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RE: Mangrove



Mangroves can spend part of the day completely submersed (based on a documentary I saw about Okinawa, where the tidal changes were large enough to cover the smaller trees).  But they basically like to keep their leaves above the water line.

We've found them to be really easy to grow.  We have some in dirt, beach sand, coral "rocks" in a plastic plant pot in the middle of a pond, planted in redwood "compost", plain aquarium gravel, gravel w/laterite, and even some that are just hanging in the water (no substrate).  Fresh water or brackish.  They all seem to be growing the same.  The ones that aren't in a container with fishes are watered with water from our pond.  So they only get nutrients from fish or turtle waste.  I suspect they'd grow more quickly with added fertilizer though.

For lighting, we have most of ours outside in direct sunlight, but we even had a bunch indoors with no lighting other than what was coming through a sliding door about 4' away.  They survived for about 3 months until I had enough time to build a suspended lighting fixture.  They now live directly under a 4' two lamp household fluorescent fixture with a diffuser.

You might also check:  http://www.floridaplants.com/Mangroves/Default.htm.  Ours look like the 'Red American Mangrove', but I've never seen it referred to locally other than plain old 'mangrove'. 

Good luck,
Wade
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Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2000 19:33:20 EST
From: Ludwigia10 at aol_com
Subject: Mangrove

I have the good fortune of volunteering at the aquarium at the local musuem. 
Recently, they have aquired a mangrove, and are planning on putting it in 
their brackish tank. They have asked me to dig up some information on the 
subject, and of course I am turning to the group in hopes to seek out someone 
with experience.
More importantly, we are looking to find out what this guy may need in terms 
of substrate, nutrients and lighting. Any information at all would be most 
appreciated.
You may either post here, or email me directly. Thanks so much.

Tim