Lighting. This is very important and sadly most people set ups are not cutting the mustard(not all just most). There seems to be two methods that people approach mangrove, when adding them to their system. The first thought is to add one or two to their sump and using a Spiral CF bulb to grow them-this is very inadequate for long term health. The other method is to stuff as many as they can into a tank and grow them for nutrient uptake(which they don't take a crazy amount unless you have a lot), which they may or may not have proper lighting but again this is not a good practice.
Important rant “Mangroves should not be an afterthought when adding them to your system. They are living things and should be treated as such. I’m not trying to be a crazy person here but I think they should get as much attention as sps or any other organism. “End rant. Now that that’s over let get to what it should be.
Mangroves growing in the bright hot mexican sun
If you’ve ever been to the tropics you’ll notice right off that bat that the sun is super intense! The reason is,is the sun is directly above you as opposed to a slant in the northern and southern hemisphere. This is where mangroves thrive.* Your lighting should try and emulate this. Let me give you an example of what I mean.
lots of mangroves with bad lighting-my bad :P
*
one mangrove with good lighting
So what do you use? Well I’ve had good results from and 8x24T5H0 and MH. Be wary of metal halide as you want intense lighting but don’t want to cook the leaves off. If it’s too close the leaves will start browning and shriveling up. Right not I’ll be using a full spectrum LED setup. My setup is capable of putting out 20000 lumens and uses high end LED’s. The fixture is intense BUT it’s a few feet away from the mangroves. I’ve had good result growing plants in my vivariums and I expect the same from the LEDs and mangroves. I will update this as my results come in.
Getting compact growth Here’s where I’m gonna teach you some bonsai techniques.First off you need to make sure your mangroves are healthy and growing strong before you work on them. All my mangrove are over 2 years old with my oldest being 5 years old. Just make sure they're healthy before you try this as it will stress the tree.
Red mangroves have a long and leggy growth pattern and to help rectify that in your aquarium you trim.
Also bright light, much like where they grow, will also help prevent long growth. Low light will force the tree to extend to reach for the light.
Long growth that has gone unchecked
What I do is let it grow to 3-4 pairs of leaves then I’ll trim it down to one or two pair (make a judgment call as I do it down to one pair of leaves). *You don’t want to wait too long before you do this as you want to make the cut at the base of a pair of leaves like so:
A good sharp pair of cutters is very handy to have
After you make the cut new growth will grow from the base of each leaf-as there are dormant buds there, and stay dormant unless forced to awaken, like shown
Black Mangroves Basically the same techniques from reds can be applied to black(whites/grey and buttonwood). The really the only difference is black mangrove will back bud. Meaning you cut the trunk you will get buds back on old wood very easily as opposed to red which have a harder time doing this and you run the risk of killing the mangrove as they don’t readily back bud on lignified branches (rigid and woody-not green)
old picture but lots of back budding goin on here
