cuttle lagoon

[CaptFish]

 

[bluespotocto]

How do you guys compare the mangrove and macro algea to other filtration set ups?

 

[hobogato]

bluespot, i had a dsb fuge and mangroves on my 249 gallon mixed reef, and the skimmer stopped producing. took the skimmer off line for the last few months that i had that tank running. for me, the more biological filtration, the better my tanks seem to do.


just finished adding in some stuff from a local reefcleaners group order, so i thought i would snap a quick pic

 

[Shanks]

That's an interesting and unique (at least to me) approach... The whole thing looks awesome, like a planted freshwater tank. What are you going to do for circulation?

 

[hobogato]

it has a koralia 4 right now. i may change to a vortek tho.

 

[Fishy]

Hi, that tank looks amazing! Just a few words of advice about the mangroves at the bottom - they shouldn't be fully submerged or they won't make it.

 

[hobogato]

thanks fishy, i had heard that they would do ok like that, but i went ahead and moved em up to be sure

 

[DWhatley]

I was told the same thing (and assumed that was why you had them at the top originally). I was also told that they need freshwater and that you should mist the tops regularly to both give them freshwater and to remove the salt build up.

 

[hobogato]

hmmm.... i dont thing the fresh water/misting thing is correct because i had some live over four years in my last system's fuge without doing that (probably still alive-they went with the fuge when i sold the system)

 

[Fishy]

If they have already sprouted in freshwater, you should acclimatise them slowly over a couple of months, if they had no roots at all when you put them in, then they will be absolutely fine. The more saline the water is, the more magnesium they need but I'm not sure if magnesium is harmful to cephs or not.
Good luck with your lagoon it looks great already

 

[DWhatley]

The ones I kept for awhile did accumulate salt on the leaves (I was forever forgetting to mist them as they were in a sump) so the advice seemed appropriate but if yours were successful without then maybe not.

 

[Fishy]

Maybe you had a grey/black mangrove? They accumulate salt on the leaves but red mangroves do not. They store salt inside their older leaves.

 

[DWhatley]

Interesting. The ones I had were collected by members of an aquarium club and made available at a meeting I attended so I really don't know what kind they were.

 

[Fishy]

If the leaves come out of a long pod like structure, then it is a red mangrove, Rhizophora mangle. If the 'seed' was like a large lima bean then it is a black mangrove, Avicennia sp. Also, the growing bud of the red mangrove is spear like and the leaves of the black mangrove are grey/whitish on the underside. The red mangrove is by far the most common and most effective.
Hopefully that helps

 

[Shanks]

it has a koralia 4 right now. i may change to a vortek tho.

I remember reading a thread in which someone had their cuttle get its feeding tentacles stuck in a koralia, I dunno how to get around that potential issue without a sump