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State:
North Carolina
Country:
United States
Description:
I breed fish. Right now I breed a solid white strain of guppies, gulf coast pygmy sunfish (elassoma gilberti), and mandarin dragonettes. I've got four fish tanks: two marine 75 gallons, a freshwater 55, and a freshwater 10 gallon.
I use pure clay kitty litter as the substrate because it's $4 for 25 pounds and it's as nutritious as Fluorite(R).
I use Walmart $10 four foot long T8 shop lights with Home Depot Daylight Deluxe full spectrum T8 bulbs, also $10. On my marine tanks I use those full spectrum bulbs for macroalgae growth and also use an Odyssea four bulb T5 high output fluorescent light fixture with two 10,000 K bulbs for aesthetics and two actinic bulbs for blue light for aesthetics and as food for the macroalgae and green star polyps.
I feed my fish flakes (guppies), live grindal worms (adult pygmy sunfish and adult mandarin dragonettes) and microworms (baby pygmy sunfish and mandarin dragonettes). I also have tisbe harpacticoid copepods.
For filtration I technically have filters in some tanks to push water around (other tanks are just pushed around by powerheads), but in all tanks the vascular plants and macroalgae handle the majority of the filtration.
I once gave one of my filter sponges to my friend with an uncycled tank and it had like zero bacteria on it to help them out. My tanks are plant filtered. I don't do a water change for half a year and nitrate doesn't build up to 20 ppm. More info about that in Ecology of the Planted Aquarium by Diana Walstad. It's a nice way to set up a tank.
Advice:
If you need advice, ask me. I'm friendly. :)
Fish Kept:
Currently breeding Elassoma gilberti (gulf coast pygmy sunfish), a solid white strain of guppies, and working on breeding mandarin dragonettes.
Corals/Plants:
Freshwater: myriophyllum pinnatum, lysimachia nummularia, myriophyllum tuberculatum red, rotala wallichii, ludwigia repens, hygrophila difformis, hemianthus callitrichoides, utricularia gibba, cladophora, lemna gibba.
Marine:
Caulerpa prolifera, red gracilaria, a bottom holdfasted species of sargassum. Green star polyps.
Tank Size:
75 gallons
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