salt water - plants

[Tropjunky]

I'm trying to get some plants in a saltwater aquarium but i don't know wot sorta plants i can get can any1 tell me wots best?

 

[Stryker]

In full SW you have some very nice macro-algaes to choose from, sea grass and mangroves..... not sure of anything else.

They are all pretty much grassy type plants (apart from the mangrove which is in fact a tree). Soz, no real pretty flowering plants in SW as far as I know.

 

[Lateral Line]

Eel Grass is actually a flowering plant, but it is very difficult to maintain in a tank. The public aquarium at Copenhagen zoo has stopped trying, they have plastic "grass". There are very few aquarium plants that will tolerate salt, even at the brackish level, you are down to a couple of tough species which survive, they don't grow.

I have seen "plant like" things in marine tanks, Caulerpa etc.

You'll get better answers to this on the marine boards. I'll move it if you like.

 

[Tropjunky]

well it's not for a tank it's just a jat with some brine shrim or something and than i'm gonna seal it, It's kinda gonna be an biosphere so it has to be oxygenating as well.

Well if u think moving this will help the by all means do so.

 

[jacblades]

i have heard many bad things about caulerpa. it can go sexual and release toxic fluids into the tank. i have also heard many good things about it though, so going sexual seems to be a rarer occurence. reefcentral has a planted marine forum with a lot of good links on macroalgae. they also have many opinions on calupera.
i hear marine tanks are extremely hard to keep up but its definately possible. if you want a sort of biosphere, maybe you could try hawaiian red shrimp. i think they are used in many biospheres. do a search for "hawaiian red shrimp" on google and you will find a goos biosphere site. (i would link you to it but i am not on my computer)
i think a lot of biopspheres also have zebra nerite snails too
hth

 

[Lateral Line]

I moved this here from the Plants forum, anyone got any input?

 

[Navarre]

There is really only 1 type of "plant" for salt water... Algea

There are lots of different types of algea but basically they are have similar characteristics. Plants have a root system, algeas do not, they use anchors to secure themselves onto rocks etc.

Macro algeas are what you would term as the "plants" of the marine tank. Caulerpa is popular and grows fast but uts very unstable. Its great at extracting nutrients from the water but it retains these until the day it goes asexual and then it dies and dumps it all back in the tank To get around this, many hobbiests keepa light on their sumps (which is where most macro algeas are kept) 24/7 as this tend to stop the algea from doing this.

There are other types of algea and they are truely lovely looking things. This is whati keep in my tanks.

Halimeda
Halymenia
Haliptilon
Codium

Algeas that tend to be thick and rubbery (like Codium) need higher levels of calium in the water or they dont grow as well.

Mangroves are true plants as they have a root system but htey grow quite slowly and are not the type of plant you want for your system. (I have 5 in my sump for nutrient extraction)

Hope this helps

 

[Tropjunky]

yah but does algae oxyenate the water cos i'm useing it in an enclosed system

 

[Navarre]

hmm...
What would worry me more is how you will cope with them at night in an enclosed system. They will then give off carbone dioxide and this will lower the PH. In a small system like that you might find the drop in PH too much for things like shrimps etc.

As far as your answer goes.. Im not 100% sure.

I know they will use up Nitrates and usually this is converted to Harmless Nirtogen (in an enclosed system this might be an issue?) But they also photosynthesis so i guess they make oxygen too.

 

[Tropjunky]

hmmm u got a good point there but the O2 made during the day will be more than enough to get thru the night and nitrogen will get used by some kind of bacteria.