2.6 Gallon, Reversed All-in-One, Live-in Culture for Indostomus paradoxus

[memorywrangler]

While my Indostomus paradoxus are in quarantine, I have cooked up a crazy scheme to house them and provide them with a constant supply of live food (as they require) at the same time. 

The Plan

I'm going to use a 2.6 Gallon Fluval Spec AIO and try to culture scuds and/or daphnia and/or moina in the tank at the same time.

The tanks is well established with a healthy (indeed, probably indestructable) scud infestation... I mean "colony", and I have been having pretty good luck culturing daphnia and moina in small tanks and tanks intended for other purposes.  So, it seems feasible to culture their food in the I. paradoxus' tank.

The Tank

Here's the initial inhabitants:

1. Some anubias
2. Some Neocaradinia shrimp
3. One big amano strimp (The shrimp were tanks previous residents).
4. Some Salvivia minima.
5. 3 I. paradoxus (I ordered 5, one died in transit and lost another 😞).

It needs

1. Some more hides
2. I'll going to swap the salvinia for some frog bit for the roots and the structure they will provide.

Reverse-Flow All-in-One

The maybe-clever, maybe dumb part of the plan is that I'm running the AOI filter in the back of the tank in reverse with a air-driven lift tube I built.  Usually, the pump/lift tube pull water out of the "sump" and into the tank, so that water is drawn in from the surface into the sump the weir at upper-left in the photo.  This results in a strong sucking flow out of the main tank near the surface and a lot of flow from the outlet of the pump/lift tube.

That flow would be no good for the moina/daphnia: 1) they'd all end up stuck in the filter sponge and/or chewed up by the pump (although the air lift wouldn't have this problem) 2) the surface skimming will pull out the powdered food I intend to feed them.

So, instead the lift tube is pumping water into the sump and the inlet is buried in the gravel.  This should keep the moina/daphnia out of the sump, and the flow out of the weir at the water's surface is extremely gentle.

The Future

2.6 Gallons is on the tiny side, but I. paradoxus are quite small (mine are about 1 in).  I have an empty 5-gallon Fluval Spec AOI with about twice the usable "floor space".  If things go well, I'll move it all over there and get a couple more fish.

[Guppysnail]

This sounds like a genius idea 🤞🏻

Definetly keep us posted please.  Good luck!

[Woowala]

I think this is a good idea too, similar to a hang on back refugium on a reef tank.  If you can get some moss or subwassertang going in the filter part, you'd have a nice safe zone for live food that would supply the fish with added food throughout the day. 

[memorywrangler]

Things are going pretty well, although, of course, not according to my plans.

• I made the bamboo hides from some bamboo garden stakes that I cut and pressure cooked. 
• The fish settled in quickly and seem pretty happy.
• They don't seem to be eating any of many live foods I provided and am trying to culture for them.  I think the baby daphnia and baby scuds might be too big.  The ostercods seem small enough.
• They hunt a lot and seem comfortable in all parts of the tank.
• I watch them hunt and can see them strike, but I can't see what they are eating.  Maybe paramecium?
• I did have one take a grindal worm.  An adult worm was just barely small enough for them to handle.

I'm curious to see if they eventually learn to eat ostercods and some of the other foods.

Otherwise, they are great!  Very cool fish!  The dark substrate was a good choice.  They have interesting coloring.  The are fun to watch and surprisingly agile.

This tank size is really good for observing them, and I think if I had any more in there, it'd be a little crowded.  I seem some territorial behavior or maybe it's very mild aggression when they run into one another.

I'm not sure about the reverse flow AIO idea.  The outflow is amazingly gentle.  I can barely tell it's there.  There's no surface agitation, though which is a problem, since the mix of powdered food I'm trying to feed the daphnia just sits on the surface and forms a kind of scum.  It also might mean that oxygen levels are low.

As an experiment, I returned the AOI to it's conventional flow direction.  Even at the gentlest flow I could manage the daphnia would still get sucked into the filter, so I added a an unattractive block of coarse sponge in front of the weir.  We'll see how the scum situation change changes.  If it weren't an AIO tank, I'd just use a course sponge filter which work fine with daphnia.

One Weird Thing

The strangest thing that's happened in this process is that right after I added the daphnia, all the scuds vanished.  They were gone for about 5 days and they now they are back, all different sizes including adults.  I'm really curious where they went and why.

[Odd Duck]

I have a little 3 G tank with built in filter.  It didn’t have enough surface flow even though it surface skims from one end of the back and returns from the other.  I drilled out a stricture point in the return pump line annd switched to a slightly higher volume pump and that helped but I would still get a tiny surface haze sometimes.  I dropped an airline in from the smallest air pump I could find that had decent ratings and put a Ziss adjustable airstone on it that is mostly hidden behind the Java fern.  It keeps the surface clear and I know the water turnover and therefore oxygen level is much better in the tank.  The air pump is very quiet and the only problem I’ve had with it is the stupid airline keeps coming loose from the pump.

https://www.amazon.com/NICREW-Silent-Aquarium-Aerator-Accessories/dp/B09JKHPT2S?pd_rd_w=qtDeP&content-id=amzn1.sym.528bfdfa-ea96-478b-a7d9-043e650836af&pf_rd_p=528bfdfa-ea96-478b-a7d9-043e650836af&pf_rd_r=83HMAXS1FECDQHYDXTY9&pd_rd_wg=edYZ3&pd_rd_r=6a3282e7-699d-42e1-a0c4-b6b2e607601d&pd_rd_i=B09JKHPT2S&psc=1&ref_=pd_basp_d_rpt_ba_s_1_t

 

[HelplessNewbie]

I use small zip ties or coated wire to keep the hose on. Some folks also scrape/sand the nipple, so that the hose has more to grip.

Have you also considered there may be back pressure causing the hose to come off? I typically use a pressure relief valve (can be as simple as a T fitting with an open ended control valve) for that reason.

Here is a photo (I forgot to secure one of the connections, so, will remedy soon).

Edited September 21 by HelplessNewbie

[Odd Duck]

@HelplessNewbie I’ve used zip ties before on other problematic lines, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.  I recently finally got around to replacing one smooth barb T connector with a barbed one because that one single connection kept coming loose on my rack air system that has about 10 other similar T connectors.  None of the others have come loose and I had barbed connectors on hand so I don’t know why that one kept coming loose but it won’t anymore.

I probably just need to replace that small section of airline with some better, fresh line and haven’t gotten around to it.  The tank is in the bathroom we use the most so I notice right away if it’s off and fix it.  It’s reverse laziness - fix it in 3 seconds 20 times instead of 30 seconds once.  😝 🤷🏻‍♀️ It likely does have a little back pressure since even this tiny air pump produces more than the tank needs but it’s not so much back pressure that I worry about early wear on this cheap little pump.  The tank doesn’t truly need the air, I just feel better if it has it, hence the lack of urgency in replacing the 4” of line.  I could have fixed it already in the time it took me to type all this out, yet here I am, still in my comfy chair.  😆 🤣 

[Odd Duck]

On 9/21/2024 at 6:11 PM, Odd Duck said:

I could have fixed it already in the time it took me to type all this out, yet here I am, still in my comfy chair.

@HelplessNewbie Finally fixed it with a new section of line.  We’ll see how long it stays or if I need a zip tie.  😆 

[memorywrangler]

The minor updates:

• The tank is going pretty well.  I think have two females (who are very plump) and one male (who is not).  No sign of spawning yet.  
• The scuds are out of control.  They are munching on my anubias and my frogbit roots and generally not being a useful food source.
• I also have a sporadic varicella infestation.  I saw it all over the walls, and I was about to treat it but then it all vanished overnight.  Very strange.
• I also have an infestation of freshwater limpets.  I have no idea where they came from.  I don't have them in any of my other tanks.  They are cute little things.

The lack of spawning is frustrating.  There's very little information online  except a few places that say it's super-easy. 

The bigger news

I'm setting up a 5 gallon tank for the Indostomus.  There are two reasons:

1. They are really cool and I want more of them.
2. I want the scuds out of the tank and there's no way to do that without tearing down the 2.6 gallon tank.

I just finished the initial scaping.  It's all driftwood, anubias nana petite, and bamboo hides.  I've had good luck with the anubias growing, so hopefully it won't so sparse for so long.  I'm aiming for some balance between cover for the fish and being able to see them.  may add the bigger anubias from the other tank.  I'll add some frogbit as well.

The plan for the new tank is to have the fish by themselves with things they actually eat -- no shrimp and no scuds, but I'm curious to see if I can get dero worms going. 

 

I'd also like another 2 or 3 Indostomus.