5" paddlefish !!

[Moontanman]

by biofiltration for the sturgeon, it would be just be lots of bacteria as well as activated carbon ?

AC is optional for fish, I never use it, for bacteria you need a substrate with lots of surface area that is not disturbed by cleaning the filter. that is why I use small lava rocks covered by a filter pad in my trickle filter. I change the filter pad but never disturb the lava rocks.

 

[new2natives]

ok, thanks for the info, i will look into the p.fish, they just got a shipment, but they sold the 2 they recieved, and i dont know if they will have any more this year.

as for the 75 ... if i have 2-3 sturgeon in with the pickerel, thats not a good idea, even for small fish until they need a larger tank ?? i will probably get them at about 4" and once they hit 10-12" they would go into a 180, or a tank with a 2' footprint

by a marine system, you mean like a wet-dry? if i were to go that route, would it work in a 75 for a year or so until they outgrow it?
as far as the food rotting problem, that won't be a problem anymore, since the paddlefish were the problem ... (or i guess i was the problem) because i couldn't keep up with the cleaning properly ... with the sturgeon i think they are a lot better eaters, and a lot easier to clean up after

as for "substrate with surface area" ... since i would be using sand, it wont have much area ... is that why the lava rock is good in the sump ?

 

[Moontanman]

ok, thanks for the info, i will look into the p.fish, they just got a shipment, but they sold the 2 they recieved, and i dont know if they will have any more this year.

as for the 75 ... if i have 2-3 sturgeon in with the pickerel, thats not a good idea, even for small fish until they need a larger tank ?? i will probably get them at about 4" and once they hit 10-12" they would go into a 180, or a tank with a 2' footprint

by a marine system, you mean like a wet-dry? if i were to go that route, would it work in a 75 for a year or so until they outgrow it?
as far as the food rotting problem, that won't be a problem anymore, since the paddlefish were the problem ... (or i guess i was the problem) because i couldn't keep up with the cleaning properly ... with the sturgeon i think they are a lot better eaters, and a lot easier to clean up after

as for "substrate with surface area" ... since i would be using sand, it wont have much area ... is that why the lava rock is good in the sump ?

When I said substrate I wasn't talking about the sand I was talking about the trickle filter. The aquarium substrate would be significant only if you had an undergravel filter. Yes like a wet dry filter, if you go that route you will have plenty of bio-filtration. Lava rock is porous and has lots of surface area. Small lava rocks (I crush my own for this) have more surface area than big ones do. My five gallon bucket is about 3/4 full of lava rocks. The water trickles down though the lava rocks and all the ammonia and nitrites are removed. I use a bucket bottom with dozens of holes drilled into it a distribution plate with a piece of filter pad on this distribution plate to filter dirt out of the water so it doesn't foul my trickle filter. The bucket drains into a 50 gallon sump made from a 55 gallon tank with one side gone and the sitting on it's side with the top turned in a side with a piece of glass glued to it. That gives me and open glass tank about 48" long and 20" wide and 12" deep. This is the sump under my 125.

 

[andyjs]

I tried raising a white sturgeon last summer, but my house has no AC, so the tank got too hot and did him in. I used to work at a farm that has 10, 15 year old white sturgeon, but they live in well water that is always around 54 F. I'd like to get another sturgeon, but if I do I'll be setting him up with a nice big water storage tank from the start. My LFS also just got the opportunity to get in sterlet (I think I might know what store you go to new2natives) and I really thought about having the manager get one, but I don't really have the room for it now.
The store also could have gotten paddlefish, but I've had experience with them and don't plan on getting one any time soon.

 

[new2natives]

i go to jacks at easton, i think they are done with paddlefish for this year (and possibly ever, he didn't think they were a good fish either)
and they just got in 5 sterlet, but thats probably it for the year, and no more white sturgeon

as for filtration, i will definitely look into the wet dry route ... it sounds like yours is a homemade w/d ... do you have pictures ??
how do you maintain the lava rocks? or don't you have to?
how many gph are on the sump for your 125?

 

[Moontanman]

i go to jacks at easton, i think they are done with paddlefish for this year (and possibly ever, he didn't think they were a good fish either)
and they just got in 5 sterlet, but thats probably it for the year, and no more white sturgeon

as for filtration, i will definitely look into the wet dry route ... it sounds like yours is a homemade w/d ... do you have pictures ??
how do you maintain the lava rocks? or don't you have to?
how many gph are on the sump for your 125?

I wash the lava rocks off about once every 18 months to two years. I wash then in the same way you would wash gravel but I don't try to make them completely clean. I clean the filter pad once a week, thats about it. I also layer the lava rocks by size, bigger rocks on the bottom covered by thick layer of small rocks, then near the top I go to a layer of medium, then to a layer of larger rocks with the bucket bottom sitting on top of the rocks with holes drilled in it for a distribution plate with a fiber pad on top of the plate. I use a fiber pad from a floor polisher as my filter pad. It is easy to clean and it lasts a long time. Of course I use a new one that has never had floor cleaner on it! Yes it is home made, everything I have is home made. I love to build my own stuff. No camera, no pics, I see that I need to correct this problem and I will as soon as I can afford a camera. I've been doing things in a vacuum for so long I forgot some one else might want to know how to do these things.

 

[andyjs]

i go to jacks at easton

Yep, I thought it was a Jack's. I work at the Bellefontaine store, so I get to see the livestock ordering list According to the list, the sterlets are doing well in warmer water and I was tempted to get one. We had a couple white sturgeons earlier this summer and they didn't do well in warmer water at all. I may have to stop by the Easton store some time to check out the sterlets if they still have them when I go

 

[new2natives]

andy - yeah i kept my white in cooler water and he loved it (until i messed up the tank ) and i think he was a lot better looking than the sterlets, but the sterlets are tiny, so maybe once they get bigger they'd be better looking. are you all out of the whites?

moon - so how many overflows do you have? then that water just pours into the bucket, through your filtration bucket, then it goes into a tank used as a sump, then its returned to the aquarium?? how do you get it from the bucket to the tank? is it just setting on top or something ?
how many GPH would you recomend the return pump be on a 75 with your style filtration?
i am also considereing doing this with my 180g tank. i am using HOB's and a cannister at the moment. would you use more than one bucket for it? how many GPH for this tank?
and how long would it take the filter to "seed" or become established before i could take the HOB's off ?
and for the lava rock, do you just take a hammer and break it into small pebbles ?? aprx how big (weight) of a rock does it take to fill your bucket?

 

[new2natives]

a 50 gallon sump made from a 55 gallon tank with one side gone and the sitting on it's side with the top turned in a side with a piece of glass glued to it. That gives me and open glass tank about 48" long and 20" wide and 12" deep..

thats the part that confuses me i think .... could this be done differently? how much water should be in the sump? thats whats important right, not how its built? and how much bigger or smaller should i use for a 75 and 180?
and then the pump is just sitting in that tank and pumping back into the aquarium?

 

[Moontanman]

thats the part that confuses me i think .... could this be done differently? how much water should be in the sump? thats whats important right, not how its built? and how much bigger or smaller should i use for a 75 and 180?
and then the pump is just sitting in that tank and pumping back into the aquarium?

I use a corner overflow with a bulk head fitting in the bottom of the tank corner but there are several options, I use a big sump for water volume. More water means a more stable quality of water. since the sum is empty of fish it allows me to have better water quality. I can also pump the sump out and refill it to make water changes with out disturbing the fish. the flow rate is about 180 gallons an hour and water drains through the bucket into the sump, the bucket sits on top of the sump above the sump's water.