Marine plants?

Question

I've enjoyed keeping a few soft corals in my 46 gallon bowfront for the past few years, but I was thinking of adding some live plants to the tank. What would you recommend? What are the lighting requirements for marine plants? Are there any special measures I should take into consideration before buying plants for my tank?

Answer 1

The only "plants" that are typically used in marine tanks is mangrove (a tree), and some seagrasses. The mangroves are fine when they're small, but what do you do when they grow? Seagrasses grow closer to shore and like more nutrient-rich water, and that's not the environment most corals and anemones want.

Instead of "plants" saltwater uses macroalgae in their place. Some of these make a nice addition to your tank, others become a nuisance, so you should be able to identify which is which.

I have three marine tanks, and have some macroalgae in each. I have five types of Caulerpa, which unless you keep it pruned will be one of the ones that take over the tank. It's a fast grower, which is why it's used for removing excess nutrients, but you need to prune the algae to remove the nutrients from the tank. If the temperature goes up, the Caulerpa can go into a reproductive mode and burst open, releasing a lot of the nutrients (as well as reproductive spores) into the water and this can pollute your tank.

Some others that I keep are red grape algae, Udotea (mermaid's fan), merman's shaving brush, Gracilaria (ogo), Valonia (another one that can be a problem, but is nice in small amounts), and halimeda (needs lots of calcium).

Chances are, if you have conditions that allow soft corals to live, you'll be able to keep most of the macroalgaes, but if you want to try the Halimeda, Udotea, and shaving brush types, you may need to add some supplemental calcium .

I'll put some sources and info on these for you below:

http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/scateg.cfm?pCatId=490
http://www.tropicalfishoutlet.com/plantscategory.asp http://saltcorner.com/sections/guest/algaepage/algaepage.htm - the good and the bad - if a nuisance, the number next to the algae corresponds with organisms that will eat it at the bottom of the page
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/maralgae.htm

Answer 2

There are very few actual vascular saltwater plants. Most all are macroalgaes ("larger unicellular plant"). If you weren't stipulating vascular plants, try Caulerpa, Cheatomorpha, Rizophora, as just a start.

Turtle grass and mangroves are vascular ones.

GL!