5 gallon vintage AQUARIUM

[Biotope Biologist]

This started it’s life as a terrarium which wasn’t supposed to have isopods, but one impulse led to another and now the isopods are enjoying their lush 11 gallon terrarium. 
 

Now I was left with this which I didn’t want to spend alot of money on, so I didn’t:

Substrate- 50 Organic potting soil 50 coarse sand

Filter- ACO nano sponge attached to a 1980’s challenger air pump. (Seriously quietest air pump I’ve ever owned)

 

Plants- Common starwort, unidentified hair algae, Amazon frogbit

Since the starwort and algae was locally sourced from a drainage field it came with some gammarus and detritus worms. I was able to remove almost all insect larvae. I did however get a small grublike larvae that appears to only eat decaying plant matter. We will see what it transforms into in a few months or if I can find it again I’ll post a pic. I will be going back to the drainage field when it’s warmed up and sunny because I’ve been there several times and seen MASSIVE outbreaks of daphnia. Although the freezing temps and sleet the last few days has likely driven them to hunker down.

Since I have locally sourced plants and the problem with not being able to remove all pests I don’t know if it would be worth risking thai micro crabs in here. I am leaning towards sunburst diving beetles or a greater diving beetle, which I can locally pickup from Portland

Here are a couple photos from my walk through the creek and fields! Gotta love spring. Above: Dead female(?) mayfly, likely just finished laying eggs Below: field of false lily-of-the-valley 

 

Edited April 12, 2022 by Biotope Biologist

[Guppysnail]

ORD 😍 that lily field is gorgeous! Looking forward to pics of the mystery larvae. Diving beetles of any sort would be so 😎 cool. 

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

Awesome! A great Tank of Unusual Size!

[A3M0N]

How is this project looking these days? 

[Biotope Biologist]

This one has also been put on hold. All I have going right now is the 50 gallon creek biotope and the isopods. I should probably take it out of my signature.

 

I think perhaps in the spring it’ll be brought outside and restart as a gammarus culture. But we will cross that bridge when we get there.