My New Asian Mangrove Brackish tank!

I just filled up my new mangrove tank for the first time. I went for a mangrove swamp/stream look and I am going to stock it with either Asian or Indonesian brackish species and try my best to keep it as a biotope (although, some of the plants I use might have to come from other continents, lol).

This is actually a second revision to the idea. The first time around I used Great Stuff foam on the back of the tank and I covered it with black silicon and coco fiber, which looked awesome. Unfortunately, the foam floated and pulled completely off of the tank so I had to start all over from scratch.

So, this time around I first siliconed some plastic egg crate (the stuff for flourescent light fixtures) to the back of the tank, I placed my Manzanita wood on the egg crate and then I foamed on top of it (pressing it into the egg crate along the way) so the foam had plenty of areas to grab onto. I then carved it out, made some areas to put aquatic and emergent plants, and I built out a chamber with plexi glass on the left to hide the filter intake.

I let the foam cure for a few days, and then I added two coats of fine hobby concrete (quikrete). I colored it brown using concrete coloring liquid. I have let the concrete cure for a full week, spraying it down to keep it moist while it cured to avoid cracking.

Now, its all done and I have it setup with the filter running. I am using a Hydor in-line heater and I am hiding the output with a fake fern for now but I would like to use a real plant eventually.

The tanks been running two days and the pH is probably at like 12 right now, lol. The test strip was flourescent purple! I am going to drain it completely and then refill it and repeat this process several times until the pH is at an acceptable level.

That's basically it. The inhabitants I havein mind are Archers of course and a couple of Crazy Fish and Wasp Fish, maybe a green spotted puffer. I dont want to crowd it too much but I would love to put a FW moray or a brackish datnoid in there but that might have to wait until I do a larger version .

brackishdude;2597986; said:

Beautiful work!!

How big is the tank? It's tough to get perspective!

I hang out in the diy section at reef central, and they do some great aquacaping iwth great stuff, if anyone is looking for more info.

They also use concrete and fillers to make backgrounds of porous "home make rock" that are often spectacular.

They describe months of curing their creations in water to leach off the pH-raising components. For painted-on thickness, i'd imagine it would be much shorter, but don't be surprised if it takes longer than you think. In-tank curing also risks putting stains/deposits on the glass, so make frequent water changes, especially in the early going.

Keep the pics coming!

Click to expand...

It's a 65 Gallon. Now that it's done I want to go even bigger, but I dont have the wall space to fit another tank anywhere, lol.

I started out doing terrariums and paludariums with great stuff foam and coco fiber, which also come out looking great and when live plants are added they look very realistic. Doing it for a fully aquatic environment is definitely a bit more difficult but the end result can come out looking awesome. I have seen some others that people have done for cichlid tanks and the level of detail is incredible.

Attached are a few pics of the paludarium I did last year.

The substrate and some decorative rocks are going in today, and hopefully some plants tomorrow if my distributor has some nice big Java Ferns and some other brackish adaptable plants.

The water is still cloudy from the substrate (even though it was rinsed many times, lol) so I'll take some new pics later on.

A quick question for you guys, should I aim for a pH of 7.5 or should I go higher?

Okay, here's a picture from after the dust has settled.

The filter intake on the left hand side is going to be hidden behind a large Java Fern. I am going to slowly acclimate the plants to brackish. If worse comes to worse I will have to use a fake plant but I am hoping the Java Fern and a few other species will survive.

Theres a few areas of concrete that chipped off on the background while I was filling the tank. I guess I didnt put a thick enough coat all around. I'll just pin some Java Moss right into the foam in those areas to cover it up (and eventually, the java moss should start to grow onto the concrete).

Okay here's some updated pictures with live plants and the first inhabitant.

Plants used were Crinum natans (Onion plant), Java Fern, Java Fern "Windelov", Banana Plant, Marimo "Moss" balls (really communal algea) and Anacharis. I did a slow drip on the plants and they are all fairing pretty well, except the crinum which was a little beat up to begin with when I got it. I am hoping it pulls through though.