Natural Equilibrium

[evilchild]

Do you think it would be cruel or wrong to set up a Natural equilibrium within a tank? I.E having a natural food chain. Obviously this would take a bit of working out getting the stocking right, and timing is quite important too I would think.

Has any one done this, or how would you do it?

 

[kewskills]

i have not done this, and it would be interesting how this would be done in a home aquarium where room is restricted.
i would imagine that a much vaster expanse of water would be needed.

ethically, i would not have a problem with a setup like that if it is possible, thats just nature doing its thing.

 

[TribeOfShroom]

I would think you would need a very big tank for that sort of idea to be sucessful.. although it can be done. But to do it you would need to have every aspect of the foodchain from that particular biotope. From the small water fleas and shrimp, up to the big predators. Also you'll need to get the numbers right. In the wild prey and predator numbers fall within in the pyramid with hundreds/thousands of prey going up to very few top predators.

Not only will livestock be an issue, but also plants, substrate even down to wildlife living within the substrate (worm etcs.) It would be a very impressive project to take on.

I can't offer any great advice (as I've never attempted this), but choose your biotope. Then research, research and research on every living thing that is present in the natural enviroment and methods of keeping these animals, insects, plants etc in harmony.

Good Luck

 

[kewskills]

This has been done, as you can buy Ecosphere's online.

Ecosphere link

Obviously not on the scale you are thinking of

 

[PRW1988]

Sounds asthough it'd be interesting, I find nothing wrong with it as said, it's a natural thing

 

[shroob]

It would depend on what the top predator was, I would think it would have to be something small, nothing big, as there wouldn't be enough food to support it.

I would do it, depending on how big the tank was. If it was only small, say 30 gallons I don't think I would bother, but 300 gallons and I might give it a try.

With the 'ecosphere' the top consumers are shrimp, if you wanted a fish to be top of the food chain, it would have to be a much much bigger project I would have thought.

 

[evilchild]

i do agree the tank size will have to be a monster. i think the key would be make it as natural as poss, and to have fish from the same kind of area. to do something like this will have to start from the bottom up starting with the substraight filled will blood worm, water flea's and so on..

it would be good project and i think it would be quite an achivement once finished.

this will be a project when i have my millions

 

[eschaton]

It's easy to develop a tank that doesn't need feeding - it's just a big planted tank with shrimp, snails, otos, and not much else. You can also, if you do your stocking right, have a tank where everything within is self-reproducing. Combining the two is harder. Probably the cheapest thing to do would be to do the following.

1. Get a very large tank (200 gallons?).
2. Buy the most powerful lights feasible
3. Introduce plants to the tank. Make sure that you don't clean the plants as they are introduced, in order to allow the widest selection of pests to come into the tank.
4. If you don't have them already, introduce snails to the tank, including ramshorns, malaysian trumpets, and possibly one of the more plant-friendly apple snail species.
5. Introduce a hardy freshwater shrimp species that will reproduce in captivity. I would suggest cherry shrimp.
6. Time to introduce a fish! It's up to you what makes the most sense. Personally I'd try endlers, as they are small, drop fry all the time, can graze on algae, and don't eat their own young.
7. If the enders take off, you could try an apex predator. I'd suggest an Apstogramma pair. You almost certainly will have to remove the young however.