Freshwater Substrate Vs. Aragonite Mangrove Growth Test

[Reef Builders]

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 keep a few Rhizophora mangrove pods alive with basic lighting and their roots in the aquarium water, but this will never result […]
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[User]

Great article, and awesome results

I have a question-how do you envision the clay substrate working in a Refugium section of a sump? I have plans to add mangroves to a 40b planted display macroalgae refugium that is part of my 165 g sump. Idea was to hang a 5”deep, 4” wide 30” long trough on the inside of the section, with the top of the substrate just submerged. I just hadn’t gotten around to selecting media.

Do you think the clay substrate would hold up to being completely submerged and constantly exchanging water with the rest of the refugium chamber? Proposed flow rate is around 200gph (5x volume) but will have ancillary flow via 2 small powerheads.

Alternatively, I could raise it a little above the water line abd feed it with part of the incoming fuge water supply at around 20gph, just let it overflow back over the sides into the tank. Enough for slow constant nutrient addition but not so much it disturbs the substrate creating clay clouds

Any thoughts?

Thanks- love the articles and videos, great work!

 

[Eric R.]

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 keep a few Rhizophora mangrove pods alive with basic lighting and their roots in the aquarium water, but this will never result […]
Source

Continue reading...

In an experiment like this, if you want any sort of worthwhile result, it would really be better to do at least two of each sample, if not three or even four. It's hard to say that the substrate made a difference, it could just have easily been another undetected factor with one of the plants. Great idea for a test though.