[Chasmodes]

One of my dreams was to duplicate the oyster reef environment of the Chesapeake Bay as best I can without predation. My plan is to have a 120g corner quarter cylinder tank with a live sand from the Chesapeake Bay and perhaps some of the rock there for the live rock. I'll purchase some porous base rock and take my time getting the bio filtration going. I'll have a refugium/sump too, probably 55g.

Animals will be collected from the Bay that live side by side in this environment:

Chasmodes Bosquianus - striped blenny

Hysoblennius hentzi - feather blenny

Naked goby

Skilletfish

Northern pipefish

Ghost shrimp, hermit crabs, snails, etc. for clean up crew that live in the bay.

just about any critter that comes in on the rocks (fish will not be introduced for 6 weeks after the tank cycles and they are QT'd to reduce parasitism).

I may try my luck at some of the other species of fish too eventually.


The actual reef will be an oyster reef but I'm not sure if that will include live oysters or not. I was thinking that if live oysters would be the best way to go to perhaps separate them from the fish in the fuge...my concern is that if one of them dies that I'll have pollution and kill the fish. So really I'm leaning on just using empty dead oyster shells and maybe have one or two oysters in the tank that I can monitor.

The Chesapeake bay is brackish and the salinity varies based on rainfall and runoff, but these fish have bred in captivity with a salinity of 1.015 or so. Also, the environment is colder and there are no coral growth issues.

Has anyone done this? What do you think? The blennies will be my main focus.