30 gallon Native Tank Journal

[Sea-agg09]

This is going to be a 30 gallon all-Texas native tank. Both the plants and fish will be collected from sites around the Houston area. I’ll make a different thread about the success/failure of my collecting. Sorry all this is at one time. Haven’t gotten around to putting this up. I’m sure Daniel wants to know what’s happened to his tank.

Feb 8: Picked up tank from Daniel. Looks good. Requires some cleaning (calcium buildup etc, a few cobwebs on the stand), but no biggie. I like the rustic look of the stand. Seems appropriate for a native tank.



Feb. 10: Ordered few parts; filter intake/output, suction cups. Looking into ordering plants, so it will be easier on me. Cleaned up the light. Glanced over the cover and glass. Thorough cleaning after school work is done. Will reseal the inside corners just to be safe.

Feb. 11: Resealed corners. Started soaking wood for tank.

Feb. 12: Collected sand, and pulled out some rocks I had collecting dust. The lizard won't miss them. Cleaned sand and rocks and put into tank.
Bottom level only rocks, thin layer of soil, then sand and rock. Bioballs for filter put into fluval for cycling.

[Sea-agg09]

Feb. 14: Borrowed some larger pebbles from Kroger’s parking lot. Cleaned them thoroughly and placed them around the tank. Parts don’t get in till the 18th, so no sense adding water till at least the 15th.







Feb. 16: Filled ½ the tank with water. Checking how/if the sand is compacting. Looks good so far. Some parts have more sand than others, but that seems more natural than a totally uniform surface.

[Sea-agg09]

Feb. 17: Parts got in early! It’s like Christmas again. Put together the spray bar, though I can only use 2 of the 3 connections, unless I want to make some weird kinks (maybe later). Need to silicone shut one hole in the intake. When it is buried in the sediment, I don’t want it sucking up all my sand. Completely filled the tank and turned the filter on. Just wanted to make sure the filter was working, and wanted to start pulling out some of the junk in the water. Added wood into the tank.

[Sea-agg09]

Feb. 19: Partial water change. Attached prefilter. Planning on going collecting Sunday (21st). Because I don’t have the live plants yet, I put fake ones in until I found the plants I want. The goal is for an all-native tank, this includes plants. I am hoping to get at least a few fish on my first trip out, I put plants in so they wouldn’t freak out too much. Pygmy sunfish and pirate perch really love densely planted areas, so I figure I should give that to them.





Feb. 20: Added some shrimp to the tank. I guess they should be excited that they won’t be food for my leaf fish. At the same time, I’m not sure how well they will fair if I find Pirate Perch tomorrow. I do hope they make it, because they are fun to watch.

[armthehomeless]

Nice... The tank loooks very natural (aside from the plants!) . Keep us updated.

[Gene D]

Neat concept, can't wait to see what the stock looks like

[Sea-agg09]

The stocking "theoretically" is as follows:

Slough Darters, Dusky Darters, Blackstrip Topminnow (killi), and Banded Pygmy Sunfish. The wild card is the Pirate Perch. I have always loved these guys, and would like to have 1 or 2 in the tank. At the same time, full-grown adults tend to eat fish around 1 inch in length. I wouldn't want a pirate perch to munch down on one my my pygmy sunfish. If I catch some small ones I will probably add them to my tank.

[wesleydnunder]

Looks like a great start. Where are you gonna collect your fish?

Mark

[Sea-agg09]

Went out to the lake jackson area today, around 2004 and 332. The water was sooo high, it was ridiculous. I only cought 2 gold-spot topminnows. I did manage to grab some decent looking cabomba and coontail. I totally forgot my camera. These gold-spots may turn into leaf fish food if I have better luck within the next month. It would have been a total wash today if I didn't find the tiniest crayfish. Probably only 2 weeks old. I put 4 in the tank. I'll probably have to take 3 when they get bigger, but they are just too cute to pass up.





The lake jackson location is really nice when the water isn't so high. Otherwise I go out to 146, or turtle bayou, or even out to 124 near Winnie.

[amilcar]

this is real nice man.....I love native fishes!!!!!

[wesleydnunder]

Very kewl. I live just up the road in texas city and know a few places to collect if you want to check them out.

Mark

[Sea-agg09]

Yeah I'll definately do that. I think I'm free next weekend, and I'll be looking for a few more fish.

Chris

[Sea-agg09]

Wow it's been forever since I've updated this. I've been collected one other time since the initial trip. It was a bit more successful. First I should start with plants. I found a ditch that has some nice wild-celery. It is a thalassia species. I also found some nice lillies. I picked up a few thallassia and 2 lillies. Lillies have a very large rhyzome, so it's pretty easy to keep planted. The thalassia....not so much. It is VERY positively buoyant, and floats like a cork. Keeping the stuff in the ground created a few headaches. I've opted to only keep the small ones, letting the roots develop as the blades grow. They are a bit ugly at this point, but they should be growing well soon enough.


Fish.. My big catch was a pair of black-stripe topminnows (Fundulus notatus). It turned out to be a male and a female, lucky me! The female had a bit of a bump on her head, which might have been from a fall as we dropped the bucket down the stairs... oops. I treated her with some melafix, and she is looking great now. There is no sign of anything, not even a bump. The male is very pretty. This picture is the male black-stripe. You can tell the anal fin is more tapered than the dorsal just above it, and comes nearly to a point near the caudal. The female has identical anal and dorsal fins. It is actually much more obvious than the picture would make you believe.


I also finally got a "decent" picture of the golden topminnow. The little ladies don't stay still for anything, so getting a decent picture is proving very difficult.



I found a fish that I didn't quite know. I kept it in hopes it was a male golden topminnow. The body shape matches perfectly, but the colors are just gray. I now think it's just because he was sick. After adding them to a QT tank, this guy developed fin rot within a few days. I treated with an aggressive treatment of melafix, and the disease looks as good as dead. I am leaving him in QT for a bit longer to strengthen him up. Here is an initial picture of him next to the male blackstripe while they were in QT. It's blurry because my QT isn't on a real nice filter, so the water is a bit cloudy.


Other updates, the crayfish are growing FAST. I've released 4 back into water that already have crayfish, so my environmentalist conscience is clear. They were munching on the plants, and that was just not acceptable. I kept the smallest of them, and he is still growing faster than I thought possible.


The plan is to let the plants grow out until I'm out of school in May. Once it is nice and warm, I'm planning to hit the collecting again hard. The search for pygmy sunfish and darters will be on!

[myjohnson]

Nice!

A red ear turtle would really top this tank off!

[mnemenoi]

Great tank, I love the look of it thus far