Mangroves: Would you like a tree in your tank?

[CHSBoater]

I've been playing with mangroves in freshwater for two years now. Had some success and learned a lot (still learning). Goal is for a large mangrove tank with big roots.

Here's what I've learned over the past two years:

 

[CHSBoater]

I've been playing with mangroves in freshwater for two years now. Had some success and learned a lot (still learning). Goal is for a large mangrove tank with big roots.

Here's what I've learned over the past two years:

What I've learned over two years:

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

No, they were in solo cups full of sand, which seemed to work fairly well (if a little janky lol).

Curious to hear your ideas.

Forgot to respond to this.

I was thinking of just setting up a mangrove aquaponic set-up using egg-crate. I was curious how much they would root out with no substrate. Would put them in the drain chamber of a big sump on one of the tanks I do (sump is ~240gal).

 

[OrionN]

I love tree in my system, maybe not in my DT. I will eventually set up a low tank pump into my system to have a black mangrove. My mangrove in the sump is about 2.5-year-old grown from seed I collected around September 2020.
It is about 2 feet high and about 2 feet wide. It can be a very beautiful plant and beautiful display, but I cramped it into my sump space which does it no justice.
I did not have the picture of the seed, but below are pictures of my plant. Earliest picture was on 1/21/2021

Today picture 12/4/2022

The trunk with air roots

flowers

 

[OrionN]

Here is a young black mangrove in the wild these plants are much more manageable as house plant in comparison to Red Mangroves

 

[OrionN]

I am not sure very few people growing black mangroves in tank. It is a very beautiful, smaller plant that have multiple shoots anywhere on the plant. Robust growth with relative lower light requirement. The multiple shoots lent itself well to pruning and shaping of the plant.
I will start a project to plant out my Mangrove and prune it to a beautiful shape plan worthy of display in our living area.

 

[OrionN]

More picture of the same area today near the end of the year.

 

[OrionN]

Cramped in my sump and a really pretty young branch that is growing fast. I moved the plant a bout 6 weeks or so ago so it exposed an area of increase light. The mangroves is really taken advantage of this light and is sending up multiple shoots to the area. I also raised the light so the leaves won’t get burn getting close to the light.

 

[OrionN]

Re cap on 1 month worth of growth from 12/4/2022 to 1/1/2023

 

[Moomee]

Re cap on 1 month worth of growth from 12/4/2022 to 1/1/2023

What are you lighting the sump with?

 

[OrionN]

Right now, I have 5 day-light flood LED bulb on the plant. It is one of the cheap outdoor LED that was bult like a tank I got about 10 years ago. I have not checked the PAR on this, but it is in the ballpark of outdoor brightness. Maybe during a cloudy day.
I tried Red Mangrove before, but my mistake was not having enough light on the plant, and it just did not do well. This one is growing like gang buster as can be seen in the pictures above. I think I will also put a Red Mangrove in there when I can get one.

 

[OrionN]

I got a small Red Mangrove pod and planted it with my Black Mangrove

 

[Moomee]

I have been thinking about moving my propagules from sump to display. My display is about 22”, so I’ve been kicking around the idea of buying a clear vase/cylinder (14-16” tall) and filling it with sand to grow the propagules in. I would put it in the back of the tank with rock surrounding it. Does this sound like it would work? Anything I’m not thinking about that I should?

 

[Bay]

This is a before and after at 1 year and 3 months of growth. I have my sump plumbed outside so I'm not using any light for these guys.