MANGROVE VS. PROTEIN SKIMMER

[papijames]

Morning all,
I was talking to MKCindy and she brought something up to my attention. Mangrove. It it said that you can replace your protein skimmer with mangrove sticks by having 6per 20gal, and will absort nitrogen gas, solube iron, inorganic phosphates, and more.
Now we call know the protein skimmer takes out invaluable and valuable nutrients.
I'm currently running a 55gal with a homemade 10gal fuge, and a wet/dry filter. also have alot of cheatos in the fuge, and a Coralife super skimmer rating up to 125gal.
Should I stick with what I have now since I don't have water quality problem, or should I make the switch?
What say you?

[RayAllen]

Why fix/change what isnt broke? You can add a couple of Mangroves to your fuge but I would not go skimmerless

[Gilbert]

what are the requirement to maintain Mangroves?

[caferacermike]

Mangroves are nice but let's not battle a known technology. Using a skimmer allows for a visible reassurance that indeed it is the product doing the work. Someone claiming that adding mangroves to the sump will replace a skimmer may be making a non scientific claim. Has anyone done a true comparison study? How can we not be assured that the original source of the information did not already have a clean and stable tank? Maybe there corals were absorbing all the excess wastes. Maybe the sump was ideal for venting off excess gasses. Get what I'm saying?

2 years ago the magic bullet was caulerpa. The next year caulerpa was made illegal to posses in CA because it was ruining the beaches. Everyone switched to chaeto after that. It just seems that the new advice is to switch from algae to mangroves.

I'm all for running both. Add a few mangroves to your system if not just for the cool factor of watching them grow out of your system.

[seamonkey2]

I did a comparison, I CANT see love but I know is real.

the problem with mangroves, is that they are very slow growers, so they do what they are suppose to do, but very slowly, after all mangroves are trees :)

now the caulerpa deal, IMHO still better than cheato, and it was ban in CA because it grows crazy fast under the good conditions and some idiot reefer dump it in the ocean and it took over, that is why there is a ban on it, people switched over to cheato because is "safer".

I at one point I had about 100 mangroves under my tank and NO skimmer, yeah I know crazy, both do what they are suppose to do, one is seen the other one is not seen that's all.

if you want to do the mangrove thing, for better results, do it with them out in the open, is easier and it looks better.

BTW I dont run a skimmer anymore and do water changes every 6 months, to each his/her own.

Jose

[bimmerzs]

Hi,

Mangroves work.....and are yet another way to have/maintain a successful reef tank. Here is a good article outlining their use in aquaria. http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/apr2002/feature.htm

Cheers,

[Jonthefishguy]

and some idiot reefer dump it in the ocean and it took over,

That idiot was Jacques Cousteau.

[MKCindy]

I have a 40 gal w/20 gal refuge. A few weeks ago, I added mangrove. I am floating 24 Red Mangrove on 2 Styrofoam islands in a chamber located before any filtration or my skimmer. (3 are still very small) Most have about 3 inch roots and my skimmer is no longer pulling anything out so I removed it. Everything is looking happy so far.
Here is an interesting case study.



http://toptropicals.com/html/aqua/plants/mangrove/mangrove_eng.htm
I'm not sure why the link will not show up in full here, but if you go to the discussion in General Reef Keeping: Mangrove Lagoon : pg. 3 : MKCindy the link works

[jc]

bad link?

[MKCindy]

Now it works too!

[SoLiD]

That idiot was Jacques Cousteau.

How do you know that? That's the first time I've ever heard that. :what_smile: