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Anonymous
Alright /an/, I'm not a regular here but you are the board to turn to.

I have recently purchased for fun, one of those "Aquasaur" trilobite tanks for me and a friend. Good fun and all, I love the things, but as we discussed the creatures an idea popped up.

Why not buy a bunch of these kits and whatnot to start a mini-ecosystem?

We're not going for what makes sense, just what sounds awsome and sticking it in. So far the idea involves a large tank, "aquasaurs", frogs, crickets, maybe grass, maybe strawberrys, and goldfish.

However as I put in more thoguht into this I wonder about the problsm that will come up. We figure a filter will take care of trying to clean the tank, but and addition of dirt from the plants may or may not be an issue. We can try making it all under-water, but that's only 1/2 as fun.


So my questions are...
A. Will having land be an issue to the cleaner?
B. What other animals/insects should we add, if any?
C. Will the animals reproduce?
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>> Anonymous
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Well, I'll tell you a couple of things right off the bat:

Don't get goldfish. If you want to use a cheap feeder fish, get guppies or rosy red minnows. Guppies are livebearers and will reproduce very, very easily in the home aquarium. Rosy reds, not so much. Goldfish will get very large and be very messy.

Trying to mix something like the triops you have pictured and fish is going to be a pretty iffy situation. Anything a fish can fit in its mouth will usually.. end up in its mouth. The same is obviously going to apply to frogs.

Basically, it sounds like you're setting up an elaborate frog tank. If you wanted to have some cute invertebrates in there, you'd probably be better off buying cheap ghost shrimp from a fish store. That way you don't have to wait for them to grow, and if they get eaten, well, you're out thirty cents.

There are filters that you can set in tanks with low water levels, pic related. This is a Whisper In-Tank filter, perfect for a setup that you're thinking about.
>> Anonymous
>>226632
So, the frogs would rule everything then? Hmm, well we both expected that but hoped the Triops would also eat the younger frogs, and help keep the population down.

But nothing is set in stone yet. For example, we thought of using sand instead of dirt would help with a normal filter, and so we're shifting away from several land animals to mostly water with a small path of sand at the surface.

This way we could have things like crabs.

We can find some freshwater crabs that don't grow very long, but we still really want frogs in somehow. Would there be any way of adding them without everything dominating everything, or at least some sort of creature to counter them?

And thanks for the info on the shrimp and guppies. How fast do they both reproduce?

And any other ideas for animals we could add to this mish-mash habitat?
>> Anonymous
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>>a mini-ecosystem

>>We're not going for what makes sense, just what sounds awsome and sticking it in.
>> Anonymous
Triops live in astatic pools. Because of this, part of their lifecycle includes a period where the eggs must dry out, and some species even require freezing. Therefore, after the first generation reproduces no more will be born unless you let the tank completely dry and maybe not even then.

tl;dr your idea won't work because of biology
>> Anonymous
>>226701
Damn. Well I'll just have to buy more then.

>>226700
Well, a balance between "awesome" and "will live for more than 2 days" is something I would like to match, if possible.

Frogs are staying though.
>> Anonymous
you'll kill them all.

stop smoking pot.
>> Anonymous
You could keep green tree frogs and grow wild strawberries in a bog habitat if the tank is large enough, and crickets will probably lay eggs and hatch in the soil if it's properly humid. Adding goldfish to any kind of artificial ecosystem is just retarded but if you can find a smaller species of minnow native to semi-acidic waters that might work.

Of course, it's all just going to crash and everything will die because you don't know what you're doing.
>> AnonymousPrime !/RDa1B/y1o
Goldfish grow to large to be kept with anything like that, when I mean large I mean compared to those things, they'll likely eat them if the frogs don't first.

Honestly, I don't even know how you could properly create a mini-ecosystem. I've always used much bigger capacity filters for my tanks to counter any mess-ups.

If you do decide to go ahead with this I suggest doing a fuck load of research first. Right now I think you should rule out anything bigger than those trilobites.
>> Anonymous
Op here, Golfish have been ruled out. They were just an idea anyways.

So far the idea is these guys, guppys (any kind), ghost shrimp.

But I need a frog that's not too big to eat everything, or a frog that will eat everything but only put 1 in.

Also, checking to see what crabs I can add, if any.
>> Anonymous
>>226717
>Of course, it's all just going to crash and everything will die because you don't know what you're doing.

agreed.

to answer your questions:
A. having land will be an issue to the filter depending on the soil you use. the frogs will transfer the soil to the water constantly when they move back and forth. you also have to consider how to effectively separate the land part of your tank from the water (glass division, separate container) otherwise, it'll turn into a muddy mess. considering that you want frogs AND other organisms in this tank, waste management is another and more important issue you'd have to worry about.

B. none. i think your idea of mishmashing all these animals into a mini ecosystem and expecting it to work by itself is highly flawed.

C. they will reproduce if they're alive long enough to. but the frogs might just eat them before they get a chance to.

D. im guessing you'll spend about $200-300 on buying all the stuff you want in this. but you'll probably spend more money after that in trying to keep everything alive.

really, horrible idea.
>> Anonymous
A few more thoughts for OP:

If you are really trying to make an actual "ecosystem" then you need to make sure you've got all the roles properly filled. In other words, don't pick your list of inhabitants first and then say "will this work". That's working from the wrong direction. Instead you need to pick animals that will fill the proper roles--creating food, a mini food-chain, and of course disposing of waste. This is harder than it sounds. Also, if you want a frog in there (or another predatory animal of similar size), then you are going to need a HUGE terrarium to provide enough plant growth to feed the insects that the frog will eat, not to mention that it needs to be sufficiently large that the insects can hide from the frog such that he doesn't eat all of them right off the bat thus preventing a sustainable population from developing. Frogs are voracious eaters.

On the other hand, if you wanted to make a multi-species terrarium in which YOU are taking care of the majority of the feeding and waste removal, that is much more easily done. You could fairly easily set up a wet-dry terarrium with some frogs, shrimp, fish, and plants. You would have to attend to it like any other aquarium/terrarium--feed your animals, change the water periodically, and clean out waste. You can minimize the hands-on care required by setting it up properly and by utilizing a good filter.