3 season porch tank with native fish…

[Magnum Man33 148]

I’ve hinted around this in a couple previous threads, but now that it’s actually coming together, any further updates will be here…

the tank is a glass 55 gallon tank, it’s going into a screened porch, up against the house below a window, being against the house in the screened roofed area, it’ll be protected from the precipitation… I plan on dwarf sunfish to start, the tank will incorporate 2 heaters, that will only run during the winter months… at which time the tank will be fitted with a foam insulation box around it, with a strip LED lit back ground like I do on most of my tanks, there will be suspended LED spotlights for viewing during the summer, with only the timed lit background, while the tank is surviving winter… a couple pictures before the water goes in… coincidentally the fish room is in the basement behind this tank, so filtration will be sponge filters fed by an in house air pump… the flowered table in front and below the tank, is where we often eat supper or breakfast, when the temps are favorable…

this is the back ground ( a new one to me ) for the native tank…

as mentioned dwarf sunfish are my goal, hoping these blue spots, (Enneacanthus gloriosus )
will still be in stock, in a few weeks… however my original plan was for black banded sunfish ( Enneacanthus chaetodon ) so early stocking will depend on availability…

 

[Innesfan31 15]

Good luck with this. I've mentioned before that E. chaetodon is one of my holy grail species so if you wind up with some I'll be especially eager to hear about your experience.

 

[Magnum Man33 148]

found another possible tank mate…bantam sunfish (Lepomis symmetricus

Google Search

 

[Magnum Man33 148]

substrate just showed up…

next thought is plants… thinking about using resin stump pots, like I have in several tanks, in case I want or need to remove them during hibernation … initially thinking java fern for how tough it is… if I leave the glass top off the tank during 3 seasons, I could do terrestrial or emergent plants out of the tank, but would then I’d have to remove them for the winter… but if I only do aquatic plants, in pots, if they won’t over winter with the only light coming from the lit background, I could move them for the winter to an inside aquarium…

 

[TwoTankAmin27]

I am wondering what will happen if, in the dead of winter, there is a power outage? From what I understand the lows can be in the low teens in Southern MN then. I am not sure any thickness of foam for the box will prevent the water from freezing to the point of expanding and breaking the glass.

When I was doing my summer tanks in a similar terrace. I needed 10-20 wpg to fight off nightime temps in the low 50sF. And for that I needed to cover the tanks in thick towels overnight. We also have a whole house back-up generator so the longest we are ever without power is 20 seconds. This is how long the municipal power must be off before the automatic system starts the generator. In the winter we also clear snow of the generator as needed.

Also, my experience is that all it takes for either rain or snow to get through our screens is wind. However, rain is not the problem in the dead of winter.

 

[Magnum Man33 148]

we now have a buried power line, since then, the outages have been short, and very infrequent, I also have a house sized contractor generator, while not automatic, I can easily power the whole house if the outage is long enough to warrant me going out to the shed ( by the power pole ) firing it up, and throwing the 3 way switch on the pole, and plugging the generator in…

 

[TwoTankAmin27]

And what happens if the outage occurs when you are not at home?

 

[Magnum Man33 148]

I have farm animals, so I’m pretty much resolved to staying home most of the time… same could happen, where a bottom seam starts leaking, while I’m in town… I’d likely lose those fish… if the tank cracks, I got a huge deal on it, so it wouldn’t be too much loss… it’s all earthly things I can’t take with me, but they do entertain me, while I’m here…

 

[Magnum Man33 148]

a large piece of sculpted drift wood is coming today, so as soon as I vacuum out the lady bugs, from tank storage, out of the tank, I’ll wash the substrate in a 5 gallon bucket, and position the heaters and sponge filters, and may get some water added to the tank this week, and get that driftwood soaking… I have a half day of fencing to do today, which involved manually pounding 40-50 T posts, and installing more than a dozen cattle panels, so I’ll see what I have time and energy for today…

 

[Magnum Man33 148]

I’m also thinking about an albino channel cat, as I found a place that sells them for aquaculture… it would be nice to have someone to clean up extra foods, while the sunfish are small m, and learning to eat in the aquarium… just not sure how long before one would outgrow the 55 gallon, and require being moved to one of the cattle tanks for the yard, that I’m considering… if it could last in the aquarium for a couple years, it might work out??? I’ve never raised a channel cat, not sure how fast they would grow on an aquarium diet, rather than as a good fish growing diet???

 

[Rusty_Shackleford32 148]

On your other thread you posted a link to Zimmerman's. They have brown bullhead which may be a better choice than a channel cat.

 

[Magnum Man33 148]

in those bullheads the color varies a lot… if I could insure I’d get a marbled one, I’d just go that route, but, l buying sight unseen ), I’d likely get a color, that blended in more than I’d like ( thoughts behind the albino channel cat )

open for other suggestions… I’m experimenting, with full sized crayfish in a tank in the house, perhaps a couple wild caught Minnesota crays to clean up??? but which would require the tank to be covered in the summer as well, kind of eliminating any plants growing out of the tank, during the summer…

 

[Rusty_Shackleford32 148]

in those bullheads the color varies a lot… if I could insure I’d get a marbled one, I’d just go that route, but, l buying sight unseen ), I’d likely get a color, that blended in more than I’d like ( thoughts behind the albino channel cat )

open for other suggestions… I’m experimenting, with full sized crayfish in a tank in the house, perhaps a couple wild caught Minnesota crays to clean up??? but which would require the tank to be covered in the summer as well, kind of eliminating any plants growing out of the tank, during the summer…

I was thinking primarily of the size of the two fishes. A channel cat would grow big enough to eat your sunfish before a bullhead would.

 

[Back in the fold]

I saw a travel show on PBS about Switzerland and they showed a two story farm house where the cattle were kept in the lower barn level and their warmth radiated upward to keep the people warm in their upper part of the house . Could you keep a cow in there to heat the aquarium ?

 

[Magnum Man33 148]

well we call that porch the “bullpen” because the farm dog kept getting into it, and dragging off the patio furniture cushions, when it was just a roofed patio. so before I screened it, I put cattle panels, around the outside walls, to support the treated boards, and screen, and keep the farm doggie out…