The Great Biocube experiment

This is a new project I started with my 3 year old. I have photo album chronicle on Face book but I wanted to do a parallel, ongoing thread here where I intend to get into more technical detail with more pics and hopefully get feedback. As the new critters show themselves, anyone is welcome to chime in with ids.
Here goes;
Having down sized my aquariums, I ended up with a small bunch of plants with no home. Common pet store crypts, not worth much, but derived from an original purchase of six plants I made years ago. I remember special ordering them for myself when I worked at a certain pet store. My son Dan was a baby when I worked there so like... him, this strand is umpteen years old. It's been through boom times and bust, growing in first tropical and later north american conditions and maybe a dozen types of fish, but never died completely out.
I needed a way to save it but had no room nor electric for more tanks.
Driving by Walden the other day I remembered the message from the book of the same name; "Simplicity, simplicity,simplicity."
There the idea of Biocube was born.
A self contained system with no moving parts, no electricity, no store bought food, no store bought anything. A system so simple, a 3 year old could set it up and maintain it. A sunny window, a yard sale tank, a bucket of dirt, a handful of plants and two fish. Simple.

The tank is five gallons. It sits in a window which faces just south of due west. Several hours of full sun each afternoon. Shades, fan and reflectors may be employed come summer if temp is a prob.
The substrate is intended to root and feed the crypts as well as be a "Deep Sand Bed" biofilter and refugium for inverts.
I had made the comment to my boy that we needed sand. With the crystal clear logic of an innocent mind he suggested we get sand at Sandy pond. That's our town beach the place he is learning to swim. Why didn't I think of that? Well raked and groomed by the parks dept, just a hint of last year's goose droppings, it was fine, dark and lively. I took mostly sand from above the water line but we each grabbed a handful from the pond and tossed it in.
On top of that, I added two layers of sifted leaf mulm from an actual pond and seething with worms and critters of every description. A thin sand layer went over the layer of mulm.
The fish for now are two quarter sized E. obesus which I netted with the leaf litter. That will be subject to change pending BB fry.
A few2 sprigs of hornwort was also tossed in. Large amounts of fast growing pond weeds will be added to hold off algae until the crypts spread. The first few days I'm letting the crypts get settled before they have to compete.
I think this could be fun.
Putting in the dirt.


Next the plants.



Fish next.

Jeddy spots the first critter.

He called it a Rolly Polly and it was bigger than a real pill bug.

The sunnies make the critters keep their heads down.

Stay tuned....

Neat! Your "rolly polly" is a scud, but I wouldn't be surprised if you also got real aquatic isopods. They're much flatter and less well armored than the terrestrial versions.

How interesting! This will be fun to watch. It looks like you have a great helper, too.

I like it!! Looks like a good fun family bonding activity.

That's pretty cool. I really enjoyed doing stuff like that with my parents when I was little. You are creating some awesome memories and sparking a fire that may lead to life long passion. I'm interested to see how this tank develops over time. Keep us posted.

I too have set up (ok - colonized) my kids rooms with fishtanks. Your boy will learn more from watching his biocube habitat
than he would learn from any "Nature show" on TV.

Great work!

I hate "me too" posts, but, AWESOME!

Todd

This is going to be quite a project critters are popping up and disappearing, the sunnies are getting tubby and you can just about hear the plants sucking up the goodness from the substrate. Later today it will get its first sunshine.

Nate the rolypoly actually is an isopod. There were several but that big one is/was the only one beyond bite sized. There are/were some real scuds as well but they keep under the mulm now. Looks like at least 3 snail types and now green hydra are blooming.
Pics to follow with id requests on bugs and plants.

A few quick critter pics. I miss my microscope. So many tiny stuff I only see by watching the sunnies. They hunt all day long and spot any tiny movement. Trying to work out something to shoot tiny stuff.

A word on IDs; I'm casual, well, OK, lazy when it comes to invert and plant IDs. I tend to use local common names, fishermen names or names my kids make up. I may say something is something with authority but may actually be all wet. Feel free to pipe up and set me straight. If this thread stays active people will follow the increase of knowledge. I take that knowledge to the kids and to a good sized audience of non-fishy folks via FB.

So here's a few quickies:
The only other pic of the rollypolly. I intentionally use the kids' name because I do in fact believe it to be an isopod like the pill bugs we find under rocks. I may be wrong. There were a bunch of these as well as scuds but the sunnies are ruthless. They remind me of marine butterflyfish in that they can not suffer an invert to move in day light. They hound and pick and shadow them anywhere. I don't know if they finally killed the big critter or it just died but last I saw, they had cracked its shell and were picking out meat like a lobster.

Is this a rat tail maggot? I know those from nasty septic conditions, not ponds. Don't know what happened to it. The sunnies harrassed it constantly and now it's gone. A tight lid will prevent any emergers from escaping.

A nice gold snail. Anyone know it?

That is a syrphid (rat-tail) maggot. I've found them in very large numbers in leaf-filled ponds that were clean enough for ambystomatid salamanders to breed in them. They don't require polluted conditions, they just have a competitive edge there. It's also possible that different species are found in clean waters and polluted ones.

Your isopod here is clearly an isopod. And your isopod in the first batch of pictures is clearly an amphipod. You're going to have a hard time convincing me that that is the same individual!

I can't see the snail pic for some reason.

That is a syrphid (rat-tail) maggot. I've found them in very large numbers in leaf-filled ponds that were clean enough for ambystomatid salamanders to breed in them. They don't require polluted conditions, they just have a competitive edge there. It's also possible that different species are found in clean waters and polluted ones.

Your isopod here is clearly an isopod. And your isopod in the first batch of pictures is clearly an amphipod. You're going to have a hard time convincing me that that is the same individual!

I can't see the snail pic for some reason.

well the rat tailed fellow came from oak leaf litter in a healthy pond. The two little banded sunnies came up from the same leaf litter. Wonder where he went. Maybe into the substrate?

Very much possible a big scud and a big isopod were both present at one time. Can't find either now.
I really wanted to call it an isopod cause then I can say my 3 year old nailed his first invert ID. A rolypoly is an isopod, right?

This is beyond cool. Do you plan on water changes?

This is beyond cool. Do you plan on water changes?

I did one 75% change after the first night to get cloudyness out.
The water is clear now.
In such a tiny tank I'll be vulnerable to H2O issues, especially while the natural balance works itself out.
The ultimate goal is enough plants that removing green growth will keep H2O clean and H2Ochanges to a minimum.
Maintenance ideally will be simple enough for the 3 year old. That was what I envisioned. I will intervene and take action if I see trouble. That will be part of lesson. The lesson could include dealing with failure although total failure is very unlikely. As long as my stand of crypts doesn't die out, it won't be a failure.

I will not be using test kits or chemicals. I will rely on fish behavoir and the sniff test. I believe Jeddy can learn that easier than using test kits and adding chems. That's inline with my normal policy anyway and reflects the simplification that has been at work in my life in general.

I really am trying to keep with what I believe Thoreau would have liked about this adventure.

Edited by mikez, 18 March 2010 - 06:04 AM.

Yes, rolypolies are isopods. The "true" rolypolies or pillbugs that actually curl into a ball are in the genus Armadillidium. There are quite a few other terrestrial isopods, almost all in the suborder Oniscidea. Our freshwater isopods are suborder Asellota, family Asellidae. Oddly enough, most of the terrestrial isopods in the northeastern US are introduced, as are most terrestrial earthworms. It's hard to imagine what the eastern woodlands would be like without them.

I can see your snail now; it is a physid, or left-handed pond snail. Handedness or chirality in snails is determined by holding the central and highest part of the shell (apex) up and the body opening (aperture) towards you; if the aperture is on the left, it is left-handed or sinistral, if on the right, right-handed or dextral. Most snail families are right-handed. Physids are the most common left-handed snails in freshwater (though individuals of any species may have the "wrong" chirality).

Yes, rolypolies are isopods. The "true" rolypolies or pillbugs that actually curl into a ball are in the genus Armadillidium. There are quite a few other terrestrial isopods, almost all in the suborder Oniscidea. Our freshwater isopods are suborder Asellota, family Asellidae. Oddly enough, most of the terrestrial isopods in the northeastern US are introduced, as are most terrestrial earthworms. It's hard to imagine what the eastern woodlands would be like without them.

I can see your snail now; it is a physid, or left-handed pond snail. Handedness or chirality in snails is determined by holding the central and highest part of the shell (apex) up and the body opening (aperture) towards you; if the aperture is on the left, it is left-handed or sinistral, if on the right, right-handed or dextral. Most snail families are right-handed. Physids are the most common left-handed snails in freshwater (though individuals of any species may have the "wrong" chirality).

Good stuff Nate! Thanks.
I knew worms were introduced but first I heard about the isopods.
There are some very cool and large and sometimes quite abundant isopods running/swimming in most of the saltwater habitat I visit. The wrack line, the line of eel grass and sea weed cast up at the high water mark, is often swarming with isopods.

The tank is progressing and changing. Eventually I might do like a series of pics showing the progression from the mud hole to the little window garden it's becoming.
I went out to collect some leaf litter and pond plants to ratchet up the food chain and head off the hair algae. My partner wasn't able to make the trip but he got into sorting through the haul.



Because I netted up large clumps of weeds and leaves, I pulled up lots of big inverts. A few fish and tadpoles too.
We sorted through carefully trying to avoid putting too many perch bugs into our different containers. We had to save some perch bugs [dragonflylarvae] and a few other cool critters.


It's so fun for me to see how much he loves it. I have fond memories from my own childhood of doing stuff like this.

Your son is adorable. You are pretty lucky. I have a question. Is there a chance you could collect anything in that leaf litter that could be detrimental and cause harm to the fish? I am not very knowledgeable on insect larvae but I thought some prey on small fish.

Your son is adorable. You are pretty lucky. I have a question. Is there a chance you could collect anything in that leaf litter that could be detrimental and cause harm to the fish? I am not very knowledgeable on insect larvae but I thought some prey on small fish.

As a matter fact you'd be amazed at the assortment of predatory macro-inverts that turn up.
I'm currently trying to edit and upload a bunch of pics all involving big hungry bugs.

In regards to my fish, if you look at the second set of pics with my son, you'll see we've got a little sorting station goin on. Plants and leaves are sorted, examined visually, big bugs picked out, and are then dropped into the food strainer suspended over the cooler. Left there long enough, many of the mobile fauna like the scuds, isopods and various and sundry insects [larvae and adult] will burrow down seeking moisture and end up falling through the strainer. This is a great way to get as many critters as possible in clean H2O where you can see 'em and sort 'em without a half gallon of mulm to try and get rid of. This is our main line of defense.
Having said that, I accept inherent risk because my goal is fun and bonding with strong educational value. If for example, a giant water scorpion were to spear our favorite rolly polly, we wouldn't be sad, we'd think it was really cool and we'd learn something. Stay tuned for pics.
BTW, when I am done sort and sifting, the last container contains fine mulm mostly consisting of broken down leaves and just enough H2O to be a little wetter than mud. It's dirty, easily stirred up and doesn't look good to pickier sorts but it is positively writhing with critters.
Right now I'm starting to see micro-vert activity really increasing. I'm lamenting my long lost microscope but with a loup I can see good sized rotifers and very small egg carrying cyclops as well as numerous smaller stuff buzzing around. When the sun hits the tank, the H2O is getting a cloudy tint from the critters. The adult cyclops are a fraction of the size of the ones I get from my ice fishing holes, their young must be tiny. I know lit says cyclops not nutritional but I like 'em for 2 reasons, one - they will reproduce easily in captivity, and two - nutritious or not, all fish love to chase them.

Edited by mikez, 25 March 2010 - 08:28 AM.

Getting bogged down with pics. Just gonna dump 'em in dribs w/o comment for now. Chime in w/ids or feedback.
Hopefully you'll forgive the uneven quality. I have issues with my eyes/3 inch screen/ friggin autofocus/ a billion micro-verts/sediment/algae on glass and the love/hate with the back lit sunshine.

Edited by mikez, 28 March 2010 - 11:37 AM.

Great shots, Mike!

1. to 4., Water Scorpion, Ranatra sp.

5. Caddisfly, Trichoptera: Limnephilidae (?)

6. Isopod, Asellidae

7. Damselfly, I think a Lestes sp. (spread-winged damselfly)

8. Yellow Bullhead, Ameiurus natalis

9. Green Frog, Lithobates clamitans

Good shots of the heads/faces of the isopod and damselfly could help get a definite genus ID.