Adding life to my substrate

[anastasisariel]

So this might sound weird, but I really want a lot of diversity living in my substrate besides bacteria. Currently I have MTS that borough into it and I am going to add some blackworms with a little food buried in the substrate to see if I can keep them going for a while. Can anyone else think of some visible life I can add that will inhabit the substrate?

[RcScRs]

I recommend Tubifex...

In a one gallon tank, I am doing exactly what you are doing.

I have fast growing plants such as wisteria, and go to my LFS to see what they have.

I have Tubifex and MTS in my substrate, seed shrimp, limpets, Daphnia, and Copepods dominate my water column.

I feed them a variety of food such as yeast and algae wafers.

Good Luck

Cheers,
Justin

[Twimbo]

Interesting thread. I'm curious what ideas or comments that others will have. You got me thinking......

[Rob in Puyallup]

Justin... Curious where you found all those interesting critters!

[RcScRs]

The Tubifex came from some contaminated substrate me friend gave me.
All the other creatures I got were find hitchiking on plants or in tanks in my LFS.

Cheers,
Justin

[Solid]

Freshwater clams

[anastasisariel]

Wow man! You do think like me. Now that is an invertebrate tank! I'll have to order tubiflex off the net but the copepods probably won't have a chance to survive unless I take all my fish out forever. I figure I can get the tubiflex worms and introduce them at night after I bury some food for them in the substrate and they might fare for a while at least. Of course I could do a sump tank and add a bunch of stuff like that and eventually they would go into the main tank (to their death).

And yeah I've had Asian clams before in the tank but they really really need an established tank or plankton supplements to live more than six months.

[Twimbo]

I'm wondering how the substrate zoo is coming along?

Without planning it, I'm suddenly noticing lots of unplanned for little creatures in my shrimp/snail only tank (10g Shrimp Tank). I didn't have to do anything to get them there, they all just showed up. I've got at least two kinds of worms - not sure what they are, and at least three or more kinds of small bugs that I can barely see.

One looks like a very, very, very small white ladybug and scuttles across the surface of the substrate. It looks like what I imagine a copepod might look like.....

[elihanover]

Originally Posted by Solid

Freshwater clams

I second this. You can even see them burrow in the substrate.

[lauraleellbp]

Be careful with clams. We generally don't feed them appropriately in planted tanks (they like green water tanks, but we're biased and want clear water tanks so we can see our plants and critters) and if they die (which you generally can't tell), they can pollute a tank in no time.

[RianS]

+1 to what lauraleellbp said.
I have freshwater clams in my planted tank and am a little skeptical about them being there since everyone says that once they die your tank is doomed unless your able to catch them dying. Which would be really hard.

[anastasisariel]

Well, I haven't really attempted to add anything new to the substrate but if you would like to know if you have critters you can wait till its dark and then shine a flashlight with a small beam at the substrate through the glass. You will most likely find some planaria and tiny copepods if your tank is established.

I've tried clams and as laurellbp said above we don't have enough plankton in our tanks to really support them. Clams filter through gallons of water per hour and would usually be underfed.

I'd really just like to get a couple of aquatic worms like blackworms and tubiflex breeding and living in the sand.

[chaosmaximus]

Hey, I have been wondering about exactly this.

It seems like a nice idea to have daphnia or similar, which are food for the fish I will have, growing nativly in the aquarium. Could that work or would the tetras just eat them all?

[lauraleellbp]

I added some daphnia to my 90gal to help with a green water outbreak once. I had probably over 1000 daphnia magna. They were gone in less than 48 hours and I've never seen another one. My fish were VERY happy with me!

[chaosmaximus]

Haha, thanks for confirming my suspicion. I was intrigued reading about a refugium in a saltwater tank and just wondered if I could have a supply of live food growing in the tank, but oh well.

Thanks