How to make a ecosystem in an aquarium?
by Aquaboy on Sunday, July 4th, 2010 | 5 Comments
How can you make a self-sustaining ecosystem inside a freshwater aquarium, it dosent need to be 100% self-sustained, with things like feeding them.
do you need a filter? and things like what animals will keep it clean?
Thanks
Other articles you might like;
- Is These Pellets Healthy + More Qs-?
- Would This Hurt The Guppy Fry?
- 90g Reef Aquarium Setup Day 5
- Ideas On Fish For Freshwater Community Aquarium?
- Work Experience Melbourne 2011?
Hmm… I am wondering the same. I had two large goldfish and a crayfish in a 20 gallon tank. They were all living happily for like 6 months. I would do a partial water change almost weekly. Then, I started over feeding, it got really disgusting. My crayfish got furry looking with residue on him. I worried. I tried to use a soft, new synthetic paintbrush to brush him off a bit. I did a 100% cleaning. Then, my cray died. I have to say he was acting weird prior to the cleaning. That is why I freaked out and cleaned the whole thing. But, I am concerned I cleaned away all of the good bacteria. I think he would have benefited by leaving some of the old gunk (good bacteria) in there. As, not to shock his system. Point being, I got my cray to achieve what I think you are trying to do. It was great for months. So I recommend crayfish. But, be careful not to over clean when the time comes. And make sure you clean your tank and do not lapse as I did, resulting in this castastrophy. You should be good with a crayfish, if you have no low lying fish. Plants are nice, but be careful of snails on them when you buy them. Rinse them off. Don’t overfeed. And if you have larger fish that will consume smaller ones, by all means, put them in. Monitor your levels. Do your research and get what is recommended by experts and do not think you can skimp and deviate from the professional advice.
CDLTNLA
I’m answering thinking you have experience.
Well as home aquarium, no. This is just an impossibilty. Unless the tank was huge. I have a garden pond that is 7ft long, by 4ft widest and 1 and 1/2 ft deep. This is a completly self-sustaining system except for feeding. There is no ammonia, nitrite or nitrate and the pH is stable and perfect for goldfish. The pond is so heavily planted that the nitrates are used up. So you had a massive tank and spent years tending to it in theory you could have a sustained environment. This would best be achieved with fish that aren’t large. Don’t breed like guppies and love heavily heavily heavily very heavily planted evnironment. It would be unwise not to ahve sort sort of filter or pump to give water flow. In our pond we have a basic sponge filter that jsut drags the water through but these days there is nothing to filter out the water is crystal clear and it is mainly for aeration. So in short i’m going to say that you can’t achieve this in what you could supply. But you have me thinking that i want to set something huge like that up but it isn’t a possibility.
Algea sucks as we call them but pet smart calls them plecos. When you put him in your tank he will keep it clean. They get bigger according to tank size so dont get too many or they will die from lack of food. You cant put an algea eater in your tank until you have enough algea to keep it alive so let your tank sit for about a week before putting him in (you should do this for all fish so that the aquarium has time to sustain its own eco-system). You should run a filter and use bubble wands to keep circulation going in your tank to keep the fish alive. Dont forget to put chemicals in the water when changing/adding water. if you have the bubbles, the filters, and the an algea eater you should be fine. I still recommend that you change the water once every six months or at least once a year this is because the water is in a still house environment and comes in contact with chemicals and dust and other nasty air floties..
All established fish tanks are essentially ecosystems, with the good bacteria living in the filter media (yes you need a filter) keeping the water chemistry healthy. By keeping a fish tank correctly, having put it through the nitrogen cycle, stocked it correctly with buckets of background research on the animals you’ve bought, you will essentially be keeping an ecosystem.
And NO, NO animals will clean the tank as ALL animals poop! And nothing eats poop, and if it did, it would poop it back out anyway. Fish like Plecos are entirely the opposite of a “cleaner”, in fact they’re known for wrapping decor in poop!
If you want to go down a different route though there’s always the Walstad Method, this isn’t ideal for fish though, maybe shrimp, but not fish.
http://theaquariumwiki.com/Walstad_method
Tis impossible to have a self sustaining ecosystem. You’d need access to HUGE bodiers of water. And yes you will need a filtter, and an enormous one at that. Even then, unless you achieve just the right ratio of plants to fish, prey to predator, andlighting to carbon dioxidde, you will never have a complete ecosysttem. Sound like a lot of work? YOu’re right, it is