My Best Tank: "The Living Aquarium"

[decoy50]

Good looking tank - I've been looking into native alot recently myself. I'm really liking some of the smaller sunfish & rainbow shiners. Your darters look interesting too. Lots of good looking natives for sale on Aquabid - that's where my interest started.

 

[divemaster99]

Very cool. That's about as close as you can get to a self sustaining setup.

Do you take reading to get a feel for how much filtering your plants are doing? You might be able to get away with a lot less water changing.

I do, but I like to keep the water pristine. Before I added the shiners and swamp darters I was doing 25% a week and nitrates were around 5 ppm so now even with a few more fish since I upped water changes they should still be around 5 ppm by the end of the week.

 

[divemaster99]

Good looking tank - I've been looking into native alot recently myself. I'm really liking some of the smaller sunfish & rainbow shiners. Your darters look interesting too. Lots of good looking natives for sale on Aquabid - that's where my interest started.

Thanks! I'd highly suggest at least trying natives if you're interested! I setup my first native tank in the spring and now 4 of my 8 tanks are native. I see you're in VA, you can do a lot of collecting yourself to get fish. I don't want to ramble to much on a post so if you need any more info feel free to PM me!

 

[Rivers2k]

Very cool tank. I love native tanks. My LFS got in Blue Gill fry with their feeders. They didn't know what they were until I told them. I am tempted to get some but I am trying to resist the urge I don't need another tank. Plus I think they would out grow the 40 breeder I have.

 

[divemaster99]

Very cool tank. I love native tanks. My LFS got in Blue Gill fry with their feeders. They didn't know what they were until I told them. I am tempted to get some but I am trying to resist the urge I don't need another tank. Plus I think they would out grow the 40 breeder I have.

Thanks! If they're definite Bluegills then yes I'd say 75 minnimum but sunfish fry can be hard to tell apart and you MAY be able to get away with a single Pumpkinseed in a 40B for life.

 

[Redearsunfish]

Thanks! If they're definite Bluegills then yes I'd say 75 minnimum but sunfish fry can be hard to tell apart and you MAY be able to get away with a single Pumpkinseed in a 40B for life.

I love pumpkinseeds. They'd make a great wet pet.

 

[Gill Blue]

so what happens when you lose your bet? my first thought reading the title was "I should hope so, a dead aquarium would be rather boring."
looks good, though I probably would try to hide the sponge with the plants.

 

[divemaster99]

so what happens when you lose your bet? my first thought reading the title was "I should hope so, a dead aquarium would be rather boring."
looks good, though I probably would try to hide the sponge with the plants.

Lol, yeah wouldn't be much going on it that . Thanks for the suggestion but I'm actually trying to grow so much carpet on the sponge filter that you can't even tell that's what it is, it'll help filtration and feed my small fish.

 

[divemaster99]

Well this is kind of embarrassing but I just figured out the minnows aren't Rosyfaces. The darker two are are Redside Dace and the duller four are Silveryjaw Minnows. I feel bad having just two dace so whenever I upgrade the tank I'll get some larger schools going.

 

[HarleyK]

Really neat!

What makes it a creek tank? How do you create good current?

Looks very nice!!!


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