May 2008

Mickey’s 20g was not my only entry in 2005. I had really finished that tank early in that year. My real project was a tank I build myself, from big panes of glass. It was a 75g, and since I used very clear low iron glass (no green tint) I called it the Big Clear Kahuna. The BCK, as it was known in a few forums, came to an untimely end. This aquascape itself was doomed.

But it looked OK early on. So here are the pics I submitted to the Aquatic Gardeners Association (AGA) 2005 Aquascaping Contest.

I was trying to create a biotope, the looks of which I had never seen anywhere else in planted tanks. I wanted it to look like the sandy bottomed bayous I played in as a kid on the gulf coast, with similar plants and fish.

Technical Info

Plants
Echinodorus cordifolius, Eleocharis acicularis, Eleocharis montevidensis, Hemianthus callitrichoides, Ludwigia Repens, Nymphaea rustica, Nymphaea zenkeri, Nymphoides aquatica, Vesicularia dubyana, Riccia fluitans

Fish/Animals
Micropterus salmoides “Largemouth Bass” - 1, Lepisosteus osseus “Longnose Gar” - 1, Crossocheilus siamensis “Siamese Algae Eater” - 1, Botia striata “Zebra Loach” - 2, Caridina sp. shown in a photograph is not a permanent tank inhabitant.

Decorative Materials
Cypress tree stump and a Cypress “knee” for hardscape. Cypress “knees” are protuberances that grow upward from Cypress roots, often breaking the water surface, a common sight in gulf coast swamps. Substrate is Eco-Complete in the planted areas, with quartz river sand for the “stream bed”.

Background
Black matte posterboard

Lighting
6 x 54 watt T5 Tek light, 10 hour photo period. Most of the day at 2 bulbs, increasing to a 6 bulb “noon day” peak

Filtration
Eheim 2026, outflow through hidden bulkheads in the bottom of the tank. Return through twin lily pipes over the side.

Additional Information
Growing up on the Gulf Coast of southern USA, fishing in cypress forests, with their myriad mazes of cuts and channels made by the passage of boats and water, while holding such fascinating aquatic life, created for me a deep love of that environment. This is rendition of how such a cut through a cypress forest, like those I grew up passing though on boats, might actually look underwater. - - - Though great pains have been made to keep this true to a real cypress forest, a few practical considerations keep this out of the biotope category. Botia striata have been used for snail control, Crossocheilus siamensis for algae control. And Vesicularia dubyana on hidden rocks provides a temporary barrier between the two substrates, to be removed when the foreground is fully mature. - - - Many Nymphaea, like the N. zenkeri here, are not indigenous, but have been present in USA cypress swamps now for around 100 years due to introduction by humans. - - - The Riccia was unplanned, though it is native. It snuck in on the Hemianthus callitrichoides and spread to the Eleocharis acicularis. Since that was both lovely and quite true to the invasive nature of that particular native aquatic weed, it has been allowed to continue spreading along the bottom, just as it would in nature. - - - This is a “point-in-time” tank. It is hard for me to imagine a recreation of any cypress swamp without the ever present top level predators that inhabit them. These fish can eventually outgrow all but the largest of tanks, and will eventually require replacement by juveniles. While this may not be considered “sustainable”, neither is the use of any fish population that do not breed in an aquascape - they have to be replaced when they die. Once the predators are a bit larger, the SAE and the loaches will be replaced with larger, mature Lepomis megalotis (Longear Sunfish) to fill their niche within the tank. So the tank should be fun to watch for a year or so any way, while hopefully being somewhat representative of true conditions. - - - With the exception of the temporary addition of a background to provide contrast for photos, this is the way the tank looks every day in our family room. No equipment was added or removed, no special lighting used.

There were a few notable problems with this attempt at a Gulf Coast biotope.

First, those cypress stumps grew algae like nobody’s business. Even putting them in was a huge effort because they are incredibly bouyant. I had several pounds of slate bolted to their bottoms so that they wouldn’t float. But I had to toss them. The algae on them just got too bad.

Second, I had to lose the gar. I loved that fish. It was cool! But I found out (after the fact) that they are illegal to posses in my state. So I had it quietly tranported to a friends marine biology in a state where they were allowed. Bummer. I really liked that fish.

And finally… the bass! Or Mr. Piggie as we called him. That fish was a eating machine. And a regurgitating machine for that matter too. I could not keep fish in the tank with that thing once it got a few inches long. It would try to eat anything that moved. It made no difference if it was clearly too big to eat. If he could get his mouth around it, he would eat it, or kill it trying. And after it digested stuff - as much as it could - ir would regurgetate on the plants. Really looked nasty, and took a lot of maintenance. So Mr. Piggie had to go to a pond. Another bummer.

But it was fun trying to create a biotope anyway. If you are inclined try something similar yourself, I’m going to doing a review of Robert J. Goldstein’s American Aquarium Fishes, an invaluable reference on native American freshwater fish. And I’ve included a link to Jonah’s Aquarium, a great place to buy them.