I've finally set up my Florida pond biotope test tank!

The first and primary residents are swamp darters who turned up at my LFS --
they were hitchhikers who came along with a shipment of ghost shrimp from Florida.

I wanted to do a test before setting up the real thing to find out:
- will a substrate of silty sand from a local stream work with darters?
- do the darters like an area of wood in their tank to hide under?
- do they like stones and wood to get up on? (they're a bottom dweller)

At the stream I collected a small container of sand, and one of tiny pebbles.
I rinsed the pebbles and half of the sand, to get the silt out.
On the bottom of the tank I laid a thin layer of each of the three substrates:
- rinsed sand on the left
- unrinsed sand in the middle
- pebbles on the right
Then I placed the test pieces of bogwood and rock.

Here's what it looked like looking down on it:


And here it is more from the side.


Then I laid a plate on the bottom of the tank and filled it with water.
I was amazed to find that the water didn't even get cloudy!


Next I added the Azoo Palm filter and a Stealth heater.


And then I added the Coralife T5HO light -- holy bright!


And now I find myself wondering... how do I seem to always pick wood that looks like animals?
These are sea monsters!

Scary! ;D

Will post pics of fish & plants later!

OK, here it is!



I was worried about the sand substrate... whether the silt in the unrinsed sand would make the water a cloudy mess... whether the sand would fly up and get in the filter... etc. But it seems like the sand will work just fine, even without rinsing it! When the darters dart, a few little bits of sand will swirl up, but it settles back down instantly. They seem comfortable on it, and I think it looks great.



The sand is only about a quarter inch deep, so I didn't plant the plants. I just tied weights lightly to the bottoms and dropped them in. I had wanted to get Vallisneria Americana (going for a more authentic biotope), but my LFS told me they don't carry it because it goes dormant sometimes, so to stick to the Italian val instead. Everything else I weeded out of my other overgrown tanks: najas (guppy grass), hornwort, water sprite, water lettuce, and the ubiquitous duck weed. ;)





When I put the darters in the tank, they seemed so scared. Even when they were behind the wood they didn't seem to feel safe. I felt like they wanted somewhere dark to hide, so I piled a bunch of oak leaves around the wood, and they disappeared under them and were quiet. They barely came out for the first couple days, but now they're coming out more often, and appear pretty quickly when I dump in brine shrimp or bloodworms! They're great eaters!





And here are the little stinkers who I went to all this bother for!
(Sorry for the not-great shots. I have a not-great camera, and not-mad skillz. ;p)



I have to keep reminding myself these guys are *fish*.... I keep thinking of them as lizards! ;D They move like lizards... walking around, turning their heads to look at things.... they're so adorable! They don't have a swim bladder, so they're on the bottom most of the time, and have to flap like a bird to get an inch or two up to snatch a tasty morsel.

If you look close you can see 3 here:



But this is what I usually see... shy little faces peeking out from under the wood.



(Here's a pic of one taken by a better man than me. ;p)


There are 3 tiny ghost shrimp in the tank as well, but they don't make a lot to look at when the darters are snoozin'..... so now I just need to find me some o' these little guys for up in the "air"!


They're Heterandria formosa... aka Dwarf Livebearers (also commonly known as Least Killifish, but they're not killifish). They only get about an inch long, come from the same habitats as the swamp darter, and breed readily.

Here's some good info about them: Heterandria formosa

Now I just have to wait for my LFS to get them in! ;)

tank looks great! I love darters I had a setup when I lived in Pa but mine needed water movement learned the hard way, makes me want to do another.

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55 Gallon Planted dirt bottom,Reproducing colony of Heterandria Formosa(Least Killifish), 2 Dwarf Puffers, 5 or so Gambusia, 2 Swamp darters???, Several Wild P. Latipinna(Sailfin Mollies), a handful of Jordanella Floridae(American Flagfish), 1 Lepomis Macrochirus(Bluegill fry)

Please explain....?

I know nothing of darters personally, and I've only had these for a week. I read lots of stuff online, and most everywhere says they come from swamps and still ponds and shouldn't have much water movement...? That's why I'm using the little Palm filter -- you can turn the flow way down on it. But most of the info I read is from science & nature sites, not aquarium sites. So I'd really like to hear about anyone's personal experience!

Thanks in advance!

They look like fun to watch!

well my darters came from a stream in Pa when I was still living there so when I set up the first tank all 5 died and when i researched why i found that those specific darters required moving water so I added a power head to create a strong ground current in the tank and caught a bunch more and they did great after that. if the natural habitat is still water then by all means keep it that way. here are a couple pics of the ones I had.

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55 Gallon Planted dirt bottom,Reproducing colony of Heterandria Formosa(Least Killifish), 2 Dwarf Puffers, 5 or so Gambusia, 2 Swamp darters???, Several Wild P. Latipinna(Sailfin Mollies), a handful of Jordanella Floridae(American Flagfish), 1 Lepomis Macrochirus(Bluegill fry)

I come from PA, and never even heard of darters! :( When I spotted them in my LFS's ghost shrimp tank and was told they were darters, that was the first time I ever heard of them. I'm only guessing that they're swamp darters, but they sure look like the pictures of them vs. the other kinds of darters. And I read that they're found from Maine to Florida, so there must be sub-types or something. I only know these came from Florida, not what type of environment they came from (but surely it can't have been an actual swamp -- they can't possibly drag a big net through a swamp to catch hundreds of ghost shrimp ;). But these guys lived at the LFS for weeks before I got them, in a bare-bottomed tank with just a sponge filter, well fed on dead ghost shrimp, and they look perfectly healthy and eat heartily, so I must assume they're happy enough.

P.S. To Snail: Yes, they *are* fun to watch! They have an odd comical aspect... and seem intelligent because of how they move their heads and eyes. When I feed them and they peek their little heads out from under the wood and look all around, it just cracks me up and gives me this warm fuzzy feeling.... they're my shy little wet lizards!

that looks very neat! good job on the setup!


what kinds of plants are you using?

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My 30 gallon planted freshwater - CONSTANTLY CHANGING

Thanks!!

"I had wanted to get Vallisneria Americana (going for a more authentic biotope), but my LFS told me they don't carry it because it goes dormant sometimes, so to stick to the Italian val instead. Everything else I weeded out of my other overgrown tanks: najas (guppy grass), hornwort, water sprite, water lettuce, and the ubiquitous duck weed. ;)"

if this works out well for you in the long run, I might do something similar with my 10 gallon after I get a 55 gallon in a while to put my Dwarf Gouramis in

I'll just collect everything ONLY from local surroundings there's a few slow moving streams around here that I know I can get substrate, wood, rocks, and even plants from

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My 30 gallon planted freshwater - CONSTANTLY CHANGING

How sweet it must be to live in Florida and be able to do that!

I will post my real tank build when I do it, and then try to post an update to it from time to time. But of course, I won't know if it's truly successful for many months at least. But I might know if it fails a lot sooner! ;D :/

plus there's all kinds of weird little aquatic creatures around here, so I'm sure I'll end up with a few in the tank too, lol

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My 30 gallon planted freshwater - CONSTANTLY CHANGING

That would be fun to watch what popped up.

I have some little I-dunno-whats in my 29 gallon... they look like little sesame seeds that swim erratically around the bottom of the tank. I enjoy them.

I'm still looking for the perfect wood for this tank. (I had to throw out my locally collected stuff, as it wouldn't sink and was soft and rotting.)
Check out this awesome swampy-looking driftwood from Alabama I found online:
Driftwood
I'd love a piece of that! I've emailed them to see if they have any "stump" pieces suitable for a 10 gallon.

Has it really only been a month since I set up this tank...? Here are the latest pics. The water is all nice & yellow from the bogwood. Between that and the wildly growing floating plants and the out-of-control duckweed, the light is way dimmer at the bottom now. (It's kinda hard to tell, cuz my camera just keeps the shutter open longer to compensate for less light. ;)


I kinda violated the "Florida biotope" concept though... I added 6 emerald eye rasboras to the tank. My excuse was that I needed to see how the darters did with fish in the tank (cuz remember, they're not fish... they're water lizards ;). (The reality was... I just needed something up in the air to look at! ;D Plus the rasboras were just so lovely... Anyway, here's a pic of the rasboras. Yep. That's the best I could do. The silver blurs in the middle of the pic. ;D (You can see a few of the darters on the bottom if you look close.)


I love the floating plants.


Here's a pic of the emerald eye rasboras (not taken by me):


And the latest news.... I rescued the final 5 darters from the fishstore just today! I only took 6 originally, not wanting to overcrowd a 10 gallon tank. But yesterday they moved the darters from the big ghost shrimp tank to a 10 gallon containing dozens of loaches and other fish, so I figured... better to be crowded in a nice biotope tank with their old friends than even more crowded in a barebottomed tank with piles of strangers! ;) (Plus... now I have a good excuse to upgrade them to a 20 long, right...? ;)

I like the way the tank looks.

You do have too many fish for a 10 gallon but I think it will be fine for a while if you are careful about water changes etc. They are are small fish so the bio load shouldn't be too huge and the plants help. Do the darters fight for their own territory? Bottom space could be a problem if they do.

From everything I've read, swamp darters are very peaceful, and do not stake out and defend territories or anything like that. And so far from what I've seen that seems to be true. The worst aggression I've seen out of them is tug-of-war with a bloodworm. ;) But I agree, this is too much fish for the tank, even with my weekly 25-35% water changes. Oh shucks, guess I have to get the 20L afterall. ;)