Red Mangroves?

Question

I brought back some red mangrove propagules from my trip to Puerto Rico about 9 months ago. I had just stuck them in a jar of water and got about half of them to start growing. They're at the stage where they have roots and are starting to get leaves. I can't find any information on how to take care of them from this point on. Anyone had experience growing red mangroves?

Answer 1

I bought one and had it growing in a brackish tank for about 3 years before I tried to move it to another tank (it died shortly after the move). They are fairly easy to grow and can survive under a lot of different conditions, but they don't like being moved, or too fast of changes in their environments. The growth of mine was fairly slow, and they only put out about 4 new leaves each year.

These websites should be able to help you with their care, but be sure you set them up in a tank where they can stay for some time, if not permanently:

http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?cls=16&cat=1932&articleid=3133
http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/aboutmangroves/Mangrove_Plant_Filtration_Care_Information.htm
http://www.twolittlefishies.com/images/mangrove_manual.pdf

Answer 2

White, red, or black no differenece in care.

Because Mangroves require a lot of space above the water, it is recommended to plant them in an open aquarium. The space that I have in my aquarium is about 20 cm, which is enough for the plant. Of course you must trim the plant, because one mangrove can easily fill up the whole room.

It is often seen that people grow mangroves in separate aquariums to filter out the water for the main one. In this case plant them before the protein-skimmer, of course only if you use one, so that mangroves can get all the nutrition they will need.

There are various planting methods:

1. In to substrate (the thickness of substrate should be 3-5cm) - this is the way I have it in my aquarium where the level of the water doesn't exceed a couple of centiliters.

2. In to a bag from filter media, where the gravel is poured. The bag afterwards is fastened to the wall of the aquarium or on to a floating piece of foam. This method is easiest for the "trimming" of the roots.

3. Planting the seeds in to pieces of foam - the seeds are planted in a way that the roots are still in the water.

4. Other methods

In any case, to not let the top green part of the plant be submerged underwater. At the age of a year, or a year and a half, the trees let out air roots. But this doesn't always happen. My mangroves do not have them. In this case it is noticed that the root system of the plant is more "massive" and stronger, maybe if the plant doesn't need the air roots, it won't have any. I noticed that my mangroves have massive root system when I had been planting other plants in my aquarium. Keep this in mind when you add "neighbors" to mangroves. I have not seen any information on any other plants coexisting with mangroves, because it is most likely that they are kept in a salt water aquarium, where the choice of vegetation is not that big. But it is more likely that the mangroves can starve it's neighbors.

Mangrove grow quite slowly, which is one of its good abilities, or otherwise they would fill up the whole room pretty quickly. Because the roots of the mangroves are more useful to the aquarium than the leaves, it is recommended to regularly trim it. But if your goal is to grow a giant tree, than you don't have to do that.

When the plant is fairly small, it shouldn't be bothered. Later on you can pinch off the top leaving a couple of leaves, after that the plant will let off some side branches.

The tree is not very picky when it comes to lighting. I have a compact luminescent lamp above the aquarium with the power of 35W. It is written that a small incandescence lamp close to the plant should be enough. But keep a look out so that the plant won't burn itself on the lamp.

The nutrients that the mangroves need it gets from the water, I sometimes fertilize them with a microelements mixture in the water. The use of iron accelerates the growth and acclimatization of the plant, but I have not noticed a great difference.

All together mangroves are not that hard of a plant to grow.

(This is not my write up, but in my experience it is all true...easier to copy and paste than to type it all out! Good luck.)