High Tide Aquatics

Hello everyone!

Peter Dolan

Peter Dolan

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Hello everyone! I'm glad to have found this community recently, and am looking forward to the upcoming frag swap where I hope to see a lot and meet many folks.

My wife and I have kept marine fish tanks for many years, and unsuccessfully tried to recreate the Banggai Cardinalfish native Mangrove lagoon environment over the last few years. For some reason we could never get the mangroves to survive in salt water (we had some more success in fresh water), so we eventually gave up on that plan. Recently the last of our marine fish expired, and now we're considering shifting our focus to corals.

We may decide to try a coral-only tank, or may try to again recreate the Banggai environment, this time farther from shore in the reef zone. We're still doing our research.

For now, we're excited to learn a lot while our tanks (a 20gl quarantine / hospital / grow tank, and a 65gl Red Sea 250) go through extended cycles with fresh aquascapes, and to meet new friends in the area.

See you all at the frag swap!

Peter and Andrea
 
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Sounds good Peter. A suggestion for the mangrove/banggai habitat is to go with artificial mangrove roots. Personally I don't think mangroves are a long term solution for a tank anyways, after all it's a fricking tree you're effectively trying to plant in your tank :D
 
+1 on artificial roots.
Not only is there no issue dealing with real mangroves, but you can control water chemistry better.
Bangaii do great in reef aquariums though, so coral works well also.
If you are getting your first coral at the swap, consider avoiding SPS, especially sticks.
 
Thanks for the welcome, sfsuphysics and rygh!

We've definitely given up on growing the mangrove trees, and artificial roots is a fine suggestion. We have overlapping interests in bonsai and really wanted to make an actual tree work, but it clearly wasn't going to happen. I'm still wondering what exactly went wrong, though, and I may try to do some more controlled experiments in my basement, just not in my display tank :)
 
Welcome! I'm thinking of adding some Banggais to a tank. Cool how they hover and hang out in branchlike structures. See you two at the swap!
 
Peter Dolan said:
Thanks for the welcome, sfsuphysics and rygh!

We've definitely given up on growing the mangrove trees, and artificial roots is a fine suggestion. We have overlapping interests in bonsai and really wanted to make an actual tree work, but it clearly wasn't going to happen. I'm still wondering what exactly went wrong, though, and I may try to do some more controlled experiments in my basement, just not in my display tank :)
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Experimenting sounds like a fun thing to do.
Start a thread. I think I remember someone in the club did grow mangroves.

I hear some have success with an automatic mister, to get rid of maintenance of spraying the leaves all the time.
Others have success planting them in a huge pot of mud in the tank.

Oddly, I have a section of deep sandy mud in my fuge, for when I someday (never) grow seagrass.
 
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