Oyster Reef Ecosystem Tank

[Chasmodes]

Originally Posted by Michael Hoaster

Great illustration. Option 1 seems to be optimal. Is drilling through the basement wall your only reason not to do it? Why wouldn't you?

Thanks Michael! Good question.

I have no problem going through the wall. In fact, I bought 2 of these plastic access panels to run the plumbing through. I might just keep the doors open so that if I ever move, I can just break the tank down and close them:


It's just that I have a ton of work to do in the basement to make room, and I didn't want that to slow down the set up of the tank. So, option two is a start. But, once I set up the water changing station, I could still plumb it through the wall to the sump and not change the sump plumbing under the tank. I can then decide if I want to move the sump to the basement. If I do that, I'd have to redo the plumbing from the tank to the sump. No big deal, and I'd have to do it anyway to achieve option one. The big convenience of option one is that I can do all of my water changing for that tank right there, rather than having to run a hose to it and the sink.

In other words, option 2 is my precursor to option 1 Does that make sense? I want this tank up, and that might be my fastest way, to have a tank up and running until I achieve my ultimate goal (option 1).

[Chasmodes]

The only way option two becomes permanent is if I get lazy

[Chasmodes]

I shot this video of my stream tank with a slightly different angle. I'm really pleased how it looks, especially showing the current and surface agitation, giving the tank a pretty good representation of what a small stream shoreline eddy might be like... I hope y'all like it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxY7IQJkNgY

[Chasmodes]

I thought that I'd shoot some pics from different angles of the stream tank and share them with you. Sometimes, I like sitting on the floor to view this tank. I seem to get more up and close to the fish. Also, when viewing from the floor, this angle allows you to really see the flow and current in this tank, how similar it is to a shoreline stream eddy.

Left side looking through the roots...not a lot of room to see the other side of the tank. But, it's interesting when fish peek through the roots to see what you're doing.


This one is from the left side looking toward the other end of the tank:


Same angle, but focused on the tank center where the fish like to hang out the most:


Middle, looking back at the left side to the roots:


Looking back from the right front of the tank toward the roots on the left side:


And finally, a view from the right side through the Valisneria to the roots:

[Michael Hoaster]

Nice pics, Kevin!

[Chasmodes]

Thank you Michael!

Progress is being made on my oyster reef tank. But, it's not tank related. I'm making room for the sump and water change station in my basement. That involves a lot of non-fish tank related work. I have to reorganize shelving, organize my fishing tackle and other outdoor gear, get rid of the laundry mountain, and organize my tools. It's a lot of work, and I'm slowly but surely making progress.

On the fish tank side of things, I need to break down my QT tank and my 20g high oyster reef tank, move the fish and other inhabitants to the 20g long tank in my rec room, and shorten the height on my sump stand.

I'm trying to get something accomplished every day. It's daunting, but I'm very determined.

[Michael Hoaster]

That's great! It sounds like you've got a lot to do. Turned your basement into a junk drawer? I know what you mean, how daunting it is. Whenever I face a project like that, I try to visualize my triumph at the end. That feeling of zero to hero is a good one. You'll feel like a new man!

Now I need to do some laundry…

[Chasmodes]

Thank you Michael. Yes, it's been a junk drawer, plus, messy storage for my hobbies. One step at a time.

One more step later today, after my nap

Originally Posted by Michael Hoaster

Now I need to do some laundry…

[Chasmodes]

I moved all the fish out of the QT into the old 20g long oyster reef tank. Now, it's not a reef, but a bunch of oyster shells littering the bottom of the tank. I have 9 rainwater killifish, and one male sheepshead minnow. I also moved a couple mud crabs (2 different species), 4 mud snails, and 7 grass shrimp from the 20g high invertebrate tank to the 20g long.

This frees up both tanks to be used as QT tanks (one freshwater and one brackish, probably). I am going to build a rack stand for both QT tanks. I'm not sure where I'll keep them yet. I don't want them near my sump or the other two tanks, as ich can be transferred through the air (I think that I read that).

There are a bunch of worms and a few more crabs in the 20g high that I could not catch. I had an oyster cultch in that tank that is probably hiding a few crabs. The would rarely come out to where they are easy enough to catch, so I put that in a bin with an inch of water on the bottom that the crabs can escape to when the oyster cultch dries up. I caught one crab already. There could be a couple crabs in the tank still, but hard to find them. Anyway, I'm going to filter out the sand to separate the critters from the substrate, and then add them all to the 20g long. This will complete the breakdown of that tank.

Freeing up these two tanks frees up my work bench that needs to be moved to accommodate my water change station. It also frees up the stand that needs to be shortened and narrowed for my oyster reef sump.

The tank that I put them into had 2 Harris mud crabs in it, and a bunch of small tube anemones matting the substrate. That's why I added the oyster shells, so that the fish could rest at night without being irritated by the anemones. That seemed to have worked.

I also found 5 small pieces of living Gracilaria in my 20g high that I moved to the 20g long. I purchased an LED light for that tank that supposedly is good for plants. We will see. It's a nice looking light with programmable sunrise and sunset, not expensive. It's good enough for now though. I can always collect more macros this summer once I get the large tank set up.

I'm making significant progress on the laundry mountain. When I started, it was like Mt. Everest. Now, it's somewhere between Mt. Evans and the Appalachians. After my last laundry load, I uncovered a fossil which would have been buried by an laundry avalanche. It was a full unused bottle of Clorox.

[Michael Hoaster]

Great progress! I'm rootin' for ya!

[McPuff]

Wow that looks awesome!!

[Chasmodes]

Thank you McPuff!

[vlangel]

Hey Kevin, I just found your thread again and have spent some time catching up. Wow, a lot has happened since I last read your thread.

I love the stream tank. You were still in the building stage working on painting the rock wall I think. I kind of remember the beginning stages of the roots too. Its quite a unique biotope. You seem to specialize in those however.

I liked the diagrams you provided for the oyster cluster tank system. Yes, option 1 would make maintaining the tank so easy. I understand that impatience to see something happen though. You have waited along time for this. Kudos to your persistent progress day by day!

[Chasmodes]

Thank you so much Dawn. I'm happy that you've found the thread again.

More progress on the laundry mountain today. It went from the Rockies to the Appalachians today.

The QT tank is empty. I moved most all the critters from both the 20g long QT tank and the 20g high to the 20g DT. The only critters left to move are clam worms. I decided to take my time moving those, as there are enough already in the DT and they reproduce quickly.

I figured out that if I move the worms one at a time, and give them to one of the crabs, they break them apart and eat most of them, while the shrimp and fish pick at the leftovers. My guess is that the worms pretty healthy fish and crab food, seeing how they really go after them. Why don't they eat them without my help? They probably would if they could catch them. Clamworms are really fast and aren't in the open long enough to be eaten. And when fish are in the tank, they don't venture out very far except maybe at night. But, exposed, out of their hole, they are easy prey. It's good to know in the future. I haven't tried feeding them to blennies. One day, we will know the answer to that question.

[Michael Hoaster]

Hey Kevin! Any progress?

[Chasmodes]

Hi Michael.

Not much on the actual tank, but, we've made a lot of progress on our space issues. I just got back from a cobia fishing trip this past weekend, and was away for five days of fishing (winds only let is out for 3.5 days though, but, that's a good thing really, as 2 days is about what you can expect). We caught three cobia between 43" to 50", over a hundred sharks between 3-5' long, and over 30 stingrays, some of which was as big as a car hood. I have bruises on both inner thighs from the rod butt due to fighting fish!

A couple weeks ago, my daughter and I made a collecting trip in search of blennies. We caught and kept 9 naked gobies, 6 sticklebacks, and one female striped blenny. They're all in QT now. All of the fish are doing great except we lost one stickleback. It was picked on too much by the other sticklebacks. We are going to keep the blenny, 3 sticklebacks, and three gobies. The rest of the fish will be donated to the Glen Echo Park Aquarium.

We are going FW collecting this Sunday if the weather cooperates.

As far as the oyster reef tank goes, I'm going to set it up sumpless soon (like this weekend) and do all of the plumbing to the basement later. I need to drill the holes and install the overflow, and then I'll add the ball and gate valves to close off the overflow so I can plumb that later without disturbing the tank.

I'm thinking of moving a few rainwater killies into the big tank from the small one, and some shrimp and crabs, to get the tank cycled. I'll use bottled bacteria to get it going, a brand that has worked for me. Anyway, bottom line, I have a plan and will have the oyster reef up and running soon!!!

The 20g tank now has 9 rainwater killifish and one beautiful male sheepshead minnow. I collected some Ulva that was attached to oyster shells, and under my new light seems to be growing well. The overall Ulva mass looks double what it was when I added the tank in just 3 weeks. I also obtained a couple live oysters, and collected mussels, shells with lots of barnacles, shrimp and crabs. I'm really happy with how the rainwater killies interact with the Ulva. This tank will ultimately be for the sticklebacks and maybe the rainwater killies if they get along well. The sheepshead minnow will go into the big tank.

That's the plan!

[Michael Hoaster]

Glad to hear things are coming along. That oyster reef is going to be cool!

[Chasmodes]

Well, I'm beside myself this morning. I made a huge mistake. The blenny and four gobies died yesterday. Everyone seemed fine the day before, when I went down to feed them. Yesterday afternoon, four gobies were dead and the blenny was barely hanging on. The blenny was literally sitting in my hand eating the night before.

My first instinct was to perform a water change, which I did, 50%, thinking that when one goby died at a time, the ammonia spiked and snowballed. The ammonia was high prior to the water change as you might expect with severable dead fish in the tank, which certainly didn't help.

After the water change, I took my magnifying glass and examined the blenny. At first, she seemed OK but was listless and not eating. On closer examination, I saw several white spots...more than several, quite a bit. Ich. This definitely was the culprit. Three days earlier there was zero ammonia and nitrite in the tank, so I know that the tank was cycled.

I added the first dose of copper and a round of Prazipro. And this was my mistake, not doing this from the beginning. I thought that perhaps I'd give the fish a couple weeks to acclimate to life in captivity before dosing medicines. I was wrong.

From now on, my QT tank will have the right concentration of copper from the get go. Copper has worked on these species in the past, so they aren't sensitive to it.

The sticklebacks and a few of the gobies are OK. But, man, my daughter and I really miss that blenny. We worked hard to collect her, but it was her personality that really made this a tough one. She was so tame.

[Michael Hoaster]

Sorry to hear that Kevin. I went through the same thing. It sucks to lose fish. If there is a silver lining, it's your decision to raise your QT game. From now on you'll be ready.

[Chasmodes]

Thanks Michael.

I'm determined to not lose and more fish early after collections. My latest effort includes maintaining the bacteria population in my QT tanks after I empty them, so when I add new fish, the tank will be mostly cycled and only have a small spike in ammonia and/or nitrite to deal with. Nothing a small water change can't fix.

My QT tank currently has 4 naked gobies and 4 sticklebacks, which I'll move to the 20g long soon. I'm in the 4th week of QT treating with copper. I used Prazipro early on as well.

I have a problem in my 20g long with my sheepshead minnow. I think it's a fish louse. Fortunately, there seems to be only one, and not a population of them. There are no signs of them on any of the other fish. I'm going to try and catch him and remove it manually.

I'm kinda torn on what to do. My fish in QT are ready for the DT. But, now the Sheepshead minnow has a parasite. And, I don't think that copper or Prazipro works on fish lice. I may have to buy meds specific to kill fish lice, if the manual removal doesn't work. And I can't treat the DT as there are live inverts (oysters, anemones, mussels, crabs and shrimp) in the tank.

No progress on the big tank, although I purchased some upgraded electrical outlet devices to accommodate the equipment for all of the tanks. I have been working on the downstairs to clean up my junk to make room for my upgrades, but it's been a slow process. It seems that for every step forward, something happens that takes me right back to where I was. And, I've been busy with work and have been out fishing, and collecting fish for the stream tank. I think that I've been busier teleworking during this COVID thing than I ever was before...more meetings than ever, and my workstation isn't as efficient as I'd like, which creates more work for me.

Anyway, sorry for not being around much lately.

On a more positive note, my stream tank is doing well, and I've added a few new fish, as detailed in this new video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtZdhMuMb18

Enjoy!

[Michael Hoaster]

It sounds like your QT setup is going well! It seems like no one's around lately. This time of year we all want to get out and play, and not worry about our aquariums. I don't think I've posted in my thread for weeks. I'm still dealing with the covid-funk. Motivation is low.

I enjoyed your latest video of your stream tank. It's maturing and man! It's beautiful!

[Chasmodes]

Thank you Michael!

I am the king of procrastination. It is a covid funk for sure on top of that though. I need to get motivated. Your tank helps me do that. Thanks for that too

[Chasmodes]

And there's nothing more fun than feeding time (US Native Stream Tank):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVExfVLNMSs

[Chasmodes]

Sorry, it's been a while since I've been here. Call it COVID funk, I guess.

Oyster Reef Tank update:
I haven't done much with the large build, but I have to do something soon and get it set up. I have much angst about doing some things, so, I think that I'm going to go ahead and do what I can do that is stress free. It won't be my perfect set up, but, it will be set up. And, nobody would know the difference except for me. I will start this tank up sump free and worry about doing the rest of the work after the COVID thing winds down. Frankly, I need help and can't have anyone over to the house in the current situation. So, I'm going to do what I can.

20g long:
inhabitants include 4 fourspine sticklebacks, 9 rainwater killifish, 2 species of mud crabs, some grass shrimp, 2 species of wild anemones, 4 naked gobies, 2 oysters, several mussels, and lots of live barnacles. This is a cool tank. It's my old oyster reef tank turned into my stickleback tank, still brackish, same salinity, same inverts, but smaller fish, and not as decorative. I just have shells lying around. But, it's still a cool tank. I bought a new light that supposedly is good for plants, but, the Ulva that I collected still died off.

20g high:
This is my QT tank. I collected a bunch of small blennies, skilletfish and gobies and treated them with copper and Prazipro. The QT period is over, but, these fish will go into the big tank, once I set it up. All of the fish survived QT. I also moved my sheepshead minnow into QT because he had a big white spot parasite of some sort on his cheek. I thought it might have been a fish louse, but apparently not, because the copper killed it, and the sheepshead minnow is fine. After treating Prazipro last month, one of the blennies had a worm sticking out of it's mouth. I assume it was living in it's throat, and the drug killed the worm, but was still attached. I caught the fish and carefully, manually removed the worm. I got all of it, and the blenny has been fine ever since. All of the fish eat out of my hand, even sit in my hand and eat. They are so cute and fun at this age!

So, big tank coming soon. This time, I promise it will happen. I'm very motivated. Plus, I need to get those fish out of QT and need room for new specimens.

Freshwater Stream Tank Update:
I went fish collecting a couple weeks ago, and the fish that I collected went into QT for 2 weeks. I treated them with salt for the full period, and during the last 3 days, one dose of Prazipro. All of the minnows, shiners and dace collected survived QT OK and were added to the display tank yesterday.

I also collected 4 tessellated darters. One jumped out of the tank, one disappeared and I couldn't find it, and one died early on. The last one died the day before he was slated to go into the display tank, and was eating and apparently happy up until then. So, I'm bummed about that. I added 4 satinfin shiners, 3 blacknosed dace, and a bunch of bluntnose minnows to the tank. I also fished a local small stream for smallmouth bass on Sunday, and brought home some plants and snails. I collected wild Valisneria and water stargrass, and added those to my tank. I "cleaned" the plants with a mild hydrogen peroxide/water bath for 20 minutes. The snails just went into the tank,so I hope that I didn't introduce any villainous hitchhikers with them.

I found 2 species of snail, one very common one that looks like a pond snail. It seemed like if you looked at one section of chunk rock, you'd see over a hundred of those snails. The last time that I added snails like those, the darters in my tank hunted down and ate every single snail. This time, they seem to be ignoring the snails altogether. I also added a bunch of ramshorn snails. Maybe the darters will leave those alone because they are a bigger snail.

I got the snails to help with algae control and maybe as an additional food source for the darters. My stoneroller has done a nice job of keeping the tank pretty tidy, and he's getting big. I know he eats a lot of algae because I see him grazing often, and he poops out algae all the time. And, the plants that I had in there took off and I think that has had a huge influence.

I have a green sunfish in the tank as well, but his days are numbered in my tank. He's growing quickly, and seems to be starting to take interest in the minnows, and not in a kind way. It's almost a feeding response. In the past, since I got him, he merely chased fish away from his staked territory. Now, he has that evil eye toward the smaller minnows, dace and shiners. I will donate him to the local aquarium or give him away.

Anyway, below is my video tank update. Enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFbJ...yyOONPh4AaABAg

[Michael Hoaster]

Good to have you back, Kevin! I haven't been around much myself, these days.

Nice updates on the tanks. Great vid of the stream tank. It looks awesome. The plants are growing in nicely too. It's cool you entered it in a contest. You were robbed!

Good luck with the big tank build!