or easily. You frequently need to trim the roots of a bonsai tree as well as provide specific substrate and root constraints (which require the pruning) all these things make the tree produce dwarf size leafs.

Black Mangrove is more prevalently used. I collected my pods at Long Beach in Sarasota. I started with 6 and I have one that is finally starting to get leaves and I am excited to see it grow. I am very interested to see your progress, there have been a few threads here on R2R. It would be great to see the build and progress.

Black you say? I was really curious which species was more commonly used in the hobby....and why. I am lucky to have access to much larger cultivars than pods, I have a wide choice of easily obtainable bonsai size mangrove shrubs to choose from. Mainly I see reds and blacks but have not been able to successfully identify many whites. I am not sure how a black root system would work in a tank as they grow upwards with spikes at the base, where the reds look really cool with their prop roots which is the look I think many people are after. I see frequently the reds and blacks mixed together and the leaves on the reds are always larger.

Can anyone answer a question for me? Do corals require complete darkness at night? Can I light these plants on the sides of my tank at night to keep photosynthesis going (pH stable) if some of the light over shines into my tank and hits a coral at night? Not sure I want to do a separated refugium right now for the plants.

Here is the Railroad vine I was talking about, that I see frequently.

I found two new plants today, here is the first one with its flower. May work in a planter on the backwall of a tank.

Here is the second one, similar low ground cover but right along the water...different species.

 

[jsker]

I run my blues at %1 at night time for the lunar cycle, the light you are referring to would not hurt the corals.

From what I was reading, there are more white mangrove the more not one travel up the Florida coast.

I have seen the flowering on over at Cape Canaveral reserve.

 

[Jose Mayo]

I am all excited...yes it is all protected but come on I am talking about a very small tank and I will propagate and put the same amount back into the wild where I found it.

You should not return anything to nature from a reef tank that contains beings alien to the region you are in ... the possibility of introducing a potentially invasive organism or microorganism is more real than the supposedly beautiful gesture, and can be catastrophic .

Best Regards

 

[Jose Mayo]

Can I light these plants on the sides of my tank at night to keep photosynthesis going (pH stable) if some of the light over shines into my tank and hits a coral at night?

Photosynthesis occurs in leaves and plants with aerial leaves consume CO2 from ambient air, not from water ... lighting them at night would have poor effect on the pH of water.

Best regards

 

[Teebo]

I run my blues at %1 at night time for the lunar cycle, the light you are referring to would not hurt the corals.

From what I was reading, there are more white mangrove the more not one travel up the Florida coast.

I have seen the flowering on over at Cape Canaveral reserve.

Thank you for this information.

You should not return anything to nature from a reef tank that contains beings alien to the region you are in ... the possibility of introducing a potentially invasive organism or microorganism is more real than the supposedly beautiful gesture, and can be catastrophic .

Photosynthesis occurs in leaves and plants with aerial leaves consume CO2 from ambient air, not from water ... lighting them at night would have poor effect on the pH of water.

Best Regards

Good call, very good to know. I was trying to prevent this from becoming an ugly ethical debate thread but you have a good point.

 

[Teebo]

The last plant I pictured above is a weed I think, but the one above it with red highlights and white pre-flowers (that are now opening) seems to be more of a native plant and doing very well in captivity so far. I found some coastal grass today growing directly in the gulfs salt water. This is not seagrass you can tell it can not be submerged but it is growing emerged in salt water. I grabbed a little bit for my experiment, which I will post pictures of soon. A little further inland I found what I believe is the same grass fully mature with dried spiky seed pods.

 

[kireek]

Still intrigued,thank you for the update!

 

[Teebo]

This is what I came up with to experiment with a little marine garden, inexpensive thick plastic tub and 3 plastic mesh/lattice trash baskets. I cut the baskets down so they all fit perfectly since they have a taper.

It is located outside in my lanai which prevents a good amount of bugs from accessing it, plus the water is salt so it kills anything that lands in it. I added 3 plastic storage jars as well, I am reserving the baskets for mangroves that I am working with the state to obtain via my job. I decided to use crushed shells for my substrate, since my house is surrounded by them because sand would just wash out into the black tub over time. I am using water directly from the ocean, level with the baskets, and I just top the water off with tap water. Surprisingly I tested the ocean water for nitrates and there was absolutely nothing, not sure if this was because the water was taken from the mouth of an inland lagoon with tons of mangroves but I am not sure how the mangroves stay green if the nitrates are not present unless they are being consumed so fast they are not detectable? The GH was through the roof my test could not even find the ceiling on the level, and the KH was 150ppm. So I am supplementing with fertilizers, there is a little Osmocote Plus in the tub as well as a few Seachem aquarium products such as Flourish, Iron, Potassium, and Nitrogen....I have Excel and Prime but chose not to use them as I do not see them fit....although Excel may not hurt them. I have the plantings broken up into 3 categories: what I believe to be weeds, grasses, and some cool native plants that I favor in appearance and success.

I had found 3 different types of "weeds" growing along the shore, but although they may be tolerant to a salty substrate they do not seem to tolerate submerged roots except for one and I think you can tell which one. One is wilted, and the stemmy plant is also wilting, but the other seems to be growing and staying firm.

I have faith in this grass working out, it was growing in the same exact conditions. Would make a great addition to the base of display Mangroves in a refugium of some sort or shallow frag tank.

This would be my favorite container, there are two different plants here. One is Railroad Vine, and the other is something I am yet to identify but the mature leaves turn red like a Croton plant....they are not really what you consider leaves they have a waxy coating too I assume to resist water. Both this plant and the Railroad Vine produce a beautiful flower as well. In the freshwater aquarium hobby we dose iron to boost red colors in plants, and I can already see that starting to effect both this unidentified plant and the Railroad Vine. Little off topic but if you grow a Croton out of an aquarium that you dose iron in the plant will skip the yellow phase and its new foliage will be red, sometimes with the mature foliage turning yellow the plant literally grows in a reversed color scheme. I am convinced these plants can be weaved together to grow as one vine mass out of a tank and toward a window or light....possibly around the room like a Pothos Vine the way people do with freshwater tanks.

My lanai has a custom lighting system which stays on blue most of the time during the evenings after the sun has gone down, it is almost an ultraviolet blue but is not actually UV...I just thought it was funny they are already in training for a reef tank lighting spectrum!

This will be a very fun harmless experiment, and maybe I can inspire someone to extend their hobby a bit greener

 

[Teebo]

Another thing I am trying to obtain is the invasive Brazilian Pepper "tree" or plant. They compete with mangroves for territory, and they grow massively large from a single root system, not even allowing their own seeds to grow near the tree they must be carried out of its territory to sprout. This means no other plants are allowed to grow within its territory, I believe it is some type of allelopathic defense which means I am scared to put it in my water system as it could potentially kill everything else living in the tub. Even if I did start one, it would have to be from a cutting or seed since no new sprouts are anywhere to be found near the trees.


I was visiting a mangrove boardwalk park this morning when I noticed a few signs identifying salt marsh plants, this Marsh Elder really got my attention. I will be on the lookout for it now.

Slightly off topic relating to submerged plants (not macro-algae) I saw a sign describing 4 different species of sea grass found in my area, the grass I obtained is not one of these 4 as it is an emerged species of salt tolerant grass. This really has my brain thinking, since display refugiums can be hard to stock since some fish and shrimp will actually eat your macro-algae the different species of sea grass and emerged plants will provide the same nutrient export without the risk of it being eaten. Personally I feel sea grass in the display tank does not look bad if it is concentrated to one area to look like a mini grass bed, if you can get the proportion/scale right of your tank.

 

[Teebo]

So it has been a few weeks now since I started this experiment, and I have mixed results so far. The temperatures for FL plummeted right after transplanting, and I kept going through inconsistent nitrogen swings. At least one of these plants are a nitrate consuming MACHINE, a 5ppm baseline of nitrate flat lines practically overnight to 0ppm in about 5 gallons of water. I am using a mix of Osmocote fertilizer and Seachem liquid nitrogen, however I am unsure how fast the other macro traces are being consumed in relation to nitrogen...all I can test for is nitrates assuming they are being consumed at an equal or greater rate than all other nutrients. I have read that iron is the fastest consumed nutrient and if you test for iron you can base all your other nutrient levels off the iron. Between the inconsistent nitrogen, and cold temperatures, the plants also started to loose sunlight exposure as I noticed the trees surrounding my lanai screen house filling in. So I moved the project to another area of my lanai that gets much more sun, it is hard to determine the exact cause of the wilting because it could be temperature, sunlight exposure, or both...lack of sun will not only affect photosynthesis but also keep the plants from warming up in the morning the way they would on the coast during cold mornings. 2/3 of the plants in the back left corner died off before the sun and temperature started changing which leads me to believe they are just not going to work in this type of setup. However the remaining plant in the back left corner is thriving, and I have identified it as Searocket (Cakile). Not much change with the grass in the front, but the two plants in the back right corner have been through ups and downs. I have identified the plant that has red mature foliage as Seapurslane (Sesuvium portulacastrum) which seems to be doing well, the nitrogen bottoming out however caused the mature red foliage to yellow and fall off. Lastly the Railroad Vine (Ipomoea pes-caprae) has also been through ups and downs, the leaf stems keep going limp and seem to improve in the sunlight but it has finally had enough and rejected all new growth for the time being. I found an interesting article on FL shoreline plants that states "Only a few plant species can tolerate the stresses of a dune environment, particularly frontal dune sites. Foredune plants must be able to survive being buried by blowing sand, sand blasting, salt spray, salt water flooding, drought, heat, and low nutrient supply"


Turns out the plants listed as frontal zone are the plants I found on the shore and are doing the best with submerged roots. If I had to guess which plant consumes the most amount of nitrates based on growth rate it would be the Searocket

 

[Teebo]

I just recently returned all of this to the shore a few days ago as I have ended this study. Exposed to the elements the rain became a time consuming challenge constantly diluting the water, throwing off the chemistry. Entering the hurricane season here there was no way I was going to continue balancing the water it would become a daily task. I ended up using sea water and table salt, somewhere in the brackish range sometimes peaking at full ocean salinity.


Since I never ended up with any mangroves in the 3 planters I decided to cover them months ago with a few layers of white foam plates to reflect sunlight and reduce surface area exposed to sunlight. I noticed algae growing on the exposed surface area which was consuming nutrients I am adding, you can see the bubbles photosynthesis was producing. The liquid nitrogen by Flourish was getting too expensive for an experiment so I switched over to Green Leaf Aquariums KNO3 powder, it will last me a long time since this experiment is a nitrate consuming machine.

Some plants have come and gone but the emerged blade grass, Railroad vine, and some sort of a sea purslane have remained through nutrient drops.

This is some sort of a new species of vine I recently found, ended the experiment too soon to verify it is not just a juvenile Railroad vine but I am quite certain it is a different salt tolerant vine species. It is certainly growing much better than the Railroad vine is. There is also a recently added nano species of "vine grass" you can see now growing vertically and flowering, great candidate for reef tanks...should grow horizontally outside your tanks lighting footprint.

Also another recently found species is a round-blade version of an emerged sea grass. The same container also has a large species "vine grass" probably not as recommended as the nano-species I just showed. Look closely you can see two sea snails they accidentally came in as babies on the blade grass months ago, they cleaned the salt off the grass blades as it accumulated and ate algae off the shells in the container...they have been returned to the shore.

Unfortunately the Railroad vine and unidentified sea purslane does not do well in long-term submersion, even with stable nitrogen and trace dosing they both continued to drop their elder leafs. Railroad vine elder leafs yellowed and sea purslane shriveled when they were suppose to turn red. I will try them again indoors in a more stable environment.

To my surprise after lifting the foam plates I found what I believe to be maco-algae which came from ocean water....the diffused light must have been enough. There was also the signs of the beginning of Coralline.

 

[ca1ore]

Looks more like cyano to me .....

 

[Forsaken77]

Marine horticulture. Very interesting. We don't see many folks that are into marine plants like the freshwater side, except for mostly nutrient export. I'll be interested on what you find.

 

[Crimson]

I know your " study" is over but I like to add a few things.

"I ended up using sea water and table salt, somewhere in the brackish range sometimes peaking at full ocean salinity. "

Table salt is for food and not a substitute for saltwater. If you want to use NSW that's local, it might be fine but that all depends on how clean it is.

Next time I suggest you visit a LFS and pick up some salt like "instant ocean" (its cheapish) and a refractometer. For a reef it should be between at 1.025-1.027, Fish Only With Live Rock 1.021-1.025, for brackish around 1.005- 1.015 is good.

Having done a planted tank myself with a 40 gallon cube it was like learning a new hobby. When it was suggested I used Co2, I asked myself why do plants need so much calcium? Joking aside, I realized I could not apply my 25 years of reefing knowledge to a planted tank. In the end I did have a successful planted tank and yes, with C02 injection. Thanks to plantedtank.net I did plenty of reading before buying. The planted tank is no more but I had fun learning it.

I digress,

The red looks like cyno and you have plenty of green hair algae. Which is probably due to adding NO3. The cyno is a bacteria and loves slow or non moving water and detritus.

Edit: this might help the OP about having a refugium https://www.reefcleaners.org/macroalgae-care

 

[bobbyM]

Following! Great project!

 

[alex.mccann99]

Check out www.live-plants.com

I have bought macroalgae from this site many times, along with Gorgonians and Ricordeas. They always send way more than you'd expect. Prices are awesome and shipping is very well done. I just put a bunch of this Red Portieria in my display. It's really beautiful red coloration.