Advice on Setting up a Tank for Darters

After coming to college, and being barred from all pets except for fish, and doing/hearing about a few research projects involving them I've picked up an interest in keeping a native fish tank. However I'm clueless on the finer points of setting it up for darters. I don't have any darters yet, but I plan on picking up a 5-6 the next few weeks. I have a 29 gallon aquarium being set up for the 3 small Lepomis (Green, Orange Spotted, and one to small to identify), which they will be moved into in a day or two. It's set up with an under gravel filter, 2 air stones, and soon will have a 30-50 gallon filtration system added on. Is that good enough of a set-up to move darters into, and if not what else would I need? Also any advice on some colorful, and easy to keep darters around the southern Indiana, or Indiana in general would be appreciated.

That sounds like a good setup for darters. Darters like to hide and they like to play in bubbles and currents. How many do want in this tank?

I'd like to put 2 species in there, 3 or 4 of a given species. I'd also planned to have some orange spotted sunfish, and some other Lepomis with them. Atm all the Lepomis I have are a 3 in Green, 2 in Orange Spotted, and a 1 inch something...that for the life of me I cannot identify. I know the Green will have to be let go after it gets a bit bigger, otherwise it will make a nice snack of my darters, but for now it should be ok right?

I obviously need to work on the tank some still, which is why any advice would be nice.

Add a few more plants, a small piece of driftwood, and some good sized rocks, and you should be perfect. Could you post a picture of your mystery Lepomis so that we may ID it?

You should never release fish after keeping them in a tank, the risks of moving around disease or amplifying it are larger than many people think. I'm sure you'll want to keep the green sunfish separately sooner than you think even, but he's yours now.

The unknown Lepomis, is small which makes him so hard to id. I've tried using a dicotomous key on him, he just doesn't have any real distinguishing traits yet. Sadly, I can't post a picture atm the green tore him up pretty bad last night. I'll be surprised if he lives through it. Which brings me to the question of why can't you release a native fish in the area where you originally caught it? And if I can't release him I see a nice gar in his future....

It is an argument that will go on forever but you should research opinions on the undergravel filter. Most people think it is a danger moreso than helpful, some think its a must. I lean more towards do without it.

It is an argument that will go on forever but you should research opinions on the undergravel filter. Most people think it is a danger moreso than helpful, some think its a must. I lean more towards do without it.

Why?

As I understand it, undergravel filters are great biological filters and lousy mechanical filters because the waste remains in the tank. I've never used one, so my opinion is worthless here.

I have seen a lot of talk on undergravel filters lately, so I will just mention this briefly.
I have never used one, but I have heard good things about using UGF, but using reverse flows. This tends to work best in gravel tanks with no plants. The flow of the powerhead pushes water upward through the gravel (nice bio filtration I imagine) and suspends the solid waste to be picked up by other powerfilters or sponges.
You can look more into reverse UGF if you want. I first heard of this about 4 years ago from a friend who kept African cichlids.

Back to original subject - Add more structure. Like mentioned, try some driftwood or large rocks and create a lot of structure for your fish to perch on top of and hide underneath. Your fish will feel much safer this way and will add for some entertainment as well.

Edited by UncleWillie, 27 September 2009 - 08:06 PM.

Google undergravel filtration. You will find pros and cons. Google reverse flow undergravel as well. I do not want to influence your decision. Do the research and decide for yourself. Like I said. I am not for them but I know a guy that owns the LFS for over 20 years and he swears by them. So I do not know what is best. I just make my decisions based on my research.

One tip I will pass on that I posted in another thread. I bought 4 ounces of live blood worms and put them all in the tank. They live in the substrate and keep their heads poked out of the substrate. It is like an auto feeder. The darters eat them at will. Pretty easy.

Ty for the advice, its been alot of help I'll post pictures as I mess around with the tank here and there getting it set up for the next few weeks.

If you want to keep sunfish in a 29 I would only keep Orangespots. Great tank fish. The green, pumpkin and bluegill will terrorize anything else in a small tank. I would send those to the freezer (which is just like it sounds - plastic bag + freezer). And, frankly, there is no time like the present. The OSS will do better with out them.

Other than that, lots of hiding places and live food make for a great native tank.

Well I did a bit to the tank. I added in a log, and several rock areas for the Orange Spotted Sunfish to hide in. During setting up the tank I also ended up with a small madtom that my friend was trying to get rid of. I finally got a 5 darters this weekend, 2 rainbow darters and 3 orange throated darters from a creek in southern Indiana. I added in an AquaClear filter to add on to the under gravel filtration system I already have. I will post a picture on here as soon as the tank clears out....

I figured out why under gravel filters are bad today...while installing the AquaClear filter one of the towers (for lack of a better word) on my under gravel filter came loose and gravel got in there so I couldn't get it back in. So I made the horrible mistake of trying to lift half of the filter to take it out and get the gravel out. Well the nice silt cloud (again for the lack of a better word) filled my tank for a bit. It wasn't a huge deal. However when I came back later in the day, and looked underneath my tank, I keep it on a glass part of the table..or it was a class part but that's another story. A small darter wedged underneath the filter and bottom of the tank caught my attention... I of course felt horrible and feeling obligated to rescue it pulled out the under gravel filter setup, to get to it, and the madtom that darted under there as soon as it could. During this lovely event a cloud of black silt made my tank impossible to see through. Figuring that this could not possible benefit my fish I moved them to a 15 gallon temporary tank until the silt cloud settles enough for me to put them back in the tank... I had it set up to clean the tank this weekend... Sighs...another thing to add my already to long to do list....

Back on subject. Is an overhead filter good enough or should I just clean the under gravel filter more often and keep it around? Also am I missing anything for keeping the darters, orange spotted sunfish, and madtom happy? They all seem to eat the baby shrimp and frozen brine shrimp I feed them quite happily. However any advice is always welcomed.

As I understand it, undergravel filters are great biological filters and lousy mechanical filters because the waste remains in the tank.

Susan's understanding is right on target. I've used them in non-planted tanks. They definitely have their place, especially with fish that would otherwise get sucked into a filter. But the downside is that if you disturb anything, you get mulm all over (as you've just experienced).

For the darters, an overhead filter should be plenty. If you want to nix the undergravel filter idea, I would just take out the tubes and leave the base under the gravel. It won't hurt anything down there.

If you follow Native Planter's suggestion, be sure to plug the tube holes! Otherwise fish may go through them and either live beneath the UGF plate where you'll never see them, or get trapped and die where it's hard to see or remove them. I've had both happen to me.

If you follow Native Planter's suggestion, be sure to plug the tube holes! Otherwise fish may go through them and either live beneath the UGF plate where you'll never see them, or get trapped and die where it's hard to see or remove them. I've had both happen to me.

Ha! Good point! If you don't have something that quite fits, you could probably fill them with pea gravel. Or filter floss (but that might look funny).

I just threw away the undergravel filter. It's towers were broke, and it creates more of a mess than it cleans. After cleaning out my entire damn tank because of it I can with all faith say I will never have one again. All they do is store junk out of the reach of my vacuum. Is there a way to get colored gravel to stop releasing color? I have black gravel, which I went through and cleaned today. Blackish water came out when I washed it which is strange considering I washed it before it was placed into the tank. I've had the tank set up since I started this thread so that's obviously a good length of time for it to still be releasing color. Today alone I must have rinsed it for 10 minutes at least. Sighs...learning things the hard way, all this mess ended up costing my the darter I tried to save underneath my undergravel filter, someone decided he looked more like lunch, and took a few pieces out of him, at least I think it was the orange throat male. This is disappointing...it means I'm going to have to go find another one, and I might not be able to do that for a significant length of time.

Is there a way to get colored gravel to stop releasing color? I have black gravel, which I went through and cleaned today. Blackish water came out when I washed it which is strange considering I washed it before it was placed into the tank. I've had the tank set up since I started this thread so that's obviously a good length of time for it to still be releasing color. Today alone I must have rinsed it for 10 minutes at least.

It shouldn't be releasing color in the first place. I've never had that happen. Are you sure it's not just mulm? If is isn't mulm, where did you get it? I wouldn't use that kind again.