# My first aquarium - attempting to create an ecosystem



## Baysha (Dec 4, 2014)

Hi all, first I would like to apologize for my English, which is far from perfect.

This is my first aquarium. Any comments and suggestions are welcome!

I´ve always wanted an aquarium but was discouraged by the amount of various technical gadgets and maintenance that would be necessary. Then I heard about low-tech tanks, read various online discussions, purchased Diana Walstad´s book... and here is my first attempt. No filter, no heater, no CO2 of course. The main source of light is daylight from a north facing window, additional lighting is provided by 15,8W LED light. The tank dimensions are 60cm x 28 cm x 38 cm - about 15 gallons.
The substrates used were all collected in nature. First layer, laterite:









Second layer, decomposed leaf matter from a beech forest:








Warning: if you ever use a similar substrate, be aware that it contains a lot of earthworms. Even if you don´t see them, they´re definitely there. I didn´t realize it until several days after flooding the substrate, when the worms started dying en masse in the tank.

Final layer, sand from a small forest creek. Unwashed, contains some natural detritus and clay particles:









After planting and flooding. Not as cloudy as I thought it would be:








Yes, it´s Vallisneria floating on the surface. It came with very weak roots and some plants didn´t hold in the substrate after flooding.

Now it´s a week after planting and the tank looks like this. Stem plants are growing like crazy, nothing is melting:









Inhabitants so far are: some Daphnia, a few water louse (Asellus aquaticus) and one blackworm (Lumbriculus variegatus) - I hope to catch more of them. I also tried to introduce scuds (Gammarus pulex) but since they came from a cold creek they apparently needed highly oxygenated water so they didn´t survive in the tank.
Coming soon: 
snails - Malaysian trumpet, ramshorn and some other small snails... I´ll get them from a fellow aquarist so I´ll see which species he has
scuds Hyalella azteca
maybe also Tubifex worms

And later:
freshwater shrimp Neocaridina davidi (I´d like to have the wild type, not Red cherry, but apparently nobody keeps these...)
some fish. Currently the idea is one pair of American-flag fish (Jordanella floridae), but we´ll see...


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

Welcome to APC, and your English is very good! A few suggestions:

You might consider adding a filter or powerhead just for water circulation. This will help with nutrient distribution in the tank so that plants can absorb ammonia and other nitrogen compounds more easily. In natural bodies of water there is almost always some movement of water, and it helps to imitate this in small aquaria.

Some people have reported that scuds damage plants, so you might wait on those until you have some fish to keep their population in check.

You are right about the wild type _Neocaridina davidii_. But you can let natural selection work to create some near wild type for you. Get some inexpensive "low grade" red shrimp. Let them breed for a while, then introduce your flag fish. The fish will tend to eat the more brightly colored shrimp first. With mild predation over time, the population will revert to something close to the wild type coloration. I didn't set out to do this deliberately, but it has happened in my mixed shrimp and fish tanks.

You will like the American flag fish, I have two pairs in a 15 gallon tank.


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## Baysha (Dec 4, 2014)

Michael, thank you for your suggestions!

I know that some water movement would help, but I´m just determined to try it without, for no other reason than I love the clean look of a tank with no gadgets, cables etc. I will probably even remove the light for summer when there´s more natural sunlight, and only use it in winter. I believe there is some water circulation going on though - the front side of the tank is being heated a little by the room heater which is in front of the windowsill and the back side is being cooled by cold draft from the window. 

You may be right about the scuds. I´m getting them next week from a fellow aquarist but I think I will just keep them separately in a pickle jar and introduce them to the tank later. And guess what happened - just an hour ago I took garbage out to the bins and found two perfect 1 gal jars that somebody left there! I love these amazing coincidences!

I kinda figured that with predation the cherry shrimp would revert back to wild coloration. I´m just worried that fish might wipe them out before this happens... We´ll see. Maybe I will find somebody who has the wild ones. 


Wow! I just found out that Echinodorus and Egeria are bubbling! artyman:


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

Try without any circulation, you easily can always add it later if need be.

My fish have never eliminated shrimp from any tank, and I even keep predatory dwarf cichlids. The reason is lots of plants, and introducing the shrimp to the tank and letting them become established before adding the fish.

Please keep us updated, the tank looks very good so far!


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## Tugg (Jul 28, 2013)

I would skip the scuds. If you have shrimp, you really don't need them. Baby shrimp will serve as the same live food source and detritus scavenger. I have scuds in a few tanks, and the fish never get them all. I do believe they damage some plants.

For "natural" N. davidi shrimp, couldn't you also get a few of each color strain and let them work it out that way too? The mutt babies should quickly mix colors back to a natural look, right?

You could maybe go with Malawa shrimp instead too. If I'm not mistaken, they're quite hardy also.


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## Baysha (Dec 4, 2014)

I´m hoping to achieve some biodiversity in the tank, so there would be not only shrimp as detritivores, but also scuds, water louse, blackworms... I know it´s kind of silly to try this in 15 gallons, but we´ll just see how it goes ;-) Anyway, thank you for your input! At the moment I decided to keep scuds separately and first get the water louse and (later) shrimp populations in the tank really going. And only then I will decide whether to introduce a few scuds to the tank.

This is the first time I ever heard of Malawa shrimp. I googled them and it seems they haven´t yet arrived here to Czech Republic ;-) I will stick with Neocaridina davidi as they are widely available and have been proven to tolerate low temperatures. My tank is unheated and sits on the windowsill so I expect the water temperature to drop way below 15°C (60°F) when it´s freezing outside.


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## Tugg (Jul 28, 2013)

I've kept Cherrys with blackworms and scuds in a 10 gallon all this last summer.

The scuds were an accident. They hitched a ride on my net from a different tank. Once they're in, there's no getting them out. So be sure you want them.

BTW: The tank had probably well over 200 shrimp in it.


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## Baysha (Dec 4, 2014)

What´s this thing growing on my front glass? It´s a Hydra!


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## Baysha (Dec 4, 2014)

Water louse feasting on a decomposing oak leaf


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## Guck (Nov 27, 2014)

Baysha.
I am very impressed on how you jumped into this endeavour. Congrats. The Walstad is a very good book. As it has been mentionned above, you can probably skip filtration, but a small pump to achieve heat distribution (I no you have no heater) might be considered. Walstad actually cover this point in her book.

Earlier this summer I setup a 75 gal tank by a window, but I blocked the back. Glad to see you did not. Looking forward to see how this turns out.


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## Guck (Nov 27, 2014)

Baysha said:


> What´s this thing growing on my front glass? It´s a Hydra!


Yes it's a hydra. Some consider it a pest, but it's also a sign of good water quality. Personally, I let them be when they show up.


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## Tugg (Jul 28, 2013)

Baysha said:


> Water louse feasting on a decomposing oak leaf


Cool little bug!!! Are they safe with live plants?


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## Baysha (Dec 4, 2014)

Guck said:


> Yes it's a hydra. Some consider it a pest, but it's also a sign of good water quality. Personally, I let them be when they show up.


Yeah, I´m a huge fan of all "weird slimy" things  I just didn´t expect a hydra to appear so soon - the tank is only running for a week! I hope they don´t breed out of control - when there´s a lot of them they can apparently stress the fish, because they sting when touched.



Tugg said:


> Cool little bug!!! Are they safe with live plants?


They should be. But we´ll see ;-) They´re sold commercially for cleaning garden ponds - if they ate a lot of live plants nobody would use them. But maybe they do take a small bite now and then...


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## Baysha (Dec 4, 2014)

I changed about 30% of water, threw out a lot of yellowing outer leaves from Pistia, trimmed the Egeria (which was reaching the surface already) and planted the cuttings. Vallisneria isn´t doing very well, most of the leaves are melting. But all other plants seem to be thriving.









Look, a caddisfly larva! It´s been living happily in the tank since the first or second day, but only now I managed to get a decent picture


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## GadgetGirl (Sep 25, 2013)

This is a VERY cool tank! Did all these critters emerge from the leaf litter, etc? 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk


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## Baysha (Dec 4, 2014)

GadgetGirl said:


> This is a VERY cool tank! Did all these critters emerge from the leaf litter, etc?


Thank you  
A few did, but most came with water that I deliberately brought from several ponds. I was hoping only to introduce some plankton (Daphnia etc.) and water louse, but it seems I got much more!


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

It will be very interesting to see this tank develop.

Don't give up on your vallisneria, in my experience it often melts when first transplanted but almost always recovers. Did your Pistia come from an outdoor pond? When kept outdoors in strong light, the rosettes grow to 15 cm in diameter. But when brought indoors for the winter in temperate climates, the rosettes rapidly shrink to 3-4 cm. But they continue to live and reproduce, just at the smaller size. I think this is the reason for rumors of a "dwarf" aquarium variety--they are all the same plant, but change size dramatically in different environments.


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## Tugg (Jul 28, 2013)

I wouldn't say I have any experience with water lettuce (pistia) since it's illegal in Texas, but I would say I know a guy who has experienced that. 

Taking it from a high-light high-tech tank to a T-8 shoplight and then back; it took it down from a good 12cm beautiful plant, to an annoyingly small and duckweed like 3cm, then back to the larger 12cm size again.

I can see why it's considered invasive. When it gets small, it can quickly fill the entire surface of the tank with tiny plants that stick to everything: your hand, nets, tools.... everything.

But it sure looks good when it's larger.


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## Baysha (Dec 4, 2014)

I have no idea about the conditions in which the Pistia was kept. I ordered all plants online from a grower company. I presume they have some kind of a big pond in a greenhouse. I do hope it gets smaller because it doesn´t really fit in my tank when it´s this big. But I read it´s very efficient in removing all N-compounds, which is the reason why I ordered it (plus it was really cheap )

I caught some more water louse in a pond and added them to the tank. They´re really busy cleaning, I can already see the difference in some places :-D Luckily the weather is still OK for critter hunting, any other year everything would be frozen already.


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## Tugg (Jul 28, 2013)

I have to wonder how hard it would be for me to find some water louse around my area.

Michael, where would be the best place in our area to try?

Baysha, how to did you collect them. Net? Just scooped up some water/muck?


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## Baysha (Dec 4, 2014)

Tugg said:


> I have to wonder how hard it would be for me to find some water louse around my area.
> 
> Michael, where would be the best place in our area to try?
> 
> Baysha, how to did you collect them. Net? Just scooped up some water/muck?


As far as I know they´re pretty much everywhere around the world in almost any body of water. They´re only very good at hiding ;-) Just go to a pond and turn over a few rocks, they´re usually on the bottom side. Or you can scoop them using a bowl or something, in places where there´s a lot of water plants, then you pour out most of the water with floating plant matter, the louse will stay at the bottom of the bowl.
Edit: I just realized you´re in Texas. I´m not sure whether you can find them there, it´s more of a temperate species...


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## Baysha (Dec 4, 2014)

http://bugguide.net/node/view/167235/bgpage


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

Until Baysha's post, I had never heard of keeping them in aquaria, and was only vaguely aware that were aquatic isopods at all. What type of habitat do they like? Tugg and I live in a part of Texas that is considered to have a warm temperate climate--hot summers and mild winters that still have frequent freezing temperatures.

Tugg, I know some places in my neighborhood around White Rock Lake that might be good.


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## Baysha (Dec 4, 2014)

I didn´t realize that Texas is so big that it actually has several climate zones 

They´re not commonly kept in aquaria but I found an article mentioning that in Japan and Taiwan people sometimes keep them together with various types of shrimp (the article is in Czech but there is a picture on the bottom of the page):
http://www.caridina.cz/news/be/

As for the environment they like: just about any. They like to hide under rocks or in dense vegetation so you don´t see them in nature unless you start looking for them. But they´re everywhere so they seem to tolerate a wide range of conditions. I haven´t found any information on keeping them in aquaria so it´s an experiment - we´ll see how it goes ;-)


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

Yes. The part of the state were Tugg and I live usually has a lowest winter temperature of -10C. The extreme northern part of the state goes down to -23C. The extreme southern part of the state rarely has freezing temperatures at all.

What is the climate like in Prague?


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## Baysha (Dec 4, 2014)

Continental temperate. Hot and dry in summer (sometimes it gets close to 40°C), cold in winter - morning temperatures can drop under -20°C.


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

A little cooler than us, but otherwise not too different. Our average annual rainfall is 89cm, concentrated in May-June and September-October.

In case anyone is wondering, this is aquarium related, LOL.


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## Guck (Nov 27, 2014)

Tugg said:


> I wouldn't say I have any experience with water lettuce (pistia) since it's illegal in Texas, but I would say I know a guy who has experienced that.
> 
> Taking it from a high-light high-tech tank to a T-8 shoplight and then back; it took it down from a good 12cm beautiful plant, to an annoyingly small and duckweed like 3cm, then back to the larger 12cm size again.
> 
> ...


I keep pistia in some of my tanks. I brought them in from my pond when it strarted to get cold. In my case, the leave barely grow bigger than 1cm. But they grow fast. I have to remove excess often enough, but at least they are easy to remove.


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## smmcgill (Oct 26, 2014)

Tugg said:


> The mutt babies should quickly mix colors back to a natural look, right?


LOL, Tugg, what a way with words. 

Nice tank, Baysha! I love the biodiversity that you're incorporating. I'm having the same experience with Vals as you are, and I'm hoping they bounce back quickly for us both!


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