New Ecosystem Based Approach

I am a fisheries student and an avid aquarist living just outside of Chicago and I thought I'd share my aquarium method with you guys as you seem more open to something out of the ordinary.

My method takes the Walstad Method to the extreme. It's premise is to introduce as many local species of zooplankton as possible to maximize resource exchange and availability. I introduce daphnia, copepods, decopods, aquatic worms (oligochaetes), non parasitic leeches, snails, hydra, bryozoans and a myriad of other organisms into my tanks in an attempt to maximize biodiversity. The tanks have no filtration, instead relying on plants, algea, and bacteria for nutrient removal (ammonia, nitrates). This ecosystem is powered only by light, the soil and bi-monthly additions of leaf litter. This makes for extremely interesting tanks that present the aquarist with never ending movement and change.

The fish selection is limited however, as the fish must be seen as just another link in the chain and must therefore be stocked at very low levels, depending on thier life histories. The fish best suited for a tank like this are usually under an inch at maturity (microrasboras, danionella sp.) and feed primarily on plankton.

I am still in the experimental stage with this kind of tank and have 3 set up like this at the moment. They are all only 10 gallon tanks, so I'm even more limited on the number of fish I can sustain in such a setup and am unsure as to what the carrying capacity is for such a small tank size. But the focus here isn't on the fish; it's the entire mini-ecosystem that is the draw. I have an empty 55 gallon that I'm going to setup over the summer with this method as well and would like some suggestions as to what people think it could sustain (viable breeding population).

I plan on cataloguing everything that is in my tanks down to the "barely observable with the naked eye" level. This will be posted in the coming months.

Does anyone else here keep tanks like this??? Or am I just a lonely eco-aquarist? I really think this is the most interesting type of aquarium and I'm suprised that it's not a big part of this hobby. It seems like the closest anyone gets is the saltwater reef keepers, but even most of them don't really manage for diversity. Thoughts?

Peace,
Aaron

Sounds interesting! I look forward to learning more about your tanks. Some pictures would be nice, too!

I've often thought of doing something like that with a 55 or 125 gallon tank, heavily planted and stocked with Pygmy sunfish, Pygmy killies and Least killies. I can recall collecting all of the above in ditches and small pools not much bigger then a 125 gallons of course I'm sure they got larger after rains but these are small fish and if surrounded by food I'm sure many young would survive.

Mine is very much the same way.
Although I'd prefer not to have any leeches or hydra!
I draw the line there.
Eeewww! ;~)

Mine has been up and going for almost seven years, if I remember correctly.
It all blurs after a while! :~)
I introduced tons of local critters, with both the substrate and the land area, from the beginning.
The layer between the clay and the sand was filled with Tubificid worm, tiny clams and pretty much anything that I decided wouldn't be dangerous later on.
The clay was taken directly from the bottom of one of my cow ponds and plopped in.
No rinsing and no cleaning. It went in as is because I wanted it fully living and pulsating with life!
Even the soil, bark, mosses, twigs and decaying wood pieces were full of living things.
Again, I tried to avoid slugs and other nasties!;~)
But, it's full of worms(both tiny and larger ones), all sorts of little crawling insects that seem to be feeding on the decaying litter.
I looked at it as more sustainable(not to mention easier),than sterilizing everything.
Not that I planned for it, but I can't keep frogs out of it.
They sneek into the house all the time and make a beeline for my tank!
I finally just gave up removing them and enjoy the chirps!;~)

The copepods generally get eaten but many live for long periods in my pre-filter/refugium area.
They assist in breaking the collected mulm down.
I catch and toss in whirly-gigs, waterskippers and whatever other beetles that I find interesting and consider non-lethal.
There're even spiders and other tiny predatory insects living on the landmass.

That area was never intended to be a biofilter.
The two pumps had other jobs.
One was to provide a good current for the fish that like it(although it's only fast on half the tank and the other side is calm),
plus push the excess detrius where I wanted it.
The other smaller one is just to water the land plants and run the small water features.
That's their only duty!
The sponges are just to protect the pumps from clogging and the fish(that get past the screens) from the pumps.
They only biofilter if I go too long without cleaning them.
Even then, I've forgotten to turn them back on for long periods and depend upon the plants for the actual filtration.
The combination of all three types of plants work in different ways.
The totally aquatic and marginals do their share of the heavy lifting, as do the land plants with the water filtering through them.

I have a heavier bio-load than I've had for many years, but it's all holding up quite well.
The fish have always been the smaller population compared to everything else.
I've posted more details around here and so won't repost everything.
Since this, I couldn't imagine doin' it any other way! :~)

I've posted links before, but...
http://www.flickr.co...57600179991564/

Scott

Scott, that is awesome plaudarium you have going there. I could stare at a tank like that for hours on end...and I love the orchids . It's great to hear that you like tanks like these as much as I do! I would post some pictures of my tanks, but I am currently at school, so that will have to wait for april when I've got some time off. Yeah, I understand about the leeches...but these aren't the blood sucking kind, they're the snail-eating variety. So unless your mother was a snail and your father was a slug, you probably don't have much to worry about.

I'd like to try something like that with native plants as well. Where, if I may ask, do you order your live plants from? I'm looking for a good midwest wetland plant dealer...any suggestions?

Edited by sedghammer, 21 January 2009 - 10:01 PM.

Can't say I've ever done quite that much of a complete ecosystem, but I had a tank going for several years that was built for low maintenance. And boy, was it. It was a 29 gal with Eco-complete and sand for the substrate, about 35W of light, and filled almost all the way through with Valisneria. I had a few huge Anubias as well that did great. As for fish load, all I had was a school of cherry barbs (that were in breeding colors most of the time), an Ancistrus or two for algae clean up, and a few others I can't remember. It had a glass top on it, so the only maintenance I had to do was a slight water change every 3 months or so to top the tank off and remove a few handfuls of the Val. As for filtration, I had a HUGE AquaClear 300 on it that I swapped out about half of the media for a nylon bag of small lava rock (essentially freshwater live rock after a time). I tried having a colony of cherry shrimp in there as well, but they would one by one disappear...

Well...
I can't speak for Aaron but, as for me, once I start doing something...
It tends to snowball and I end up pushing the limits.
I either don't ever get around to it, or I go full out and that goes for everything.
I can't really help it!;~)
In fact I still tamper with aspects of it if I've the time, but I mostly leave it alone.
Other than some simple cleaning, I've hardly touched it for years until my new fish were added.
So, it had to be able to care for it's self without me hovering over it.
I was careful and intimately aware of where my materials were coming from, so there was little risk and much to gain.

Aaron,
You'd be better off with other input about plant sources.
My initial plants were ephemeral that came directly from a couple of my trusted ponds.
The replacement plants came from several different places, but nowhere special.
All of the non-orchid land plants came from, either my place or the local mountains.
As usual with this, some failed, but many not only thrived, but come close to taking over from time to time!
Early on, I introduced some Common Monkeyflower(Mimulus guttatus).
 2_m.jpg   9.41KB   1 downloads
If I didn't worry about the orchids, I'd just let it run wild!
It does it's very best to take over the entire tank and requires harsh hacking back.
It seeds like crazy and pops up in the worst places.
But, it's been in constant bloom for six years and provides a lot of color.
So, I'm willing to put up with it's hostle intentions toward it's neighbors! ;~)
Here's a photo for some perspective!:~)
 a40.jpg   39.53KB   1 downloads

That's a great way to set up tanks, I use a similar method. I have even gone so far as to grow cypress trees, water tupelo, willows, and pond apples. My largest was a 70 gallon tank i set up that way. Everyone thought it was crazy to add stuff like leaches and other inverts but it does make for a unique veiw. I even had large masses of jelly like Bryozoans but you have to leave out snails because snails eat them.

Moontanman,
If I remember correctly, you were a major participant in a discussion that was part of my early motivation!
Todd Crail and his deep sand beds was the major factor and I read those talks over and over.
At that time, I devoured everything that I could find relating to the subject.
Everytime that I got questions about why I did what I did, I always sent a link to it.

Aaron.
If you're interested...
Do a search through the Email archives for deep sand beds.
Much of my old saved info is on my desktop and I'm using my laptop more often these days.
There were many interesting ideas being tossed around and I borrowed heavily from it!!:~)
I still, after so many years, believe that it the way to go!

I just receive my first Walstad book, yesterday, and have yet to even look at it.
I'm sure that it's full of great stuff, but I'm beyond thrilled with my current system.
I don't mind limited tech and sometimes natural can be...
Well, just too natural.
I still can't say that I want leeches, but do couch/fireplace slugs count?
The dogs move back and forth!;~)
I'd put out some beer traps, but they'd probably like it and ask for more!

Scott

Glad to hear I was influential, have you tried to pick up bogwood and leave the plants moss and mud attached? If you put in the aquarium it's a little bit like live rock in a marine tank. you get lots of "stuff/critters" that would normally never be in an aquarium.

Scott, love the Xiphophorus montezuma. Are they still around?

Beautiful plaudarium as well.

"... the only thing I would like to try is slow injection of clean water
under the sand slowly diffusing up through the sand into the aquarium. So far
I haven't been able to do this effectively. I have injected water into deep
sand bed at a high pressure and a very large flow rate. the effect is amazing
not only with water quality but the visual effect of boiling sand is great. "
http://www.nanfa.org...jan04/0808.html

I still have plans for something along those lines, myself! ;~)
After years of watching the water boiling up through the sandy silt in a couple of my ponds, I'm wanting to replicate the look.
In fact, some of that material went into my current tank. I figured that it had to be full of great micro-organisms.
If I ever get to make my long desired 'Gigantinormous' tank, I'm definitely goin to try it!:~)

" have you tried to pick up bogwood and..."
Yeah, but not so much for in the water.
That sort of material went into places built into the land area. It's where some of the most activity occurs.
Full of various worms and other crawlies. The mosses covered it eventually and the plant roots fight over it!
Water perculates through some of it, but the roots and mosses keep it all in place, unless I mess with it too much.
So, I try to leave it alone!;~)

Now that you mention it, quite a bit of wood was incorperated into the entire structure.
I sorta' forgot about that part. ;~)
I used almost all of my old wood that was saved from my Cardinal tetra days.
Most of it soon covered with mosses, or was over run by the Monkeyflower.
There's actually a huge piece under that mass of flower, but it can't be seen unless I hack it back.

Topminnow,
As far as the Monties...
I'm down to about one male and two females.:~(
I'm going to yank 'em out anyday now.
I'm trying to set up a very low-tech and heavily planted tank just for them.
I need to get the population back up to where it once was.
I think that the Darters and Sunnies were picking off all the babies, if I didn't feed enough.
They weren't really my thing when I bought them, but I really came to like them.
I'd hate to lose them.

Scott

Very nice tank. I've looked through your flickr account probably a dozen times and I'm not sure if I've ever actually commented on it. Do you have any directions on how you went about building the land vs. water areas? I've got a 75 gallon sitting empty that I'm looking to do something like what you've got with, but I've not quite figured out how I'm going to make an above water area that won't erode away on me. Did you use any plexi or spray foam type substances to build up supports?

Thanks!

I built it before I had a digital camera, so there were no photos.
As far as the actual design, it just came together.
I like to make it interesting and built in recessed areas, as well as parts that extended out toward the viewing perspective.
The intent was to have something more three dimensional, rather than just looking flat and bland.
Although I love all of the growth, it's unfortunate that areas that I spent a lot of time stressing over are now unseen.

Just to be forwarned...!
I'm very good a doing things like this, but...
I'm absolutely horrible at trying to explain what I did and why!!;~)

Anyway, it's not like it's just a long ledge.
I took materials from all the different bio-topes that I've kept.
So, I used all of my rock from my old African set up and all of my bog wood from my Amazon system.
Plus, I scavenged for suitable rocks and wood pieces from outside.
Things with mosses already on them were fine, but the sides that needed to adhere to the glass or each other, were scrubbed with a brush.

The tank was placed on it's side and all the parts were tried on for fit.
To get a good perspective, I stood on a platform to be able to look directly at the side that would be in view.
Being able to watch it as different pieces were tried on for size really helped to get what I wanted.
I had a huge piece of wood with a slate base and that was siliconed to the, now flat, back of the tank.
I wanted it to be semi-submerged, yet also provide another part of the planted ledge...plus extend out over the water!
So, parts of it were to hold back land area and other parts aimed down to the the substrate area, as well as, out into the water and surface.
The rest of the material was arranged in, something like, an upside down pyramid.
A lot of the weight is supported by the lower rocks, but it's very heavily siliconed to the back and everything was wedged together pretty tight.
Even if something eventually worked loose, I didn't want a total collapse as that was a major concern.
I later filled in open areas, between the materials, with safe expanding foam and let everything cure for several days.
Any exposed part of the mess was then covered with black silicon and I patted sand into it to make it even more hidden.


As I've said before most of the rock was from old systems and had been chosen with aesthetics in mind long ago.
Fortunately, most of the very large pieces were pretty light, but the heavier ones went lower down.
Some of the larger rocks were more like pumice, rather than actual lava rock.
That made them lighter, easier to mold into what I wanted and far lighter.
They also tend to wick a certain amount of water up and allow the roots to just drill their way into it.
I always forget about that part and also...
The advantage to the pumice was that I could cut it flat to adhere better to the back wall.
Either a hand saw or a circular saw worked great and some of the pieces were just cut in half at an angle.
I doubled the amount of pumice that I had and could aim the rock up.
That helped to make deeper and more stable planting areas.;~)

Before the rocks were glued into place they were chisled, drilled and just chopped at toward what I was aiming for.
This was not just to make thing fit, but to make sure that I had the holes for the water hoses and places for the plants.
I tried to make something like shallow bowls for soil and/or water to pool in.
Into some of the deeper planting areas, that would get too much water, I put a mixture of small lava rock and LECA pellets.
The muck, etc, just went in where I thought they'd do well.
As much of it was already growing and had roots, plants and mosses, it was like laying sod.
Not everything was successful, but I just put new stuff over the top of the failed parts.
Eventually something was bound to take off, so I wasn't too worried.
Some mosses wouldn't do anything other than slowly decline, but there were enough spores and other types for it to start on it's own.
The area across the the top ended up almost like a trough, after I filled in the hollows with the foam.
That was where the single water hose went across, before it was covered.
It was split to go to both small water features and drip irrigation lines were punched through the main line.
They were just knotted off until I got the rate of flow that I wanted, which was just a slow trickle.

I've been looking through some of my earlier photos to see what I can find about the appearance in the first few years.
They were with a different camera and the quality varies.
Most of those photos were of orchids, or fish, and any view of the structure was incidental.
But, it wasn't as heavily overgrown and you can see far more of it than is now visible.
I'll have to spend more time later tonight, as I don't have the time right now.
But I'll see what I can find and what ever I left out.
I'm really going from a very sketchy memory and don't know what I've left out.
I've been adding to this all day and it jumps around.
When I keep going back and inserting info that comes to mind, it tends to come off as disorganised.
So, sorry about that in advance! ;~)
If you have more specific questions, I'll try to answer them if I can.

Scott

Really great job Scott, we are on the same wave length fro sure!

What?
There are other wave lengths?
Are you sure? ;~)

The only thing that complicated mine was that I wanted a paludarium.
I had to do a lot of additional work and planning if I wanted all the other stuff to work.
Otherwise, the sustrate recipe is pretty much the same model and that's the engine that runs the whole thing.
Without that, it would've failed years ago!

Scott

Thanks for the info Scott.

What did you use for "safe" foam. I've never seen anything labeled aquarium safe for that sort of thing. I found some cans of that expanding spray insulation on sale a long time ago and picked those up for the job. I'd read a bunch of other people's how tos on doing this and they used that and just covered everything with black silicone so nothing would leech out.

I used 'Great Stuff' expanding foam and GE silicon.
I was assured that they were the safest brands.
Although they both off gas for quite a while, but they are fine when fully cured.

Now, one thing, while I'm remembering it.
I've noticed some of the foam pulling away from parts of the glass.
So far it's not really an issue, as I made sure that it was stable anyway.
But it's something to keep in mind and I wonder if there could be future issues.
But, it's been fine for many years and I'm not too worried.

I know that it doesn't react well with UV and that's why many people cover it with the silicon.
That's the reason to cover it, not so much any leaching issues.
I shouldn't leach that much if it's cured long enough.
I know with my tank, it all blended almost seamlessly.
I come from a family that believes in overkill as a major part of life! ;~)
My exposed foam was covered twice. First with the clear stuff and then the black version was spread over that.
The same sand that I used as part of the substrate was sprinkled and pressed into the black silicon.
I was concerned that all the black would stand out too much and strived to make it less obvious.
I worked perfectly as a grout and the seams just disapeared from view.

Btw...
They're lousy photos, but they were all I could find.
I uploaded the few photos that give some idea of how the rock and wood structure is put together.
Not the best, but they were all I could find of earlier photos and they were with an older camera.

Scott

Man, cool stuff guys! I'm real interested to see photos from Aaron's tank, and Scott, WOW. That is something to aspire towards!

If it's of any use, a copy of the deep sandbed article is here: http://www.farmertod...e_fish_tank.pdf

The goal of my ecosystem services was to pack as many fish in the tank as possible (plants were part of the solution, not the focus). You can see photos of this here: http://www.farmertodd.com/aquaria.asp (scroll down a little bit).

I did have some odonates emmerge, possibly some midges, and supported hellgramites for over a year, so it is possible with enough habitat heterogeneity. I also found corbicula to be a great substrate component. I also tried pea clams, but they'd get hit if I had to do a salt treatment.

Scott, that tank is just flat out awesome. When I get to where I'm going in a few years, I will definately have some questions for you You've got a lot of great plants out there to pick from too (would you mind confirming some ID's of Oregon plants in photos I took? I'll pm you). Most of our good wetland stuff here is full sun, and that'll take a greenhouse to work with electro-efficiently (which I'm down with ). If I could get my tanks all on solar (and air conditioning) I'd be one happy kat.

Todd

Hey, Todd!

Thanks for adding the PDF!
I do have that downloaded, on my desktop, and anything else that was interesting.
Most of it was saved years ago and is scattered around in many different files.
I should think about going back through and organizing all of it.

I think that this came a little later. Do you still have the 'transcripts' of the online discussion?
I know that one can search through the archives, but reading the give and take from everyone
was really interesting.

Mine was initially designed for my Black-banded Sunnies and was more of a quiet system.
The water was very slow moving and calm.
With the addition of Darters, I added a larger powerhead to make them happier.
I had to cut down the PVC pipe, at the out take end, to keep it completely underwater and to avoid surface agitation.
The newer cyprinid/minnow types love it just as much, if not more.

I started this reply several hours ago, but had to go finish up out in the pasture.
I'll see if I left anything out later.
I just got back in and I'm soaked and half frozen!:~(
So, maybe something later.

Scott