Dont Laugh At My Newbie Question.........

[alex978]

i have some plant experience, I own 1 aquarium (10 gallon) with 4 female bettas and 1 applesnail, its planted pretty well and look great. Ive owned this tank for a little over 6 months now and i think im ready to do something different.......BRACKSIH! I love those little bumble bee fish, and those see-through glass fish are awesome. So my new 20 gallon tank is going to be brackish with about 5 glassfish, 5 bumblee bee fish, and 4 mollies (3 females and 1 male). I hate fake plants even the silk plants, but i doubt that i have the time/money to plant my brackish tank. So my question is (and dont laugh) are there "plants" like decorative algae or seaweed for brackish tanks? I have an aquarium book in which ive run my 10 gallon tank perfectly with and saw the decorative saltwater algae, so i thought maybe there are brackish ones.


yes i know about cycling, pH and all that stuff

 

[penguinpimp1990]

ummmmmm no there are no decorative algaes but if you were to get seaweed i dont know what would happen to that tank chemistry, maybe nmonks would know more

 

[nmonks]

Hey Penguinpimp... Thanks for the promo!

alex978: Yes, there are brackish water plants and 'seaweeds'. The problem is few are traded commercially. There are lots of freshwater plants that tolerate low salinity brackish, i.e., an SG (specific gravity) below 1.003. So if you were keeping, for example, bumblebee gobies, knight gobies, halfbeaks, glassfish, and so on, you could add things like Vallisneria, hornwort, and Anubias without problems.

A very few freshwater plants sold to aquarists naturally occur in brackish water; the most notable are Bacopa monnieri, Crinum calamistratum, Cryptocoryne ciliata, and Java fern. These will reliably handle SG 1.003 to 1.005. Note that some of these plants are demanding in other ways, even if they tolerate the salt. Bacopa monnieri, for example, needs a lot of light. There's some info on all these plants in the Brackish FAQ:

http/homepage.mac.com/nmonks/aquaria/brackfaqpart2.html

Once you take the SG above 1.005, then your list of plants gets real short. Essentially, none of the commonly traded plants are of any use here. The problem is, the algae sold to marine aquarists, like Caulerpa, need much higher SG values than this. It might be worth trying Caulerpa out at an SG of 1.015 or so.

Mangroves are another option, but they're not easy to keep, and let's face it, they're trees, so hardly ideal plants for small aquaria! Brown seaweeds cannot be added to aquaria: in small tanks they produce toxins that cause rapid pollution. I'm not sure whether this is from decay or some other process.

Brackish water algae will of course develop all by itself in the tank. Hair algae, diatoms, and so on are just as common in brackish water tanks as any other kind. These can be used advantageously: if you use the lighting and rockwork in such a way that the algae complements them rather than gets in the way, such an aquarium can look very cool. Slate in particular looks really nice when covered in a thick mat of algae.

But otherwise, you're limited to rocks, bogwood, plastic plants, bamboo, and so on.

Cheers,

Neale

Incidentally, neither glassfish nor bumblebees need brackish water. I keep both in soft, acid conditions and have done so for almost a year. Having said that, slightly brackish water will do neither any harm. If you check out February's Practical Fishkeeping magazine, I have an article about glassfish that covers them in considerable depth.

ummmmmm no there are no decorative algaes but if you were to get seaweed i dont know what would happen to that tank chemistry, maybe nmonks would know more

 

[penguinpimp1990]

he/she got me curious about seaweed in tanks although i would imagine it would cause a problem in the long run

 

[Little Fish]

Mangroves are another option, but they're not easy to keep, and let's face it, they're trees, so hardly ideal plants for small aquaria!

May be it is my beginner's luck; the mangroves in my tank are extremely easy to keep. I trimmed the top couple of leaves and new ones grow back within a week or two. I cut off the top 2 inches of the stem and 2 buds sprout like a Y from the top. I cut off the whole stem part to the pod and 3 buds grow out from the pod in a month. They are good for nutrient export but you will need an open top tank and many pods to form anything decorative.

 

[Zombies]

May be it is my beginner's luck; the mangroves in my tank are extremely easy to keep. I trimmed the top couple of leaves and new ones grow back within a week or two. I cut off the top 2 inches of the stem and 2 buds sprout like a Y from the top. I cut off the whole stem part to the pod and 3 buds grow out from the pod in a month. They are good for nutrient export but you will need an open top tank and many pods to form anything decorative.
[/quote]

I'm interested in Mangroves and am happy to hear about your success! Do you have any pictures? I'd love to see them. Do you grow the Mangroves with your puffers? I'd be afraid my GSP's would jump out of an open tank...With an open tank how is your lighting set up?

 

[nmonks]

That's my point. Getting mangroves to sprout in aquaria isn't difficult in the least, provided they have space and light, the problem is that making an aquarium where you can use mangroves decoratively is very difficult. You need a lot of space, an open tank, and strong lighting held well above the aquarium, and even then, the mangroves are growing above the waterline so don't do much to decorate the aquatic part of the tank. Also, being trees, what you're essentially doing is playing with a temporary resident to the tank: unless the tank is gigantic, within a year or two the mangrove will be far too large to be useful. At best, you have a 'bonsai' mangrove sticking out the back of the tank.

Mangroves are certainly worth trying out in a paludarium or a vivarium, but they make little sense in the standard brackish water community tank.

Cheers,

Neale

May be it is my beginner's luck; the mangroves in my tank are extremely easy to keep. I trimmed the top couple of leaves and new ones grow back within a week or two. I cut off the top 2 inches of the stem and 2 buds sprout like a Y from the top. I cut off the whole stem part to the pod and 3 buds grow out from the pod in a month. They are good for nutrient export but you will need an open top tank and many pods to form anything decorative.

 

[Little Fish]

I'm interested in Mangroves and am happy to hear about your success! Do you have any pictures? I'd love to see them. Do you grow the Mangroves with your puffers? I'd be afraid my GSP's would jump out of an open tank...With an open tank how is your lighting set up?

Just as I said before: I'm a beginner; so the layout and the way I plant them might not make sense to people with more experience. I did not consider growth or other factors; I just planted them the way I like.

The only fishes I have in this tank are figure 8 puffers and bumble bee gobies. My F8s are good jumpers too but I guess I've left enough room by not filling up the tank. They sometimes jump out of the water but never quite reach the top. I used to have the 65W actinic run 8 hours a day, the 65W 10,000K 6 hours a day, and the lunar LEDs on at night. All the plants in the tank grew like crazy, including the algae. However, after I decided not to go marine but brackish I turned off the actinic totally. Then the F8s seems to notice the lunar LEDs and refused to rest at night. So they are off permanently also. Finally, to discourage algae growth, I only run the 10,000K 4 hours a day now. The algae growth has been curb but the mangroves are still flourishing.

 

[Little Fish]

Mangroves are certainly worth trying out in a paludarium or a vivarium, but they make little sense in the standard brackish water community tank.

That's what a lot people said. However, sometimes I just need to find out on my own. It would be pretty boring for a hobby if eveyone do exactly the same thing, right?

 

[nmonks]

Indeed. And for what it's worth, I think your tank with the mangrove plants looks awesome. It isn't something I'd immediately have thought of as a good idea, but it looks fun and clearly is giving you a lot of pleasure, and that's the main thing.

Cheers,

Neale

That's what a lot people said. However, sometimes I just need to find out on my own. It would be pretty boring for a hobby if eveyone do exactly the same thing, right?

 

[Little Fish]

Indeed. And for what it's worth, I think your tank with the mangrove plants looks awesome. It isn't something I'd immediately have thought of as a good idea, but it looks fun and clearly is giving you a lot of pleasure, and that's the main thing.

Cheers,

Neale

Thanks for the compliment. People usually use 1, at most 2 mangrove pods in a tank of similar size. I have 10 to 20 folds of mangroves. So far I don't see any sign of nutrient deficiencies (slow growth, yellow leaves, etc). However, this set up is only about 4 months old and only time can tell if it can be substained in the long run.

 

[penguinpimp1990]

what brand of flourescents are you using? and is your tank covered or open topped? mine seem to be doing well also but i dont have as much water in mine as my tank only has fiddlers so alot of water is not needed. And are your mangroves potted? (i assume they are) if you leave 1 or 2 unpotted it make the tank look more natural and interesting, but theyll need some minor pruning once in a while as they grow quite long

 

[nmonks]

My guess would be that unless the pods develop a proper root system, they will eventually run out of nutrients. To begin with, they're presumably using iron, copper, etc. stored in the pods. I don't think mangroves can extract nutrients like these any other way than through their roots. Certainly not through their leaves, which are above water, and I can't imagine the pods can absorb nutrients directly either.

So do the pods have any roots? If they do, then presumably you could try and "bonsai" them somehow by cutting back the roots as well as the stems periodically. But most of the tanks I've seen with mangroves are quite a bit larger than yours, and this gives the mangroves at least some space to grow into.

Cheers,

Neale

However, this set up is only about 4 months old and only time can tell if it can be substained in the long run.

 

[Little Fish]

what brand of flourescents are you using? and is your tank covered or open topped? mine seem to be doing well also but i dont have as much water in mine as my tank only has fiddlers so alot of water is not needed. And are your mangroves potted? (i assume they are) if you leave 1 or 2 unpotted it make the tank look more natural and interesting, but theyll need some minor pruning once in a while as they grow quite long

I'm using a Coralife Lunar Aqualight. It is a open top tank with the light secured on side mounting arms. I agree, the mangroves don't need that much water; it's mostly for the fishes. None of the mangroves are potted...that may create problem in the future.

 

[Little Fish]

So do the pods have any roots? If they do, then presumably you could try and "bonsai" them somehow by cutting back the roots as well as the stems periodically. But most of the tanks I've seen with mangroves are quite a bit larger than yours, and this gives the mangroves at least some space to grow into.

All the pods have roots already when I received them. I gave one to my friend last month and the root system showed some nice new growth. It would be a lot of work to trim the roots so I'm preparing to take some out of the tank when necessary. Yes, my mangroves to tank size ratio is way off I have seen tanks with 2 to 3 mangroves in a refugium or sump and they are 100 gallon tanks. I have not seen anyone else that went crazy as I did