Oyster Reef Ecosystem Tank
Since at the moment, funding is limiting my progress, I've been doing some research and I think that I may move eventually toward a complete living oyster reef (but with only a couple oysters), but it will be a very slow process achieving that. I want to start off when I cycle the tank using macro algae and then add some grass as the tank cycles. I'll use live sand that I'll collect too. I want only bay critters in there. I think that eel grass is out of the question, because I don't think I'm allowed to collect it here and I can't find any on-line. But, there are two native grasses for mid-bay salinity that I can purchase on-line, shoal grass and widgeon grass. I think that starting with a natural approach with the substrate and plants will be a great start for inverts to survive in my tank, and I think that the fish will flourish.
As far as macros go, there are several red and green species that I can collect locally. Any life that hitchhikes on the macros would be welcome in the tank. After cycling, I'll also add some hermit crabs and snails, perhaps an anemone or two. I know that they'll eat some macros, so I probably will have to constantly add macros to the tank and sump. I'll run it fallow for a few months before adding any fish so as to limit or prevent parasitism on the fish, along with quarantining the fish.
After the fallow period, I'll begin adding the hardier fish like the blennies, gobies, skilletfish and killifish or anything really cool that I think could survive in the tank at that time. Once the tank is well established, then I'll consider some tougher fish species, like seahorses and pipefish, but they may eventually be housed in the sump if the blennies are too aggressive. I may add some live bivalves at the time too, but not a lot, just an oyster or two, perhaps some mussels, tunicates, bryozoans, sponges or anything else that I may find in my area. My goal is to control nitrates and phosphates with a planted tank as much as possible, perhaps with some dosing too, we'll see. I'll have to feed the filter feeders regularly too and have read up on that somewhat. How long I can pull that off remains to be seen, but the ultimate goal would be to have a successful system that really resembles and oyster reef. The focus will always be for my favorite fish though, the blennies. The end goal is to have a good healthy population of them, maybe a breeding one!
Three builds have influenced my thoughts on the direction of this effort greatly, and I thank them for sharing their experiences with us, and I've linked their threads here:
"Michael Hoaster's Caribbean Biotope Seagrass Tank" including some of his aquascaping DIY ideas.
Gabe W's "My 55g Coldwater Aquarium". I really would like to know if he still runs this tank. It's been a long time since he's updated his post. I really enjoyed following that thread and the progress of his tank. I won't be using a chiller though for my tank as he did.
and also many ideas from Paul B's experiences, some you can view on his thread titled,
"almost 35 year old reef pictures". I think the thread is about 30,000 pages by now, LOL and the reef a bit older. I really enjoy Paul's posts.
Anyway, there is a lot of good info in those threads and hopefully I can achieve my goals for this tank thanks to that info.
Thanks for following along and I am very sorry about how long this is taking. it's killin' me, believe me...
