Tropical Fish Forums

[schaadrak]

I have a few questions about his set-up:

1) If he doesn't feed the fish, what are they eating? Algae?

2) Does he do any water changes or siphon up the fish poo off of the bottom?

3) How fast do those ferns grow? Does he have to prune them regularly?

4) How long has this set-up been running?

Not trying to bust your chops, I just need more information so I can understand what's going on.

[fuzzimuzzi]

1. He doesn't know what they are eating. But he does suspect that there are organisms living around the roots of the ferns.

2. Nope. He just adds water when the water level drops too low.

3. He's not sure. Doesn't prune them at all.

4. one and a half year plus.

Cool huh?

[RaiderFan92]

Id use some livebearers, snails and java moss. The java moss will feed the snails, and clean the water, the live bearers will feed the java moss, and the snails will clean up. I know it would involve a lot of tinkering and geuss work, it might possible tank months, but it might work.

[Gaza]

I just read this, great idea and I think I solved the food problem. Just last year I received some sea monkeys for my birthday and also though of the idea of a set-up like this at the time but I forgot but on the other hand sea monkeys are the freshwater equivalent of brine shrimp, in fact they are a type of brine shrimp crossed with something (I think it was fairy shrimp) to live in freshwater and teach lil' kids responsibility in keeping pets (I think that
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Sup?

[fuzzimuzzi]

Ya...but it's still salt water. Check it out here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_monkeys

it says:

[Gaza]

Well ime I was able to accustom them to freshwater unknowingly by water changes every three days. I'm not saying that statement isn't true by all means it is but they can be accustomed to fresh water.

Gaza
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Sup?

[fuzzimuzzi]

really? could you describe what you did? All the way from hatching to getting it accustomed to freshwater? Did it survive to breed?

[schaadrak]

Here's a good link to Fairy Shrimp (aka freshwater brineshrimp) information.

http://www.feedware.com/aqua/magazine/v2i1/fairyshrimp.pdf

[Gaza]

OK sure. all I did was after a week or two topped up on freashwater then I changed 20% of the water every 3 days without relizing they were in salt water. I got a breeding pair left and then in a teribal acident wich spilled the tub and killed all surviors.(R.I.P rosie and bills)btw I had no idea who was who
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Sup?

[alohamonte]

I know this is an older post... but... you could go with dwarf puffers and snails....

something like a 20 gallon long tank, heavily planted, get a population of 100+ pond snails, then introduce 1 dwarf puffer.

if you wanted to use fairy shrimp or worms in addition to snails, the puffer would eat them as well...

but why would you want a big tank with one puffer? I guess if you like plants more than fish this would work fine.
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Several retired planted tanks from nano to 55gal. 20 gal in the works.