Semi Aquatic Temperate Marine plants? Anyone?

[AquaticEngineer]

I have the space to set up an additional small acrylic tank on my new temperate/coldwater system and was wondering if anyone has seen or can think of any species of semi aquatic plant that grows in temperate waters?

 

Basically it will be similar to a DSB with mangroves, but a coldwater version. Any ideas?

[AquaticEngineer]

Wooo Hooo found this info online I think maybe I'll try a surge tank with a native eelgrass bed

 

Oregon has between 1.2 and 1.5 million acres of wetlands (J.F. Watson, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, written commun., 1993). Palustrine, lacustrine, and estuarine wetlands constitute most of the State's wetland acreage. The area of marine and riverine wetlands is small relative to that in the other systems.

 

Coastal wetlands.--The steep slopes of Oregon's Coast Range mountains extend to the Pacific Ocean along much of the coast, leaving little area for wetland formation. Thus, coastal wetlands are confined mainly to areas of accumulated sediment near the mouths of rivers that have cut through the mountains and to the dune regions that have formed where the Coast Range front is distant from the ocean.

 

Estuarine wetlands have developed in the shallow, low-gradient reaches near the mouths of Oregon's coastal rivers and in their deltas. Estuarine wetlands cover about 55,600 acres, and there are about 10,000 acres of tidal fresh marsh, mostly in the Columbia River estuary (Oregon Division of State Lands and Oregon State Parks and Recreation Division, 1989). Akins and Jefferson (1973) identified three major types of estuarine wetlands in Oregon: tideflats, eelgrass beds, and salt marshes.

 

Tideflats (unconsolidated-shore wetlands) are mostly nonvegetated and exist where accumulations of sediment (sand, silt, clay, or gravel) are flooded and exposed daily by tides. Eelgrass-bed (aquatic-bed) wetlands are tideflats that have been extensively colonized by eelgrass, a plant that can tolerate high salinity and periods of exposure. Salt marshes (emergent wetlands) are regularly to irregularly flooded emergent wetlands vegetated by salt-tolerant plants such as rushes, sedges, glasswort, and arrowgrass. Most of Oregon's large estuaries also contain areas of diked marsh, former salt marshes that have been diked and drained. Diked wetlands are commonly used for cattle grazing.

 

Coastal nontidal fresh marshes, swamps, bogs, and ponds are palustrine wetlands that have formed around and in lakes and windscoured depressions among sand dunes (Akins and Jefferson, 1973). The areas containing most of the coastal nontidal wetlands are the Clatsop Plains, which extend from the Columbia River to Gearhart, the broad dune, sheet that extends from Haceta Head to Coos Bay, and the low dunes between Bandon and Cape Blanco. Isolated dune areas containing wetlands are present between Tillamook Bay and Waldport.

[jeremai]

eelgrass isn't self-supporting, though. without water, it just falls flat like all other sea grasses. if you're looking for emergent plants, best to go the rush/sedge route.

[AquaticEngineer]

eelgrass isn't self-supporting, though. without water, it just falls flat like all other sea grasses. if you're looking for emergent plants, best to go the rush/sedge route.

 

I might end up doing both now, have one tank with eel grass and one tank with semi aquatic plants. I have enough room to plumb in mulitple small biotopes now that I figured out my sump problem

 

I have been trying to figure out other ways of nutrient export in temperate systems and I thought I'd give the semi aquatic plants a shot, we'll see what happens I guess

[wombat]

I might end up doing both now, have one tank with eel grass and one tank with semi aquatic plants. I have enough room to plumb in mulitple small biotopes now that I figured out my sump problem

 

I have been trying to figure out other ways of nutrient export in temperate systems and I thought I'd give the semi aquatic plants a shot, we'll see what happens I guess

 

Interesting topic. I looked into doing something similar but tropical a while back. The hardest part is sourcing anything. If you can collect it yourself legally, you're set. Oregon may have different laws than here, where it is essentially impossible AFAIU.

 

For your needs pickleweed may be ideal, although I don't know if it will tolerate too low of a temp. Read in particular the bit about biofuel:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salicornia

 

This may help:

 

Ecophysiology of vascular halophytes

http://books.google.com/books?id=_slHw8Dyh...ies&f=false

 

 

Ecophysiology of high salinity tolerant plants

http://books.google.com/books?id=vazyaTYLk...ies&f=false

[AquaticEngineer]

Thanks for the links Wombat

 

I will be able to collect it myself, I was more or less going to go and find a non protected area of tidal estuaries, or tidal marsh and see what is growing well there and simulate a take for it and run my water through there.

 

Ideally this will prevent an excess amount of light going into the tank and causing algage blooms by having the plants grow large enough to shade the water they are growing in. I might make them with 3 sides of black acrylic and only the front side viewable so the substrate doesn't get crazy algae.

 

Now I just need to find a good source for small tanks made of thick acrylic, or I guess just start making them myself

[wombat]

You're in the perfect area. Talk to James at Envision Acrylics, he's in Portland. He makes some of the finest acrylic tanks in the world. Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Steinhart Aquarium (among others) have jelly kreisel tanks built by him.

[AquaticEngineer]

SInce the weather is not quite cooperating for tidepool collecting at the moment, I'm going to go out looking for some Samphire Glasswort plants to grow in a tidal marsh tank I'm going to plumb into my new coldwater system.

 

Gotta love vacations to the Oregon coast when you have a temperate marine tank

[animalmaster6]

Can't wait to see this man.

[AquaticEngineer]

Gathered several clumps of the "pickleweed" from near the Hatfield Marine Science center. When I get it home I'm going to plumb in a very shallow tank that will be fed with a slow line in to just saturate the sand and I'll let the pickleweed grow in that. I found this species growing right at the edge of where the tides crest. So it is a rooting plant that grows well in sand with direct exposure to saltwater.

 

Here's a link I found on wikepedia for it:

Salicornia Sp.

Its the same link that was mentioned in an earlier post by Wombat.

[C-Rad]

Gathered several clumps of the "pickleweed" from near the Hatfield Marine Science center. When I get it home I'm going to plumb in a very shallow tank that will be fed with a slow line in to just saturate the sand and I'll let the pickleweed grow in that. I found this species growing right at the edge of where the tides crest. So it is a rooting plant that grows well in sand with direct exposure to saltwater.

 

Here's a link I found on wikepedia for it:

Salicornia Sp.

Its the same link that was mentioned in an earlier post by Wombat.

That is very interesting. From what I read pickleweed is happy being irrigated with only sea water. Do any other animals or plants live in that niche habitat?

[AquaticEngineer]

Yeah, mostly shore crabs and other animal that would live in sand flats or bays.

 

Not sure if I'm going to house any animals in there yet. I have thought about puting clams that live in the sand in there, or possibly some sand shrimp. My dad and I used to use the sand shrimp as bait when we would go salmon fishing and I always wanted to keep one alive as a pet, maybe now I can

 

Here's what they look like:

[AquaticEngineer]

Found a nice little chunk of info on the "glasswort" plants I will be growing.

 

http://gardeningblog.mirror.co.uk/growing-samphire/

 

Samphire, or Saint Pierre, has been an important plant, gathered from saltwater estuaries for many hundreds of years. Whenever it was first used as a food is lost in antiquity, but from the 11th Century onwards it was the mainstay of the British chemical industry. Huge quantities of the plant were harvested and burned on the beach so that its ash could be used. Firstly in glassmaking, where the soda ash, or sodium carbonate, was used to improve the clarity of molten sand glass. Glassworks were always situated near where samphire grew, and in those regions it became known as glasswort. The production of glass in this way peaked in the 16th Century.

Later, it became possible to make soap from the ash, replacing lye in the mixture of fat and salts, and so huge quantities of soap were made on beaches and in estuaries and the plant became known as soapwort. In the 18th Century, Leblank, and later Solvay, in the 19th Century, developed industrial processes to create sodium carbonate, and so the seaside soap industry became obsolete. The plant was used by the poor as food, and then in late Victorian times it became popular to eat with fish.

In modern times the virtues of eating samphire were broadcast on the television and it started to appear on the menus of expensive restaurants around the country. The plant is now harvested in great quantities again, but you can grow it yourself with comparative ease.

What is Samphire?

 

Salicornia europea is a common plant, growing in estuaries around the world. It has adaptations that allow it to accumulate water inside its stems, despite being soaked with saltwater twice a day for many hours. Already under pressure from salty water, the plant can’t afford to dry out, so the leaves have shrunk to small scales to reduce transpiration.

It’s a short plant, rarely over 30cm high, with fat, swollen stems that branch in a way reminiscent of other succulent plants such as cacti.

 

Highly evolved

This plant, like many adapted to life in harsh salty environments, has a type of photosynthesis that is highly efficient and much improved over most plants living in more comfortable niches. The C4 carbon process it uses requires more energy input, but gives more energy to the plant, and is less wasteful. This is important because the plant uses a lot of energy keeping sodium ions out of its cells. It’s very costly living in the harsh estuarine environment.

 

Why grow it?

Four hundred years ago there were only as many people in the whole country as now live in one of our large cities. We could gather wild plants without worrying about the consequences because they would grow again every year. Now the situation has changed a lot. Samphire is said to be so popular just now that half a million servings will be taken over the next twelve months. Our estuaries can’t keep pace.

Thankfully it’s easy to grow. The seeds germinate well in moist compost, best started indoors in spring. However, the seeds aren’t easy to get hold of. Nicky’s Nursery has Rock Samphire, which is a completely different plant, although edible, or you can buy whole samphire plants from Victoriana, who germinated a few hundred last year for sale as an experiment. You can take these plants and divide them up right now and pot them on.

 

It’s best to grow this plant in compost, in pots. In the wild it grows in all kinds of soils, often muddy. The lack of oxygen at root level is one of the limiting factors to its growth and it should be possible to get specimens at least as good as wild plants because the conditions in your garden are much better.

 

Plant care

Samphire is quite hardy. Remember that in the wild it’s covered with cold water twice a day, but it’s rare that estuaries are frosted. You will need to protect garden plants from frosts if you want uniformly green shoots. The plant won’t be destroyed completely but won’t look very appetising after a few nights at minus four!

It prefers dampish compost and you’ll have to replicate the estuarine environment by watering with salty water! To do this you need 30g of salt per litre of water – try not to use salt that has anti-caking agents in it, and avoid extra-added iodine – and don’t let the plants dry out.

 

Harvesting

This is best done as a cut-and-come again crop. Simply trim off enough to stems for a meal and leave the plant alone for a month to recover. With half a dozen plants you should have enough to keep you in samphire as long as you don’t eat it all the time!

 

Also, in case anyone else wants to give this a try

 

How To Grow Samphire

 

The most critical issue for growing Samphire is that it requires saline conditions. Whether grown in the open ground or in a container it is best watered with a saline solution (1 teaspoon of proper sea salt in a pint of water).

 

Samphire prefers a light sandy soil (or well drained) and a sunny position. A warm sheltered position is ideal and protection from the worst of our Winters will ensure continuity from year to year.

 

The Health Benefits Of Samphire

 

Currently Samphire is little used in herbal medicine. That said, it is known to be a good diuretic and research is currently being undertaken in its use as potential treatment for obesity. It has a high Vitamin C content and along with its properties to aid digestion is also thought to relieve flatulence. Reaserch is also currently being undertaken into it reputed benefits to those with Kidney complaints.

[Biotoper]

Salicornia spp are great choices. Spartina (cordgrass) is also good. Google salt marsh zonation and you'll find lots of great information on different plant species that prefer high vs low level of salinity. I think an ideal temperate plant set up/refugium would be a sloped bank of sand with the auto-top off output dripping at the top of the bank. In theory, you could create a salinity gradient up the slope (although you would need to create some tidal effect/fluctuating water level to really try this), but anyway the plants higher up the bank should enjoy the freshwater drip and grow faster. I'm more familiar with East Coast salt marsh, so I'm not sure exactly what you can find most easily in Oregon. I think Spartina alterniflora is invasive in Oregon and any park ranger would be happy for you to collect as much as you want.

[AquaticEngineer]

Hopefully I'm going to be able to collect some more of the pickleweed in April when I make a trip over to go collecting. I have a few acrylic cubes hanging out that I could use for these plants now, and this time I am going to collect the plants with sand and all by digging them up instead of plucking them out

[wombat]

Hopefully I'm going to be able to collect some more of the pickleweed in April when I make a trip over to go collecting. I have a few acrylic cubes hanging out that I could use for these plants now, and this time I am going to collect the plants with sand and all by digging them up instead of plucking them out

 

How is the Salicornia doing? Really interested in this.

[AquaticEngineer]

How is the Salicornia doing? Really interested in this.

 

All of my original bunch died off rather quickly, I never even got it to root. I'm sure its because I tried to take cuttings of the plant instead of just digging up and transplanting a whole plant roots and all.

 

This next try I will be a bit more prepared when I harvest it, and also for when I get it home.