Stream Inverts?

Is it possible to breed them then? Someone told me of how bloodworms can actually be bred in screentopped tanks. I believe it was a 20 gallon. However, I think mayflies/caddisflies would need a significantly larger area to perform their mating dances successfully. Perhaps a flight cage above the tank?

What about stoneflies? They get big enough that darters won't be able to eat them. I tried keeping them in tanks a few times and failed...but the tanks were not cold enough.

Edited by critterguy, 01 March 2008 - 11:38 PM.

Here's the powerhead spray bar setup I use.

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 powerhead2.jpg   59.15KB   1 downloads

Basically, you get the powerhead you want to use and then attach some type of rigid material (pvc, plastic hose, etc) to match the head ratio of the powerhead. I drill holes at uneven angles along a line (not varying too much but not linearly) and it creates a very nice sheeting flow, rather than 2 jets.

In these tanks, its a Rio 2100 turned upside down, using any kind of rigid material. I like the Ehiem plastic because its' not so obvious as pvc, but I did have pvc in the 75 gallon for a long time. I just got sick of looking at it the other night

I've also used Ehiem hose to attach it (one inside the other). You can find a fitting that will work if you use pvc. For example, I found that a 3/4" threaded fitting worked really well with the Rio 2100. Take the pump you want to use to the hardware store and try things out if you go the pvc route.

Todd

Edited by farmertodd, 02 March 2008 - 12:06 AM.

If you want inverts that will colonize your tank, you can go with crustaceans such as crayfish, amphipods, and isopods; they are pretty common in most streams. Snails, leeches, and oligochaetes are also options, of course. I haven't had any luck with fingernail clams, and collecting unionid mussels is generally forbidden, but I hear some people include Asiatic clams in their tanks.

There are many insects that complete their full life cycles in water, so you don't have to worry so much about emergence. This includes many hemipterans and beetles. As was mentioned earlier, finding such insects that can coexist with your fish is difficult.

I have kept pond and swamp hemipterans such as backswimmers, boatmen, water scorpions, creeping waterbugs, and belasomas alive for many months in a tank with physid and planorbid snails, caddisfly larvae, mosquitofish, young pirate perch, newts, mole salamander larvae, and green frog, leopard frog, and bird-voiced treefrog tadpoles. I can't promise that none of the tank inhabitants ate any of their tankmates, though. I just added a constant supply of daphnia and green algae to the tank. Streams tend not to have so many hemipterans though, besides the ubiquitous waterstriders.

There are a number of large handsome aquatic beetles, but they tend to be predaceous. Conversely, the detritivorus and herbivorus beetles tend to be just the right size to disappear down a darter's gullet. If you're determined to keep stream inverts, you might have to set up a separate tank.

That's true, there are several interesting slow-water insects with entirely aquatic life cycles. What exactly do insects like water striders, backswimmers, etc eat? I guess I just haven't studied them as much as their stream compadres

What exactly do insects like water striders, backswimmers, etc eat?

Water Striders feed on insects struggling on the surface. They feel the vibration of the struggling insect, stride over and grasp it in their front pair of legs and pierce it with their rostrum. I believe backswimmers are also predaceous and feed on insects at the surface. They just catch them from the other side. I imagine the backswimmers may also catch prey that are not stuck at the surface.
Both of these insects can and do fly as adults. We would frequently get them at the swimming pool I worked at back in high school. I have also encountered them on warm summer nights attracted to the the lights while filling up the car at a gas station near the river. Lots of waterboatmen too.

Smilingfrog is right on.

Backswimmers will also catch small aquatics like dipteran larvae and cladocerans. Boatmen feed mainly on algae (they will actually crawl up a strand of algae and pierce each cell, sucking out its contents, then move on to the next cell), but at least some of them will also eat small inverts. Water scorpions, or at least the stick-like Ranatra species, will feed on cladocerans, small tadpoles, and other small organisms; the same goes for belasomatids, but they will take slightly larger prey (I haven't kept the big toe-biters, but I hear they can take full-grown mosquitofish). You can also keep fishing spiders (Dolomedes species); they will feed on small fish, tadpoles, and soft-bodied insect larvae.

I have found that just adding a handful of pond plants and a gallon of pond water now and again will keep your bugs healthy and happy. Provide plenty of vegetation, sticks, leaves, and floating chunks of wood for resting, hiding, and egg-laying sites. I have not used filtration with my bugs.

The stick-like water scorpions will eat anything that they can hold onto. I've kept full grown ones before, and I would feed them large feeder rosies, and tadpoles that were like two inches long.
Toe-biters are capable of bigger foods, because they use all six of their legs to hold on if needed. I have had half-inchers eat two inch fish before.
Water striders need some place to get out of the water, and if there is too much movement, they will drown.
Just make sure to keep your fingers away!

Water striders are fun. I've bred them before, they attached eggs about an inch below water in the corner...but didn't feel like raising the babies(they would be easy as they could be fed on fruit flies etc.) so just put them all into my pond. They grew to adulthood but they dissapeared after a year or so.

Has anyone had long term success with water boatmen? I've tried keeping them but they always waste away. Added to my ponds they simply dissapear after a few weeks.

But I think that it'd be awesome to raise mayflies etc. in captivity.

btw, smilingfrog...if you can get anymore bird voiced treefrog tads I'd be very interested.

Edited by critterguy, 03 March 2008 - 09:52 PM.

btw, smilingfrog...if you can get anymore bird voiced treefrog tads I'd be very interested.

Hi Critter Guy,
Sorry that wasn't me. I think it was Newt that had the bird voiced treefrog tadpoles.

I don't really like caddisfly larvae because of the big boisterous homes they build.

the cases are the coolest part about them IMO. I had a River Tank (before I broke it) http://www.rivertank...erTankText.html. Had minnows and newts and such. I put dozens of Trioptera hydropsychidae, which makes a net. They would burrow a cavity in a fast current area and put up a web. Flake food would get caught in it and they would crawl out an eat it. Very neat little creatures. was best when they "holed-up" right next to the glass.

I used the manifold design for a darter tank in the past also, worked very well...just use more than one sponge per powerhead.

Water striders are fun. I've bred them before, they attached eggs about an inch below water in the corner...but didn't feel like raising the babies(they would be easy as they could be fed on fruit flies etc.) so just put them all into my pond. They grew to adulthood but they dissapeared after a year or so.

Has anyone had long term success with water boatmen? I've tried keeping them but they always waste away. Added to my ponds they simply dissapear after a few weeks.

But I think that it'd be awesome to raise mayflies etc. in captivity.

btw, smilingfrog...if you can get anymore bird voiced treefrog tads I'd be very interested.

Critterguy-

I kept water boatmen for about half a year with my Elassoma zonatum and ghost shrimp; I added filamentous algae (I think it was Ulothrix, but I'm not sure), and they seemed to do fine until I left the lid ajar one night and they escaped. The ones you added to your pond may have just flown away if the conditions were not to their liking. In nature you usually find them over soft silty substrates, but the ones I've kept have been in gravel-bottomed tanks.

Mayflies and caddisflies from slower waters would probably be pretty easy to raise; most of them are grazers or suspension feeders, so leaves and pond water should keep them happy. I know some people keep caddisfly larvae on a substrate of grains of precious metals; the insects make their cases from the grains, and after they pupate the keeper uses the cases to make earrings or other jewelry.

Sorry, but I can't help you with the bird-voiced treefrogs. My collecting permit would be revoked so fast my head would spin! I think the non-game laws in Florida and perhaps in other parts of their range are fairly lax, though, so you might try obtaining them from one of those states. For some reason this species has not become as popular in the pet trade as grey and green treefrogs have.

Edited by Newt, 04 March 2008 - 01:07 PM.

I think maybe a stream insect only tank with mayflies, stoneflies, caddisflies, etc would be the right direction to go in order to prevent predation from hungry fish (especially because in WI where I am most of the time it seems to be illegal to move live fish away from any water body). I'll let you know if I end up giving it a try.

I think maybe a stream insect only tank with mayflies, stoneflies, caddisflies, etc would be the right direction to go in order to prevent predation from hungry fish (especially because in WI where I am most of the time it seems to be illegal to move live fish away from any water body). I'll let you know if I end up giving it a try.

That could be a lot of fun! Just be sure to give the bugs a place to crawl out when they're ready to emerge, and make sure there aren't any hellgramites or other predators in there.