7 replies to this topic

[thedood]

Hello all and thank you in advance for any assistance. I am going to be doing something I have wanted to do for a few years and that is build a native tank. This aquarium is going to be a Pygmy Sunfish setup in a 75g heavily planted. I am removing all of my current plants and will be cleaning the substrate (seachem flourite brown and black mixed) of any snails, all mts. One cleaned I will be cycling the tank and replanting with hornwort, ludwigia repens, and bacopa caroliana. I think this is all pretty standard.

 

My work hours keep me a way from home so I dont have as much time to devote to live food cultures typically used like grindal worms. My thoughts are to introduce ramshorn snails and gammarus prior to introducing the fish later this summer. In a 75g I was planning on putting a mix of 10 males/females in the aquarium after seeding it with 100+ gammarus and allowing the gammarus a good thirty days to breed while cycling the tank. My question is if my idea will work and result in a happy well fed breeding colony of pygmies, most likely banded pygmies due to hard water conditions. \

 

Most of what I am reading has recommended a single species aquarium, how much luck is the breeding elassoma with Heterandria formosa.

 

Thank you again.

[doubleatraining]

Hello all and thank you in advance for any assistance. I am going to be doing something I have wanted to do for a few years and that is build a native tank. This aquarium is going to be a Pygmy Sunfish setup in a 75g heavily planted. I am removing all of my current plants and will be cleaning the substrate (seachem flourite brown and black mixed) of any snails, all mts. One cleaned I will be cycling the tank and replanting with hornwort, ludwigia repens, and bacopa caroliana. I think this is all pretty standard.

 

My work hours keep me a way from home so I dont have as much time to devote to live food cultures typically used like grindal worms. My thoughts are to introduce ramshorn snails and gammarus prior to introducing the fish later this summer. In a 75g I was planning on putting a mix of 10 males/females in the aquarium after seeding it with 100+ gammarus and allowing the gammarus a good thirty days to breed while cycling the tank. My question is if my idea will work and result in a happy well fed breeding colony of pygmies, most likely banded pygmies due to hard water conditions. \

 

Most of what I am reading has recommended a single species aquarium, how much luck is the breeding elassoma with Heterandria formosa.

 

Thank you again.

As someone who is looking into adding a 40g tub/pond outside JUST to grow blackworms, scuds, and other fish food....They will decimate your gamma population very quickly. I have an empty 10g that I'm tempted to experiment with an in tank refugium to grow the food for the tank. Theoretically they will drift through the mesh and feed the fish while having a safe place to continue to breed.

[Michael Wolfe]

Previous response is correct. It will work for a while, but not a long while. 75 is huge for 10 fish and they may not be able to wipe out your live food... but they will reproduce and fill the tank. And then they and their grandchildren will eat everything.

On the other hand I believe that they also eat baby pond snails. And maybe even the eggs if such. Ive always had good luck with Elassoma when there are active snails and egg masses in the aquarium.

[thedood]

Thank you all. Your answers confirmed my suspicions. If I may ask one more question. I'm avoiding cultivating worms because of time constraints but doubletraining I see your using a 40g to breed scuds and worms. Could I do the same in a 10g or maybe a 20 long and generate enough for my needs?  I guess I need to look up raising blackworms as well. 

[doubleatraining]

Thank you all. Your answers confirmed my suspicions. If I may ask one more question. I'm avoiding cultivating worms because of time constraints but doubletraining I see your using a 40g to breed scuds and worms. Could I do the same in a 10g or maybe a 20 long and generate enough for my needs?  I guess I need to look up raising blackworms as well. 

Its raining here in NC for the next few days.....so I plan on playing with some plastic mesh I have lying around to see if I can create a refugium in the back of my 10g tank. I plan on putting some moss on the mesh so its not quite so ugly.....then putting a low maint plant behind the refugium. Putting the blackworms, scuds, and seed shrimp in there. When they adventure through the moss wall.....they should be Elassoma food. If I can get this cycled and established, I'll let it grow for a few weeks before adding the Elassoma. I plan to start a trio in the 10g. I can take pics of this experiment if you want.

[thedood]

Its raining here in NC for the next few days.....so I plan on playing with some plastic mesh I have lying around to see if I can create a refugium in the back of my 10g tank. I plan on putting some moss on the mesh so its not quite so ugly.....then putting a low maint plant behind the refugium. Putting the blackworms, scuds, and seed shrimp in there. When they adventure through the moss wall.....they should be Elassoma food. If I can get this cycled and established, I'll let it grow for a few weeks before adding the Elassoma. I plan to start a trio in the 10g. I can take pics of this experiment if you want.

I would love that. Thank you.

[doubleatraining]

Ok don't judge the tank, it has been in storage and I didn't feel like scrubbing it to impress y'all.

 

The inside of the tank measures 19 3/4". I wanted there to be between 2 and 2.5" protected. I had this extra mesh lying around. Grabbed a bag of 4" zip ties, my trusty trauma shears(paramedic life y'all, they are all over the house), and started cutting and piecing together:

 

 

I'm always supervised:

 

This was the first draft, it had to be cut and changed twice because I forgot to take the suction cups into account:

 

 

I decided I wanted "sides" on it so that it would be more difficult for a fish to accidentally get into the refugium:

 

 

I put suction cups at the top of the side walls to help hold it in place.....its all curvy because I forgot to take out the suction cup width.

 

 

After making sure it was the correct width(measure twice, cut once) I didn't like how "floppy" (insert your own joke)it was. Even with substrate and rocks/structure I was worried it wouldn't hold the hunters out. So I found some aluminum stakes hiding in the bottom of my toolbox and zip tied them in place. They are holding the right angle for the sides and also offering support throughout the middle:

 

 

This wasn't quite enough so I added more stakes to get the final result:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm not too worried about the gap at the bottom because I'll use organic soil and cap it with black diamond blasting sand. I still want to put java moss on the structure to help "hide" it and then put some floating hornwort or something in the back for the scuds and seed shrimp to hold onto. The front will be heavily planted and designed with the Elassoma in mind.

 

I started another Scud jar today hoping to grow my own population and not have to buy more. I'm now thinking about doing something similar in the 40g tub outside but I won't jack your thread. LOL

 

I hope this helps! If I get time this week I'm going to scrub this tank and get it started with soil, scuds, and some plants.

[thedood]

Thats pretty cool. Will you share your progress? I have a 10g I am setting up for growing gammarus. I am thinking of starting a grindal worm

culture as well.