Just curious has anyone done this.

[fish_n_vw]

So I had an idea about 4 years ago after setting up my first biotope.

Here goes... Imagine a tank 3-5 thousand gallons. First add green swordtails around 60 of them. Then plant amazon swords in a few parts of the tank. Litter the substrate with bog wood and roots and wait about 3 months. Second add about 12 firemouths and 4 convicts. And wait about 3 months. Third add 4-6 salvini and wait about 3 months. And finally add 1 large male jaguar cichlid.

That's a very brief description. Now ideally 100 gallon water change every week. Flake your swordtails everyother week. How long can this tank go without any human interaction. All these fish eat the babies of eachother in the wild, and I have bred all except the jags and have seen babys graze on algea so all nutrient values should be met.

If and when I do my build, probably a few years out, (need a bigger house) this is kindda what I want to do. Don't reply with what kind of filter etc. As all those things are variable and will be adjusted to handle whatever the tank needs to do well. I'm mostly looking for other opinions or even better experiance with this type of a system. Maybee I'm just wacked out of my head but it seems it would work. Unless I'm really over looking something. Been thinking of it a long time though.

 

[Edwin]

it would look pretty awesome.... imitating the wild..... i would love to see that..

 

[rodfarva]

it sounds like a great idea. thats alot of work. if u get it set up PLEASE post a pic that would be awesome

 

[t Hizzle]

oh my that would be cool, its worth a try lol

 

[jmart.cooper]

It seems like it would work to an extent. I know you said its a brief description, so maybe you planned on this, but I think you would need a bunch of things smaller on the food web, like bugs and dalphia, other inverts. I think you would need such a huge amount of biodiversity that it would become difficult to maintain in a house (you would have bugs all over the place). Like you, this is something I would love to do, and if nothing else, I would love to see. I hope you pursue this idea.

 

[fish_n_vw]

Maybee a sub adult jag. Might have a swordtail shmorgasborg (spelling) right from the get goif its an adult. I mostly want to know what happens do all species survive the first year at five years are any "extinct". Its my dream..... someday.

 

[FishPower]

i would think that the most difficult part of this is to keep the food chain in perfect balance

 

[cguarino30]

There's really only one way to find out if it'll work.... haha. Let us know how it turns out if you do it.

 

[fish_n_vw]

I was looking into aquatic inverts so as to not have bugs in the house (even though my oldest son has a few species of bugs). And in this habitat, There are a lot. I've been studying said fish for a few years in great depth. My next step is the other aquatic life in the habitat. Might do some diving in C/A before I actually build. But I am confident that before I'm 30 I will have the tank of my dreams. The stock load actually calls for 9 species of fish but like I said brief. I don't have a computer currently. So I post from my phone (tiny keyboard). Needless to say my thumbs hurt.

 

[Ullopincrate]

This would be a great experiment. I do think you might want to add some lower forms of life in the food web.