She's Back

Well due to personal issues I had to break down the old tank, as seen here,

and put it into storage for a few months until I bought a house. Well, now I have a house and built my tank into the wall in the basement. So here it is… my new and improved 180-gallon Ohio native stream tank.

(I still have to stain the trim.)



Here is a side view.


I had to give up most of my fish, which are actually being taken care of really well at a native fish display at one of the nature education centers at my work. I kept some of my favorites in a 10 gallon and then a 40 gallon until the big tank was ready to go. Here are some of the fish, both old and new.

Love this Northern Longear, but I need to get him a little girl.


Some of the minnows.


Some of the darters and one of the baby Orangespot Sunfish.


For those of you who are interested the Fish list right now is pretty small as I have been doing small scale stockings but it includes:
Blacknose Dace
Bluntnose Minnows
Fathead Minnows
Silverjaw Minnows
Sand Shiner
Mimic (or Sand) Shiner
Spotfin Shiners
Logperch
Variegate Darters
Greenside Darters
Johnny Darters
Rainbow Darters
Orangethroat Darters
Fantail Darters
Longear Sunfish
Orangethroat Sunfish

And for those of you interested in the plumbing. The background is Styrofoam and Great Stuff with a coating of Silicon II and sand. There are openings on the left side (looking from the back) which flow up and over into filter media and through a corridor along the back bottom to another chamber with the pumps are kept. A line runs from the pumps to the bed rock/ rock pile where they create more or less 1-way current. Clear as mud?

Here is a picture.


With water flow.


Andy

p.s. On my home computer, when I edited the pictures they were so much lighter than on this computer. Hopefully they show up alright for ya'll.

awesome tank. I think I will be trying this some day soon.

you have inspired a future project in me.

I love how small the fish are compared to the tank. Those darters have the life. ^_^

Awesome, I have always wanted a set up like that. Great job. If I ever have the opportunity I may call you for help.

Where did you get the little ospot?

Josh, I hope you do and would be interested in seeing what you come up with. You have a good eye for tank design.

Bumpy, get crackin' then.

Erica, glad you liked the tank. It is really alot of fun to work on. I also really like seeing small fish in a large tank. Gives it a neat scale.

Matthew, anytime. Also, we never got out seining this year. We should remedy that. Are you still semi-local during the work week?

Star, in the Maumee River.

I had a northern longear sunfish (Lepomis megalotis peltastes) that I raised from young of year to adult. Like yours, it was an adult male. I had a bad experience with trying to introduce a female to the aquarium after having that fish by itself for so long. As soon as the female was introduced into the aquarium (given it was a 40 gallon breeder aquarium, as opposed to your 180 gallon aquarium) the male started to harass the female relentlessly. It got to the point where I had to remove the female. After that brief introduction (a total of 30 minutes), the male proceeded to dig a circular nest. Although the female was now gone, the male continued to dig the nest and aggressively defend it against other fishes in the community. After many large water changes (in attempts to remove the pheromones from the female that likely remained in the water) the male would still not stop his new behavior. I even went as far as drastically dropping the water temperature to try to get him out of "the mood". Eventually, I decided that I wasn't going to remove the pheromones, so I had to move the fish to a different tank. In his new aquarium, he continued to dig nests and be an aggressor. So, in response to your comment about getting a mate for your sunfish...be careful what you wish for. I'm sure others have had different experiences than me, but I just thought I'd share this one incident.

... I just thought I'd share this one incident.

I agree; there's definitely an art to socializing animals that have spent a very long time apart. I have some experience with socializing Betta splendens.

When an individual has spent a very long time away from members of their species, I use this technique:
1. Introduce two individuals to one another in a new tank that is not claimed as territory by either fish. If one of your fish is already living in the permanent home, remove it for a couple weeks to a new environment.
2. Float both individuals in their new home in a cup for several days. Let them see one another and react. The cup separators will keep them from physically injuring one another, so they won't get injured even if their first reaction is aggression.
3. Continue floating the two where they can see one another until they no longer react to one another.
4. Release the two into the tank at the same time, and observe to see what happens. If they start to fight, put them back in their floating cups.

Yup, that's the technique I used. And I've found that having a few fish of a different species helps ("dither fish").

What is the end result of this technique, you might ask? It is that two fish that are normally not compatible tank mates are able to get along and cohabitate without issue.
Photograph proof: Male crowntail betta and female veiltail betta sleeping next to one another under the light:

 May 31st 2008 003resize.jpg   204.19KB   1 downloads

Edited by EricaWieser, 30 October 2010 - 03:43 PM.

Nate, that is good to know. I will probably still eventually add a female, or two. The fish lived with another male for awhile before they just constantly battled and I donated the other to a friend. Only once did he display next building behavior after I got rid of the other male, but it didn't last long.

Andy

1. Introduce two individuals to one another in a new tank that is not claimed as territory by either fish. If one of your fish is already living in the permanent home, remove it for a couple weeks to a new environment.
2. Float both individuals in their new home in a cup for several days. Let them see one another and react. The cup separators will keep them from physically injuring one another, so they won't get injured even if their first reaction is aggression.
3. Continue floating the two where they can see one another until they no longer react to one another.
4. Release the two into the tank at the same time, and observe to see what happens. If they start to fight, put them back in their floating cups.

Yup, that's the technique I used. And I've found that having a few fish of a different species helps ("dither fish").

What is the end result of this technique, you might ask? It is that two fish that are normally not compatible tank mates are able to get along and cohabitate without issue.

I would say these work when ever aggressive or touchy fish are to be housed together.
Two more;

Put the smaller/meeker/less aggressive one in a few weeks before the bigger. Advantage goes to the defender, especially where ownership of caves etc are concerned.

Drill a bunch of holes in a critter carrier type plastic cage, put particularly pushy fish in and place in tank for days or weeks until it gets used to seeing it's enemy inches away every day despite attempts to attack. I've used this to keep marine damsals with dangerous size disparity together.

Yeah, fired up male sunfish can definitely be relentless. Often the females need to get completely out of sight or they will be harassed to death. I think it helps to have other species in the tank, especially other sunfish species. This provides other targets for the male(s) and maybe removes the "psychological" effect of the breeders having the tank completely to themselves. Males will generally direct their fiercest efforts at females of their own kind. The large tank should definitely give you some flexibility though. Nice setup!

Nice setup.....I love the flow charts you made, well done!