Are my Mangroves dying?
 

I purchased 5 mangrove pods about a month or so ago and have noticed that most of them are slowly turning brown. There is usually a small brown patch at the bottom and it slowly works its way up until the entire pod is brown. It is still firm and not squishy, but I don't know whether I am supposed to assume that it is dead or not. Two of them are finally sprouting leaves out the top and one just breached the water line. But the other three are all going brown.

Oh and I have quite a lot of Caulerpa in the tank as well. I know that a piece of my caulerpa rooted into the bottom of one of my pods and the whole thing turned brown and went squishy like it was dead. I ripped the caulerpa off of it and it firmed up but it is still all brown.

Chris

jusya thought
 

i thought that having Managroves in the sump you don't need Caulerpa
maybe that is waht is taking the nutrients away from the caulerpa

Well it depends. You need one mangrove for evey 4 gallons of water for effective nitrate removal. In this case, I would have no where nerar the amount of Mangroves to cver my system, therefore, I have a ton of caulerpa as well.

IMO, mangroves should only be considered an ornament/novelty item for the reef aquarium . they are trees, and exhibit very slow growth, not something that will have a huge uptake of nutrients from your system.
but very interesting nonetheless.

I realize that completely, however, you should have seen how giddy I was when I saw the first leaf come out. I love watching things grow.

We've tried 3 times. They were ok for awhile and seemed to be growing. Then the brown would start and ultimately, they all died. Have to agree with Smokin. For us it was an interesting experiment, but not one we'll try again.

oh dont get me wrong.
i think they are really cool!
i just didnt want anyone to think that they are really good at nutrient removal.

Are they Red, White, or Black Mangroves? There are many more species of Mangroves, and they are stratified across tropical coasts. Some like to be submerged completely, some floated, and so on. Go to Google type mangroves and always ask your LFS what variety they are...this will give you keys to its proper growth conditions. I have had good luck with growing them, but they are slow at it...

Stephen