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plants at the shore?


treesprite

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Can the plants that grow along the shore that are submerged at high tides but all exposed at low, live in a captive tank, like maybe a saltwater terrarium?

 

This is the first time I have been in Delaware since I was a teenager, when my grandparents had a place on the lagoon here. I was walking along the edge of the water, wondering what the weird looking bugs were... at first I thought they were ants because they are so tiny. Then I saw bigger ones realized that I was probably crushing hundreds of baby crabs under my feet.

 

Anyway, there are some nice plants at edge of the water that I was thinking perhaps I could acclimate and keep in a terrarium (not put in my reef tank, not looking for unexpected problems). I wish I had brought test kits, but I had no intention of bringing wild temperate animals home, and had not even considered the idea of plants. I have a few pico-sizedtanks that are brand new (tell kind you put plants in growing out of the bag, with a little fountain-yype pump setup behind a barrier). Not to mention 2 unused 10s, a 16 bow that just has rocks in it, a 20h that just has rocks in it, and a 12g Aquapod (not to mention the 120g sitting empty, but I'm not making a terrarium out of that!)

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I've spent a lot of time on the Delaware seashore. Like you said you should bring a test kit. I wonder if the bay water has the same salinity as the ocean or its high in nitrates. Maybe those plants need that.

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(edited)

I put the stuff in an empty 10g for now. If the plants don't die and start growing more, I might do something not so ghetto.

 

The water had SG of 1.020. I'm not sure what it is now, because I've been making it rain probably with more water than needed for top off. I brought home about half a gallon of water, added a couple of cups of new mix diluted a little. There are no animals, so I'm not too concerned with the salt being lower, as long as it doesn't go higher. Sometimes I splash a little of the saltwater on the edge of the soil/slope where I have a bit of the grass that is in water at high tide. The other plants are behind that, not getting saltwater on them.

 

I went out at low tide to get some soil, because the crabs don't live were the tide can reach them. I didnt want to dig holes, so mostly I just got surface stuff. I also took a little soil from around the plants when I took them, as was necessary and couldn't be avoided. The crabs don't live at the bases of plants either. I haven't seen any crabs or any other kind of moving crittee in either the soil or the water, fortunately (was worried about them dying if I took them). I had some old sand that had been washed and dried out like 3 years ago, in a plastic bag in a drawer, enough to put about 1 inch in the bottom before I put soil in. Other than what washed down into the water over just sand, the soil is just on one end. The water area is only about 3 inches deep. I put some shells from the beach on the little slope to keep soil in place.

 

post-1671-0-03105300-1538864358_thumb.jpg

Edited by treesprite
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I was trying to find out what these plants are. There is one that I can't find listed anywhere so far; it is basically some regular looking plant leaves right at the ground, no stems or stalks.

 

I actually know nothing about this stuff. So apparently, what I want is a salt Marsh type of environment with plants that are halophytic. Halophytic plants are able to live in salty wet soil. Mangrove is a halophytic plant. I have to research it some more. I also need to find out what kinds of small animals live in salt marshes (some crabs and shrimp apparently do, and some fishes go into salt marshes to lay eggs). It's okay if I sound stupid, because at this point I don't know what I am doing, and would like to learn more.

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The plants are way more interesting looking than i imagined. Now I understand why you wanted to give this a shot. Cool experimemt. Hope it works. What are you using for light for the plants?

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I am not sure what to do about the light. I have a nano LED light on it, but I'm worried that it is too much light for the tall plants.

 

The tall ones with the pink and the shorter ones that are green but look more like succulents, are both types of pickleweed (also known as grass wort; I can't remember the scientific name). One in the back is sea oats. There are a couple stalks of grass I'm not sure which type, and the short plant I can't figure out. That's all there is. The pickleweed which contains potash used to be used in the making pf glass, and also they store fresh water to balance out the salt.

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