Native self sustaining aquarium

[Huntress12]

Hi I'm working on a new fun project of making a self sustaining aquarium using only native fish and invertebrates or creatures that have similar to creatures that are native.
It is in a 27 aquarium for now but it is going to be moved to 40 aquarium sooner or later
Hi I'm working on a new fun project of making a self sustaining aquarium using only native fish and invertebrates or creatures that have similar to creatures that are native.
It is in a 27 aquarium for now but it is going to be moved to 40 aquarium sooner or later

Plants:duck weed, moss balls and hornwort(going to get them soon).

primary consumer: pond snails(already have some),feeder guppies aka this ecosystem's mosquitofish(don't have them yet),ghost shrimp(don't have yet),rosy red minnows(don't have yet) and scuds (don't have yet).

tertiary consumer:bluegill,warmouth(don't have yet),crayfish(dont have yet),jewel cichlid aka the Mayan cichlid of this ecosystem(dont have them yet), convict cichlid(dont have yet),pictus catfish aka madtom or bullhead catfish of this ecosystem (don't have yet).

What would the clean up crew aka pond snails, scuds and ghost shrimps be able to act as a clean up crew?

 

[Kelly_Aquatics]

Im not sure I understand. Bluegill, convict cichlids, and Mayan cichlids do not have the same range naturally. And picture catfish act nothing like a madtom (I have kept a pictus cat and catch madtoms in the wild). To me this just seems like a miss matched recipe for disaster. You have fish from South America, North America, Africa, and Central America. The cichlids and sunfish will fight and out grow the 40. They will also definitely eat the scuds and shrimp.

 

[tlindsey]

Welcome aboard

I agree with Kelly_Aquatics .

 

[Huntress12]

Yeah my bad about adding convict cichlid and Mayan cichlids to the list, I asked people on an different website and those were the two fish people told me where the most common caught in Florida with blue gill even though I already have the blue gill.

Also no,I was going to put a Mayan cichlid in there,I was going to use jewel cichlid as replacement.

What I meant by pictus catfish would be the madtom was because both are small carnivorous catfish.

 

[Kelly_Aquatics]

Yeah my bad about adding convict cichlid and Mayan cichlids to the list, I asked people on an different website and those were the two fish people told me where the most common caught in Florida with blue gill even though I already have the blue gill.

Also no,I was going to put a Mayan cichlid in there,I was going to use jewel cichlid as replacement.

What I meant by pictus catfish would be the madtom was because both are small carnivorous catfish.

Jewel cichlids are just as mean as mayans. It’s fine if you want to do this but you need a much bigger tank and even then I still wouldn’t recommend keeping these fish together. The guppies will get eaten as well most likely. Why not just use the actual native fish instead of substitutes? Right now it’s about as far from a native tank as you can get.

 

[Huntress12]

A good amount of native fish are hard to get because not alot people sells them and those that do charge a arm and leg for them even though I honestly would prefer them more.

 

[Kelly_Aquatics]

I believe I have seen the native fish you’ve mentioned on jonahs aquarium shop at least the madtoms and mosquito fish

 

[Huntress12]

Ay, thank you
They do have madtom and mosquitofish

 

[jjohnwm]

If you already have a bluegill, then you are already done accumulating fish. Even a single bluegill will quickly outgrow a 27-gallon tank.

What do you mean by "self-sustaining"? Are you hoping that this tank will not require feeding, and that there will be sufficient grown and re-population of smaller life to continue providing food for the larger? Your use of the terms primary and tertiary consumers seems to imply that. Unfortunately, neither a 27 nor a 40-gallon tank can even come close to allowing for that type of ecosystem to develop and continue. A tank would need to be at least several hundred gallons to do this, and even then the top of the food chain would need to be very small fish and not many of them. A bluegill in a scenario like this is impossible.

You can make an attractive aquarium in a 27 or 40...although a bluegill is really too large for either...but you must plan on doing the feeding, cleaning and maintenance yourself, rather than expecting Mother Nature to provide much assistance.

 

[duanes]

I agree with the others, in such a tiny tank, the only sunfish I could see working, would be the pygmy type such as those of the genus Elessoma with species such as zonata, gilberti, evergladei, or okefenokii.
And with these you'd need an ever constant supply of breeding shrimp, mosquito larvae, mosquito fish fry or gammurs to sustain them.
I used to do this by starting cultures in ponds in my back yard to keep up.
As an example.
I have what I think of, as a Panamanian biotope tank.
To start it, I collected plants and about 2 dozen mosquito fish from Lake Gatun..
Acouple months later a friend collected a dozen local endemic cichlids from a river with some shrimp
In the 180 gal tank, within a week, the cichlids had eaten all the mosquito fish, and most of the shrimp.
The only shrimp I could keep alive, were those that were put and located in the sump, any in the cichlid tank were quickly goners.

I would guess that in one of the size tanks you suggest, a blue gill would eat all the guppies and invertebrates within an hour, or less, as would a jewel, or Mayan.