# Need advice on setting up Florida swamp biotope



## inspiritid

I was peering into the sad ghost shrimp tank at my LFS, when I saw several little fish walking around goby-like on the bottom! The store owner said they come in occasionally with catches of ghost shrimp from Florida, and that they're some kind of Florida darter. I'm guessing they're probably swamp darters: 

"Etheostoma f. fusiforme inhabits slow moving or stagnant waters of ponds, swamps, and sluggish streams, over bottom of mud and detritus; in warm waters reaching summer temperatures of 30-32°C or more, at depths of 76-102 mm; sometimes found over sand; often found in vegetation."

There's also a single small fish that might be a bluefin killifish. Anyway, I want to rescue them all (& several ghost shrimp). I want to set up a sand bottomed tank for them, with grassy-looking plants. Two questions: 

- Anyone see any problem with using silty sand and fine pebbles from the stream behind my house...? (I live in IL.) And should I rinse the silt out of the sand first, or just use as is? I've never done a sand substrate before, so don't know what to expect...

- Any suggestions as to what kinds of plants might thrive in that substrate? I envision a nice stand of something like vallisneria...? 

I'll probably be using a 10 gallon with two 10W CFs (translating to 100 watts, supposedly). I'll use a small filter with low flow, and maybe DIY CO2. 

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!!


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## chris oe

What a cool idea. Swamps have a pretty active mud layer (I'm thinking) there was that beaslbob method the guy was talking about a day or two ago, with the 1" peatmoss, 1" playsand, then 1" gravel, now you wouldn't want to do the gravel, but you might want to do the peat, to create the organic richness of swamp mud/sand, and you might want to search under beaslbob and see what these folks were talking about, because they might have some ideas for you. 

Worries about the sand and mud from the stream? this time of year there's probably all kinds of stuff hibernating in it, dormant eggs, things like that. You would probably get some stuff hatching out, snails at the very least, and who knows, maybe interesting things. I don't know if that's good or bad, depends on your plans.


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## automatic-hydromatic

it might not smell too well after some time...

step in a Florida swamp, and you'll know what I'm talking about *#3


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## jrman83

Doing it with sand will kill the smell, but that also kills the Florida swamp idea. Lived there for 19yrs and all the swamps were muddy and black.


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## automatic-hydromatic

jrman83 said:


> Doing it with sand will kill the smell, but that also kills the Florida swamp idea. Lived there for 19yrs and all the swamps were muddy and black.


true

it's like a silky-black mud... it's nasty stuff... it also gets disturbs and kicks up really easily, so you'd have to have some pretty calm fish or the tank is going to be constantly cloudy


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## inspiritid

These swamp darters jump around on the bottom like gobies, and I'd like to be able to *see* my plants and fish, so........ let me change my concept to "Florida *pond* biotope"...! ;D 

In my searchings, I stumbled onto this info from the Suncoast Killifish Society (SUNCOAST KILLIFISH SOCIETY . . . St. Petersurg/Tampa,Florida) about sites in Florida where they collected swamp darters: 
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Site 1. Richloam Borrow Pond:
A large pond area with shallow outflows, one to three feet at the edges with high grass, few bushes and trees. No significant floating vegetation. Easy to collect with dip net or seine. Water temperature 72 degrees, pH 8.3, conductivity 520 microsiemens.
Fish Collected: Etheostoma fusifurme (Swamp Darter), Fundulus chrysotus, Gambusia affinis, Heterandria formosa, Jordanella floridae, Lepomis gulosus (Warmouth). Lepomis sp., Lucania goodei, and Poecilia latipinna.
Plants Collected: Bacopa caroliniania, Bacopa monnieri, Ludwigia arcuata, Ludwigia repens, Micranthemum glomeraturn, and Najas guadalupensis.

Site 2: Gator Creek: 
Deep and wide with many shallow tributaries, some of which were dry. The surface was totally covered with primarily Water Lettuce, making collecting difficult. Water temperature 71 degrees, pH 7.6, conductivity 480 microsiemens.
Fish Collected: Aphredoderus sayanus (Pirate Perch), Etheostoma fiusifurme (Swamp Darter), Elassoma evergladei, Fundulus chrysotus, Gambusia affinis, Lepomis sp., and Poecilia latipinna.
Plants Collected: Fontinalis Spp., Ludwigia repens, Pistia stratiotes, Riccia fluitans, and Salvinia minima.

Site 3: Withlacoochee River:
Wide and deep, 1 to 2 feet at edges, some heavy bushes and trees at water line. Totally covered with Water Lettuce except for isolated open water areas were there was some flow. Difficult to collect. Water temperature 71 degrees, pH 7.6, conductivity 500 microsiemens.
Fish Collected: Elassoma evergladei, Etheostoma fusifurme (Swamp Darter), Fundulus chrysotus, Gambusia affinis, Heterandria formosa, Lepomis gulosus (Warmouth)., Labidesthes sicculus (Brook Silversides), and Poecilia latipinna.
Plants Collected: Fontinalis Spp., Hygraphila, Ludwigia repens, Pistia stratiotes and Riccia fluitans.
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Sounds like I have a lot of leeway in setting up a biotope for these little guys!  So... I'm aiming for the "site 1" look.  (Btw, some other sites said swamp darters can also be found in areas with sand substrates.) And yay, I already have the Naja, Riccia & water lettuce I can start with!  I found vallisneria americana listed as a Florida aquatic plant in the swamp darters' range on other sites.... so I'd like to get some of that too. That's really the look I'd like..... grassy/sandy. 

I guess I’m not really going for a strict biotope replication… just nice digs for these poor little homeless hitchhikers from Florida.


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## inspiritid

P.S. I read all the threads on the "Beaslbob Build". (As someone else so nicely summarized it: “So the short version of a beaslbob build is: Tank with suitable lighting. 1" peat moss, 1" play sand, 1" pro choice select (or aquarium gravel). Mix of fast and slow growing plants. No filter, no water changes. No cycling time needed. The idea is that the plants do all the filtering and keep the tank stable.”)

There are sections of the stream bed that are more silt and/or clay than sand. I’m now considering a thin bottom layer of that in lieu of peat moss. (Peat moss scares me. Long story.  Then a layer of unrinsed sand/silt. Then capping it with rinsed sand and a sprinkling of the fine pebbles for textural interest. (I’m OK w/ snails & bugs & such from the mud, btw. Sounds fun. ) I’m thinking of using a Palm filter (which is so tiny it’s darn close to no filter at all . But no water changes??! The very thought gives me the :-o! ;D Tempting and interesting notion though… I subscribed to the beaslbob threads, and look forward to people posting their results with it.


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## chris oe

Yeah, without the full recipe (the peat) you probably should do lots of water tests and some filtration (the peat supplies a bunch of nutrients and stuff you won't get from a non-plant source) but it sounds like a hoot. Keep us posted on your progress, and pictures! lots of pictures!


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## Zook

I used a clay like deposit from a local lake in one of the tanks,the plants grew well and I had a great hatch of midge and caddis flies( about 20 generations)until they finally disappeared. Also planeria.The fish were all fine.


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## inspiritid

Let me tell you why peat scares me...

When I lived in PA, I had several tanks set up with a dirt-under-fluorite substrate, with which I had fantastic success. Wonderful plant growth, happy fish, minimal water changes, small filter, very stable and successful tanks. 

When I moved to IL, I set up a dirt-under-fluorite tank here. It did well for a couple months, but then the pH starting sinking and sinking. It probably wasn't too acidic for the fish I had in the tank, but here's the problem....

My tap water has a pH of 8.8+...! And a kH of only 2 -- which is why my pH sinks when under the influence of natural biological processes, especially a decaying organic substrate. (gH of my tap water is 9, btw.)

Now try doing a partial water change on a pH 6.0 kH 2 tank with pH 9.0 water and see what happens! The pH LEAPS up. So I'm struggling with my current tanks to figure out how to maintain a stable pH. I've made some progress (I draw the water and let it sit for a week and the pH goes down to 7.8, and I only do 25% water changes now) but I'm still watching everything closely and hoping I can improve it further. (I've done experiments in buckets with buffers, but have had unexpected and sometimes frightening results, so won't use them in my tanks.)

Peat is organic matter... which I'm afraid will have the same affect on my pH that a dirt bottom did. (I'd like to know what the pH & kH of beaslbob's tap water was, but I know he just moved...) I've read a hundred times that a *dusting* of peat on the bottom of your tank before putting in your substrate will lower the pH. Is that true? An inch of peat sounds..... frightening. 

(Wish I had the oomph to do a side-by-side test using 2 10 gallons set up identically except for the peat underlayer...... but I don't. ;p)


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## Zook

You could use soda ash(Na2co3) to condition the tap water.
edit;Duh, that would maintain the PH,but you need the tank to stay at a high PH.uhmmm
you could use the "black sand substrate" looks somewhat like a muddy bottom.


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## inspiritid

"Black sand substrate"...? You mean Seachem's Onyx Sand...? If so, I was reading about that just the other day and wondering about it.... Seachem's site says: "Being carbonate rich, Onyx Sand™ provides an advantage to any plants able to utilize bicarbonates. (... It) will not alter the pH of the water." But I read a post where someone said it raised the pH of their water by a full point. (Maybe I should post this separate and see if anyone has any experience with it...?) (Dammit I wish I could set up a dozen otherwise-identical tanks with different substrates and test them! ;D)


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## chris oe

I wonder if anybody's written an article like that, comparing the substrates, either for a magazine, or for one of the aquarium websites. Might be worth doing a search.


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## inspiritid

I've read everything I can readily find online, and have decided *not* to use Onyx Sand for anything at this time. (I don't need more variables on top of the variables I already have and haven't yet figured out. ;D) (But I will keep it in mind for future testing.... ya know, when I build that fish room.


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## inspiritid

I stopped at my LFS last night to visit my swamp darters, and there was another hitchhiker in the tank that I forgot to mention! It's a water stick-insect or water scorpion of some sort. Here's a pic that looks rather like it (this is a Ranatra *****):








They said I can have it for my "Florida hitchhikers tank" if I want it! It's been living for weeks with the darters and killi and hasn't hurt them. But I keep reading that depending on the type it is, it may have a nasty painful bite, and also may be able to come out of the water and fly! :-o Not sure I want to deal with those kinds of concerns.... but it is seriously cool looking, and if I don't take it he's going to feed it to his oscars. :/


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## chris oe

This looks like what we used to call a water skimmer. I am not sure what they would eat, but I played in plenty of streams with them and I was never stung by one. You'd want to check out the FL version, though.


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## inspiritid

Hmm... back in PA what we called water skimmers (or water striders) looked similar but were small, and stood on the surface of the water:








This thing is aquatic, and big! Like 3" long or more. If I've IDed him anywhere near right they eat any small water critters & maybe even small fish.


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## inspiritid

Btw, here's a pic of a ranatra linearis (which is heavier bodied), to show you how they hold their legs when they're swimming:


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## Flying Z

I was at my local Northern Tools picking up some Black Diamond blasting material to use for a substrate in my new tank (awesome stuff!!) and was looking at there glass bead blasting material. It looks a lot like beach sand and is of course totally inert. My have a loot at something like that. Comes in different sizes.


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## inspiritid

Wow, that stuff is cheap! 
Black Diamond Blasting Abrasive | Blasting Media | Northern Tool + Equipment
What's it made out of...? Have you used it before...?
Sadly, there's no Northern Tools around here. 
Are you going to post your tank build with that substrate? 
(If so, ping me so I don't miss it!)


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## Zook

My only concern with the sandblasting sand is that it is sharp,probably wouldn't be good for bottom dwellers that root in the mud...


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## Flying Z

Yes its sharp, but I have read mixed reviews online about it and thought i would give it a try. The only fish i have that eat off the bottom are some sucker cats, don't remember there exact name. We'll see how they do. I'll post pics when I get some time. ETA: found some time, here is what I made, I think it is called a vivarium. It's a ten gallon tank, filled half way up. Live plants (for now :} ), going to put a couple of platties in it. The green thing will be replaced by a nice fountain when I find what i am looking for.


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## inspiritid

Interesting looking tank! I've always wanted to try a vivarium.....
And wow, that black material looks just like Fluorite Black -- but for a zillionth the price! ;D


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## chris oe

except that flourite black has stuff in it for plant growth, and this stuff is dead neutral, which is fine, but there's a reason the flourite is so expensive.


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## inspiritid

Agreed. I *finally* found Fluorite Black several months ago (after *much* hunting), and it's now my favorite substrate. I just spent $50 last week on another two bags.


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## inspiritid

I set up my prototype tank and rescued the darters! 
And now I'm finally getting around to posting pics of it!
I started a new thread for it here:
http://www.aquariumforum.com/f45/florida-hitchhikers-tank-fl-pond-biotope-9367.html#post63667
Check it out!


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