Safir
08/10/2006, 02:04 PM
Ever sicne we added a few bamboo shoots to our FW tank i've been thinking a lot about keeping mangroves with the SW tank. The filtering effects are nice, of course, but my primary concern is bringing a little "green" to our home - I've found mangroves very interesting since visiting the florida keys as a child, and I love the idea of having my own mangrove "forest"
Here are my ideas, thoughs or suggestions are welcome, as well as experience from anyon who may keep mangroves themselves.
I have a 10G tank lying around, and also have enough wood to build a stand for it that compliments the stand I built for the "big tank" - this got me to thinking, What about combining a (small, i suppose) remote deep sand bed and my mangrove forest - I could drill the 10 for a feed from and return to the sump and have 5-6" of sand and 3-4" of water in it to serve both the DSB and the mangroves. The stand for the 10G mangrove tank could also serve double duty and hide my topoff resivoir, and when the time comes that I need them, holding conainers for supplements - currently my topoff container is a 5G bucket sittign next to the stand, i could either fit that into the new stand, or out another 10G or 15H to use for topoff.
My biggest question is wether the root system of the mangroves will disturb th workings of the DSB, or vice verse - will 5-6" of sand be a problem for the mangroves?
one last question regarding a remote DSB in general - what kind of life should it have, just bacteria and other microorganisms, or should it include a full complement of sand-sifting critters, liek one would want in a display sandbed.
I already have a small refugium with 3-4" of sand in it, it is small but functional, so losing the sand in the mangrove display wouldn't kill me, but itd be nice as my 'trates still hover in the >10 region, and i'd love to get them down even further "naturally" - I don't hav ethe budget or room for a better skimmer.
Hope you could follow my meandering thoughs well enough to offer any suggestions, ro tell me my idea is hair-brained and I should give up on it now - I wont act on it until october, after i return from atlanta so I've got plenty of time to change plans or abort
Here are my ideas, thoughs or suggestions are welcome, as well as experience from anyon who may keep mangroves themselves.
I have a 10G tank lying around, and also have enough wood to build a stand for it that compliments the stand I built for the "big tank" - this got me to thinking, What about combining a (small, i suppose) remote deep sand bed and my mangrove forest - I could drill the 10 for a feed from and return to the sump and have 5-6" of sand and 3-4" of water in it to serve both the DSB and the mangroves. The stand for the 10G mangrove tank could also serve double duty and hide my topoff resivoir, and when the time comes that I need them, holding conainers for supplements - currently my topoff container is a 5G bucket sittign next to the stand, i could either fit that into the new stand, or out another 10G or 15H to use for topoff.
My biggest question is wether the root system of the mangroves will disturb th workings of the DSB, or vice verse - will 5-6" of sand be a problem for the mangroves?
one last question regarding a remote DSB in general - what kind of life should it have, just bacteria and other microorganisms, or should it include a full complement of sand-sifting critters, liek one would want in a display sandbed.
I already have a small refugium with 3-4" of sand in it, it is small but functional, so losing the sand in the mangrove display wouldn't kill me, but itd be nice as my 'trates still hover in the >10 region, and i'd love to get them down even further "naturally" - I don't hav ethe budget or room for a better skimmer.
Hope you could follow my meandering thoughs well enough to offer any suggestions, ro tell me my idea is hair-brained and I should give up on it now - I wont act on it until october, after i return from atlanta so I've got plenty of time to change plans or abort