Poor Man's mangrove plants

I dont have a fuge.. but I wanted to add mangroves to my tank to lower my Nitrate which is at 20 now..so i came up with this poor man's design and would like to hear your input..

I was told not to plant them in my tank couze the roots might get to the silicon.. so what I did is I got one of those old HOB mechanical filters that I had lieing around.. took it apart.. cleaned it up nicely and sunked it in my tank backwards 8) and added some sand at the bottom and planted my mangroves..

So my question is am I doing this wrong? will this method clean up my nitrates? does it look awful? any faults with it?

Here are the pictures:

I was moving around the skimmer so it started making lots of bubbles... but this is how it looks like from the front of the tank:


On the inside there is a hole to the very right for water to circulate:




Open to all ideas.. dont be afraid to be negative! tell me if its a bad idea so i can take it out !

 

May want to drill some holes in the sides so more water can get through. Other than that it looks like it should work fine!

 

I was thinking about drilling some holes.. but I wanted to hear some inputs first before I do more work to it but you say it will work! Thanx!

 

Hey John, don't/can't have Mangroves in California. I'm sure they'll be legalizing them soon(lol), but I've known Mangrove roots to be suspended in the water, not planted in substrate. You may want to look this up though.
Don't give up, you'll find a way!! 8)

 

yeah that looks like it will work fine... i am currently using a breeding to grow my macro algae it also acts as a safe haven for a colony of copepods. all this is happening on the back wall of my DP tank!
im sure you will see results fairly quickly good job old chap

 

I'm not an expert on the subject, but the setup looks good enough. I would definitely drill many holes in the sides and the front of the box for better water flow as suggested above.

Also, do they get enough light? Mine were not doing very well for a while. I had them suspended on an improvised rig with some cardboard while I was building my sump/fuge. As soon as I put them in the refugium and the 65k light hit them for a couple of weeks, they just took off! So, make sure they get decent light at the tips. That seems to be very important. Another thing, is that you need to get a spray bottle and mist the salt off the tips and leafs for them to do even better.

Good luck!

- Mag.

 

Thank You! Hope this works

I have read about htis.. but do I just mist them with fresh water?

Also my T5 HO light is right in front of it.. so I think its getting enough light..

 

thats a great idea. +1 to drilling holes to get some flow.
yes, spray with fresh RO/DI water at least once a week.

 

Yes, it also helps to wipe the leaves with a clean towel to remove excess salt

 

Thanx! will do that immediatly because my LFS had them sunked in the tank.. they weren't getting any air..