Taking a balanced aquarium one step farther [off topic]

[dfreas]

This post is a bit off topic but I have a ten gallon tank sitting
around doing nothing at the moment and I've been thinking about what I
want to do with it. Whenever I start up a new tank (or as in this case
restart an old one) I always plan for a while ahead of time to come up
with a balanced aquarium that will be pretty low maintenance. I know
there are quite a few other people out there that do this as well.
Basically I want all of my aquariums to have a balance of inverts,
plants and fish that makes maintenance almost unnecessary. Usually I
succeed, and I'm sure quite a few other people in this group also often
succeed at this goal.

Now I was thinking about this and I realized I could **easily** keep
five guppies and a dozen or so plants in a ten gallon aquarium and I
would never have to do anything other than feed them. That's five
inches of fish in a ten gallon aquarium completely maintenance free.
Now here's the interesting part (and also where it begins to get off
topic): Does it have to be five inches of fish?

Think about this. What if I put about four ot five inches of soil on
top of the existing gravel substrate and filled the aquarium with land
plants - grass, clover, maybe an herb or two - whatever. Could I then
support five inches of animal?

My LFS also has a reptile section with a variety of small lizards.
These animals are invariably kept in ten gallon aquariums with
astroturf lining and a heat rock. To me this is ugly - and I've kept
iguanas before and know that cleaning those tanks is no treat (no I
didn't keep an iguana in a ten gallon tank - it was a three cubic foot
cage for a juvenile, but cleaning a lizard cage is cleaning a lizard
cage regardless of size). It isn't nearly as bad as cleaning up after a
hamster or guinea pig but it's still no fun.

So what if I add dirt to my 10g tank and heavily plant it, maybe throw
in some earthworms and whatever other land inverts might be easy to
keep (crickets?). Then add a small lizard (no not an iguana - something
that is less than five inches full grown). My theory is that I'll never
have to clean the aquarium. I should be able to keep tank maintenance
down to feeding and watering (well, maybe wiping off the glass now and
then).

Obviously I'll have to research my choice of lizard first - I mean I
wouldn't put a goldfish in a ten gallon tank and expect it to be
trouble free but a guppy would be. By the same token there should be
some non-destructive lizards that would make a good land analog.

My long term idea/goal is to maybe put together a 100 gallon tank this
same way with grass and plants and insects and then add a mouse. This
would be extremely cool IMHO and I think it could probably be done
given the proper knowledge. My plan is to try it out with a lizard
(theoretically much less waste) in a small tank and if it is
successfull then move up to a mouse in a large tank.

Thoughts?

Has anyone tried this?

-Daniel

[sophiefishstuff]

In message om>,
dfreas > writes
>This post is a bit off topic but I have a ten gallon tank sitting
>around doing nothing at the moment and I've been thinking about what I
>want to do with it. Whenever I start up a new tank (or as in this case
>restart an old one) I always plan for a while ahead of time to come up
>with a balanced aquarium that will be pretty low maintenance. I know
>there are quite a few other people out there that do this as well.
>Basically I want all of my aquariums to have a balance of inverts,
>plants and fish that makes maintenance almost unnecessary. Usually I
>succeed, and I'm sure quite a few other people in this group also often
>succeed at this goal.
>
>Now I was thinking about this and I realized I could **easily** keep
>five guppies and a dozen or so plants in a ten gallon aquarium and I
>would never have to do anything other than feed them. That's five
>inches of fish in a ten gallon aquarium completely maintenance free.
>Now here's the interesting part (and also where it begins to get off
>topic): Does it have to be five inches of fish?
>
>Think about this. What if I put about four ot five inches of soil on
>top of the existing gravel substrate and filled the aquarium with land
>plants - grass, clover, maybe an herb or two - whatever. Could I then
>support five inches of animal?
>
>My LFS also has a reptile section with a variety of small lizards.
>These animals are invariably kept in ten gallon aquariums with
>astroturf lining and a heat rock. To me this is ugly - and I've kept
>iguanas before and know that cleaning those tanks is no treat (no I
>didn't keep an iguana in a ten gallon tank - it was a three cubic foot
>cage for a juvenile, but cleaning a lizard cage is cleaning a lizard
>cage regardless of size). It isn't nearly as bad as cleaning up after a
>hamster or guinea pig but it's still no fun.
>
>So what if I add dirt to my 10g tank and heavily plant it, maybe throw
>in some earthworms and whatever other land inverts might be easy to
>keep (crickets?). Then add a small lizard (no not an iguana - something
>that is less than five inches full grown). My theory is that I'll never
>have to clean the aquarium. I should be able to keep tank maintenance
>down to feeding and watering (well, maybe wiping off the glass now and
>then).
>
>Obviously I'll have to research my choice of lizard first - I mean I
>wouldn't put a goldfish in a ten gallon tank and expect it to be
>trouble free but a guppy would be. By the same token there should be
>some non-destructive lizards that would make a good land analog.
>
>My long term idea/goal is to maybe put together a 100 gallon tank this
>same way with grass and plants and insects and then add a mouse. This
>would be extremely cool IMHO and I think it could probably be done
>given the proper knowledge. My plan is to try it out with a lizard
>(theoretically much less waste) in a small tank and if it is
>successfull then move up to a mouse in a large tank.

I think you would need an enormous amount of light to keep the plants
going (like a sunny windowsill minimum) which would result in a very
hot, humid little ten gallon tank, which might not be ideal for a lot of
lizards. Treefrogs. I'm thinking treefrogs. I know absolutely naff all
about them, obviously, I'm just thinking aloud. Or in print, or
something. Small rainforest snake things, I continue to wonder aloud.

the problems I can see with excreta is that it's not actually diluted
into 10 gallons of *moving* air appropriately seeded with nitrifying
bacteria, it's lying on X square inches of soil. I think you might need
a bigger tank. I'm still thinking aloud, btw. Nor is this (filterless)
vivarium eventually going to settle into it's own thing, like a low-tech
planted aquarium, it's going to need to be functional from day one,
because you're not growing a bio-filter in the same way, it's not going
to become progressively more functional. It's an interesting idea, but I
think if you're looking at ten gallons you need something very small,
possibly insects. A four inch lizard isn't going to have a lot of room
in their, whereas 10 inch-long stick insects would. Though they'd turn
into a lot more stick insects quite quickly, obviously.
--
sophie
thinking aloud.

www.freewebs.com/fishstuff
(under construction. ish.)

[Gill Passman]

"dfreas" > wrote in message
ups.com...
> This post is a bit off topic but I have a ten gallon tank sitting
> around doing nothing at the moment and I've been thinking about what I
> want to do with it. Whenever I start up a new tank (or as in this case
> restart an old one) I always plan for a while ahead of time to come up
> with a balanced aquarium that will be pretty low maintenance. I know
> there are quite a few other people out there that do this as well.
> Basically I want all of my aquariums to have a balance of inverts,
> plants and fish that makes maintenance almost unnecessary. Usually I
> succeed, and I'm sure quite a few other people in this group also often
> succeed at this goal.
>
> Now I was thinking about this and I realized I could **easily** keep
> five guppies and a dozen or so plants in a ten gallon aquarium and I
> would never have to do anything other than feed them. That's five
> inches of fish in a ten gallon aquarium completely maintenance free.
> Now here's the interesting part (and also where it begins to get off
> topic): Does it have to be five inches of fish?
>
> Think about this. What if I put about four ot five inches of soil on
> top of the existing gravel substrate and filled the aquarium with land
> plants - grass, clover, maybe an herb or two - whatever. Could I then
> support five inches of animal?
>
> My LFS also has a reptile section with a variety of small lizards.
> These animals are invariably kept in ten gallon aquariums with
> astroturf lining and a heat rock. To me this is ugly - and I've kept
> iguanas before and know that cleaning those tanks is no treat (no I
> didn't keep an iguana in a ten gallon tank - it was a three cubic foot
> cage for a juvenile, but cleaning a lizard cage is cleaning a lizard
> cage regardless of size). It isn't nearly as bad as cleaning up after a
> hamster or guinea pig but it's still no fun.
>
> So what if I add dirt to my 10g tank and heavily plant it, maybe throw
> in some earthworms and whatever other land inverts might be easy to
> keep (crickets?). Then add a small lizard (no not an iguana - something
> that is less than five inches full grown). My theory is that I'll never
> have to clean the aquarium. I should be able to keep tank maintenance
> down to feeding and watering (well, maybe wiping off the glass now and
> then).
>
> Obviously I'll have to research my choice of lizard first - I mean I
> wouldn't put a goldfish in a ten gallon tank and expect it to be
> trouble free but a guppy would be. By the same token there should be
> some non-destructive lizards that would make a good land analog.
>
> My long term idea/goal is to maybe put together a 100 gallon tank this
> same way with grass and plants and insects and then add a mouse. This
> would be extremely cool IMHO and I think it could probably be done
> given the proper knowledge. My plan is to try it out with a lizard
> (theoretically much less waste) in a small tank and if it is
> successfull then move up to a mouse in a large tank.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Has anyone tried this?
>
> -Daniel
>
Hmmmm, not sure about the mouse....

Creatures I have kept in an aquarium (other than fish) include:-

Gerbils - great fun watching them build their tunnels
Stick Insects - fine til all the baby ones found their way out and infested
the kitchen
Newts - OK til the climb out and crawl over your bedroom (I was a child)

Had a Primary School teacher who kept reptiles - used to sell her my spare
guinea-pig babies (I don't remember them being that messy and the current
one isn't)....not for eating by the reptiles I hasten to add....the
tanks/cages were very much custom made and specific for the reptiles....not
the same as fish tanks. We are going back far more years than I would care
to confess to... but if I remember correctly the glass slid from the
front....she used to have them run all over the room (sorry not too keen on
reptiles but hate captive birds more)

Another very interesting creature she used to keep at home and introduce
another into our school (plus there used to be one in the Zoology Dept of
our local Uni where my Mother teaches) was an Axolotl...if you could hold of
one I remember being fascinated by them....

http://www.axolotl.org/

That would be a very cool creature to keep.....if you can get one....

Just an alternative idea....having revisited the thought of axolotls I think
I would love to have one....

[dfreas]

sophiefishstuff wrote:
> I think you would need an enormous amount of light to keep the plants

> going (like a sunny windowsill minimum) which would result in a very
> hot, humid little ten gallon tank, which might not be ideal for a lot
of
> lizards.

Not so. I actually have kept herb gardens indoors growing under day
bulbs very similar to those we use in planted aquariums. The existing
lighting (20 watts of 6500K fluorescent light for this tank) would be
completely sufficient for all but the most demanding plants.

> the problems I can see with excreta is that it's not actually diluted

> into 10 gallons of *moving* air appropriately seeded with nitrifying
> bacteria, it's lying on X square inches of soil. I think you might
need
> a bigger tank. I'm still thinking aloud, btw. Nor is this
(filterless)
> vivarium eventually going to settle into it's own thing, like a
low-tech
> planted aquarium, it's going to need to be functional from day one,
> because you're not growing a bio-filter in the same way, it's not
going
> to become progressively more functional.

Now this is the part where you may be correct. However I think you're
overlooking some details. For one thing a good store of invertibrates
would be a requirement for this to work. Specifically I was thinking a
handfull of earthworms. Now if you have any experience with these guys
you'll know that they can break down a lot of waste in a short period
of time, so I think it may be possible. Another important point is that
most lizard waste is not solid - sometimes it is but not usually. It is
pretty much the same as bird waste. This is why I think a lizard will
be easier to keep than a mouse - the waste will sink into the dirt
where it will be available to inverts and plants alike.

Now you may be right - it may require much more space, but I don't
necessarily think so. The four to five inches of soil will act as a
fairly good filter and the plants and inverts should be able to
completely process the volumes of waste produced.

-Daniel

[sophiefishstuff]

In message om>,
dfreas > writes
>sophiefishstuff wrote:
>> I think you would need an enormous amount of light to keep the plants
>
>> going (like a sunny windowsill minimum) which would result in a very
>> hot, humid little ten gallon tank, which might not be ideal for a lot
>of
>> lizards.
>
>Not so. I actually have kept herb gardens indoors growing under day
>bulbs very similar to those we use in planted aquariums. The existing
>lighting (20 watts of 6500K fluorescent light for this tank) would be
>completely sufficient for all but the most demanding plants.

sounds good...
>
>> the problems I can see with excreta is that it's not actually diluted
>
>> into 10 gallons of *moving* air appropriately seeded with nitrifying
>> bacteria, it's lying on X square inches of soil. I think you might
>need
>> a bigger tank. I'm still thinking aloud, btw. Nor is this
>(filterless)
>> vivarium eventually going to settle into it's own thing, like a
>low-tech
>> planted aquarium, it's going to need to be functional from day one,
>> because you're not growing a bio-filter in the same way, it's not
>going
>> to become progressively more functional.
>
>Now this is the part where you may be correct. However I think you're
>overlooking some details. For one thing a good store of invertibrates
>would be a requirement for this to work. Specifically I was thinking a
>handfull of earthworms. Now if you have any experience with these guys

I have a (very efficient) wormery for composting, so, yes!

>you'll know that they can break down a lot of waste in a short period
>of time, so I think it may be possible.

yes, though I'd envisaged the plants covering the surface of the soil,
which might be colouring my view of things. You're not going to have any
rain etc to get the waste into the soil, and as the surface is going to
be relatively compacted I think that you're unlikely to see the worms
coming up and mixing the wastes into the soil themselves. They are
terrific composters but I know from experience that they process stuff
that they're moving through the best; anything lying on the surface of
the stuff they're moving through gets broken down significantly slower.

>Another important point is that
>most lizard waste is not solid - sometimes it is but not usually. It is
>pretty much the same as bird waste. This is why I think a lizard will
>be easier to keep than a mouse - the waste will sink into the dirt
>where it will be available to inverts and plants alike.

if it does that's fantastic; I'll be very interested to hear if that's
actually the case.
>
>Now you may be right - it may require much more space, but I don't
>necessarily think so. The four to five inches of soil will act as a
>fairly good filter and the plants and inverts should be able to
>completely process the volumes of waste produced.

yes, as long as you get all the waste into the soil fairly quickly. I
hope I don't sound wantonly negative, I'm just interested in the project
~(and, of course, thinking aloud.)
>
>-Daniel
>

--
sophie

www.freewebs.com/fishstuff
(under construction. ish.)

[NetMax]

"dfreas" > wrote in message
ups.com...
> This post is a bit off topic but I have a ten gallon tank sitting
> around doing nothing at the moment and I've been thinking about what I
> want to do with it. Whenever I start up a new tank (or as in this case
> restart an old one) I always plan for a while ahead of time to come up
> with a balanced aquarium that will be pretty low maintenance. I know
> there are quite a few other people out there that do this as well.
> Basically I want all of my aquariums to have a balance of inverts,
> plants and fish that makes maintenance almost unnecessary. Usually I
> succeed, and I'm sure quite a few other people in this group also often
> succeed at this goal.
>
> Now I was thinking about this and I realized I could **easily** keep
> five guppies and a dozen or so plants in a ten gallon aquarium and I
> would never have to do anything other than feed them. That's five
> inches of fish in a ten gallon aquarium completely maintenance free.
> Now here's the interesting part (and also where it begins to get off
> topic): Does it have to be five inches of fish?
>
> Think about this. What if I put about four ot five inches of soil on
> top of the existing gravel substrate and filled the aquarium with land
> plants - grass, clover, maybe an herb or two - whatever. Could I then
> support five inches of animal?
>
> My LFS also has a reptile section with a variety of small lizards.
> These animals are invariably kept in ten gallon aquariums with
> astroturf lining and a heat rock. To me this is ugly - and I've kept
> iguanas before and know that cleaning those tanks is no treat (no I
> didn't keep an iguana in a ten gallon tank - it was a three cubic foot
> cage for a juvenile, but cleaning a lizard cage is cleaning a lizard
> cage regardless of size). It isn't nearly as bad as cleaning up after a
> hamster or guinea pig but it's still no fun.
>
> So what if I add dirt to my 10g tank and heavily plant it, maybe throw
> in some earthworms and whatever other land inverts might be easy to
> keep (crickets?). Then add a small lizard (no not an iguana - something
> that is less than five inches full grown). My theory is that I'll never
> have to clean the aquarium. I should be able to keep tank maintenance
> down to feeding and watering (well, maybe wiping off the glass now and
> then).
>
> Obviously I'll have to research my choice of lizard first - I mean I
> wouldn't put a goldfish in a ten gallon tank and expect it to be
> trouble free but a guppy would be. By the same token there should be
> some non-destructive lizards that would make a good land analog.
>
> My long term idea/goal is to maybe put together a 100 gallon tank this
> same way with grass and plants and insects and then add a mouse. This
> would be extremely cool IMHO and I think it could probably be done
> given the proper knowledge. My plan is to try it out with a lizard
> (theoretically much less waste) in a small tank and if it is
> successfull then move up to a mouse in a large tank.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Has anyone tried this?
>
> -Daniel


Train of thought is good, but the diversity of environmental requirements
for reptiles is much greater than for fish. For any reptile, there is an
optimal substrate, temperature, humidity level, light spectrum (UV type)
and diet, which has to match up with the balancing elements of your
ecosystem. If you find the right combination, I suspect you will be
space challenged in a 10g. I think that using a small mammal will make
some aspects easier or less stringent, but waste processing will be a
greater challenge *especially* in a 10g.
--
www.NetMax.tk

[dfreas]

Well I think I'm going to go ahead and give it a try at least but I'm
going to take it slowly. First I have to get an established ecosystem
of plants and inverts before I even think about adding a larger animal.
I'm not sure how long this will take but it certainly won't be done in
a week.

At any rate I'll post the results here (if I get results) when I
finally do get to a point where I can say something conclusive. For now
it remains an interesting idea. Next week I add dirt and plants :-)

-Daniel

[dfreas]

Thanks for reminding me about substrate and humidity level requirements
of reptiles - I hadn't given much thought to those two. This is
certainly going to require some planning to get a suitable match. I
think temperature, light, and diet will be fairly easy to obtain. The
substrate requirements may prove a little challenging - I'll have to
pick plants accordingly. Humidity will probably be the hardest to
maintain - an unsealed aquarium full of plants is going to want to
equalize just a little above ambient which won't really be all that
great for low or high humidity requirements.

-Daniel

[Tedd Jacobs]

"dfreas" wrote...
[...]
> Think about this. What if I put about four ot five inches of soil on
> top of the existing gravel substrate and filled the aquarium with land
> plants - grass, clover, maybe an herb or two - whatever. Could I then
> support five inches of animal?

i *like* this idea, especially since i as well have a ten gallon sitting
around doing nothing.

<snip remainder>

tedd.

--
I believe everything exists; unicorns do not exist.

[Gill Passman]

"dfreas" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> Thanks for reminding me about substrate and humidity level requirements
> of reptiles - I hadn't given much thought to those two. This is
> certainly going to require some planning to get a suitable match. I
> think temperature, light, and diet will be fairly easy to obtain. The
> substrate requirements may prove a little challenging - I'll have to
> pick plants accordingly. Humidity will probably be the hardest to
> maintain - an unsealed aquarium full of plants is going to want to
> equalize just a little above ambient which won't really be all that
> great for low or high humidity requirements.
>
> -Daniel
>

Just one thing that started to puzzle me this morning while sitting in
traffic is what do you do about drainage in this sort of set up? I had one
of these plants in a round jar/bottle things and ended up with a soggy mess
in the bottom and dead plants....

[dfreas]

Actually this is why I said "What if I put about four ot five inches of
soil on
top of the existing gravel substrate..." The gravel I have in there is
fairly large and about 1.5 to 2 inches deep. I may also put in some
corse sand to fill in the gaps in the gravel and prevent the soil from
getting down into the gravel. Basically this sand/gravel bottom will
provide the drainage for the system. Water will accumulate in the
bottom inch or so and be absorbed up into the soil above as needed.

Substrate structure is definately going to be more important in this
setup than it is in normal planted aquariums for exactly this reason.

-Daniel

[Scott]

"dfreas" > wrote in message
ups.com...
> This post is a bit off topic but I have a ten gallon tank sitting
> around doing nothing at the moment and I've been thinking about what I
> want to do with it. Whenever I start up a new tank (or as in this case
> restart an old one) I always plan for a while ahead of time to come up
> with a balanced aquarium that will be pretty low maintenance. I know
> there are quite a few other people out there that do this as well.
> Basically I want all of my aquariums to have a balance of inverts,
> plants and fish that makes maintenance almost unnecessary. Usually I
> succeed, and I'm sure quite a few other people in this group also often
> succeed at this goal.
>
> Now I was thinking about this and I realized I could **easily** keep
> five guppies and a dozen or so plants in a ten gallon aquarium and I
> would never have to do anything other than feed them. That's five
> inches of fish in a ten gallon aquarium completely maintenance free.
> Now here's the interesting part (and also where it begins to get off
> topic): Does it have to be five inches of fish?
>
> Think about this. What if I put about four ot five inches of soil on
> top of the existing gravel substrate and filled the aquarium with land
> plants - grass, clover, maybe an herb or two - whatever. Could I then
> support five inches of animal?
>
> My LFS also has a reptile section with a variety of small lizards.
> These animals are invariably kept in ten gallon aquariums with
> astroturf lining and a heat rock. To me this is ugly - and I've kept
> iguanas before and know that cleaning those tanks is no treat (no I
> didn't keep an iguana in a ten gallon tank - it was a three cubic foot
> cage for a juvenile, but cleaning a lizard cage is cleaning a lizard
> cage regardless of size). It isn't nearly as bad as cleaning up after a
> hamster or guinea pig but it's still no fun.
>
> So what if I add dirt to my 10g tank and heavily plant it, maybe throw
> in some earthworms and whatever other land inverts might be easy to
> keep (crickets?). Then add a small lizard (no not an iguana - something
> that is less than five inches full grown). My theory is that I'll never
> have to clean the aquarium. I should be able to keep tank maintenance
> down to feeding and watering (well, maybe wiping off the glass now and
> then).
>
> Obviously I'll have to research my choice of lizard first - I mean I
> wouldn't put a goldfish in a ten gallon tank and expect it to be
> trouble free but a guppy would be. By the same token there should be
> some non-destructive lizards that would make a good land analog.
>
> My long term idea/goal is to maybe put together a 100 gallon tank this
> same way with grass and plants and insects and then add a mouse. This
> would be extremely cool IMHO and I think it could probably be done
> given the proper knowledge. My plan is to try it out with a lizard
> (theoretically much less waste) in a small tank and if it is
> successfull then move up to a mouse in a large tank.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Has anyone tried this?
>
> -Daniel
>

I did just this very thing with a 10 gallon terrarium and 6 common green
anoles. It was heavily planted with a dirt/mulch material for the substrate,
a couple of sticks, and some plastic stacking rocks. I misted the tank once
daily (which could also be automated nicely). The anoles were fed primarily
crickets, which actually started to breed in the tank. At that point, I
stopped feeding the anoles completely. The tank ended up being perfectly
balanced and staying that way for a year with nothing more than my daily
misting and occasional cleaning of the mulch.

It would take a while to strike on that type of balance again though ;)

---scott

[Scott]

"Scott" <smaxell1{at}hotmail.com> wrote in message
...
>
> "dfreas" > wrote in message
> ups.com...
>> This post is a bit off topic but I have a ten gallon tank sitting
>> around doing nothing at the moment and I've been thinking about what I
>> want to do with it. Whenever I start up a new tank (or as in this case
>> restart an old one) I always plan for a while ahead of time to come up
>> with a balanced aquarium that will be pretty low maintenance. I know
>> there are quite a few other people out there that do this as well.
>> Basically I want all of my aquariums to have a balance of inverts,
>> plants and fish that makes maintenance almost unnecessary. Usually I
>> succeed, and I'm sure quite a few other people in this group also often
>> succeed at this goal.
>>
>> Now I was thinking about this and I realized I could **easily** keep
>> five guppies and a dozen or so plants in a ten gallon aquarium and I
>> would never have to do anything other than feed them. That's five
>> inches of fish in a ten gallon aquarium completely maintenance free.
>> Now here's the interesting part (and also where it begins to get off
>> topic): Does it have to be five inches of fish?
>>
>> Think about this. What if I put about four ot five inches of soil on
>> top of the existing gravel substrate and filled the aquarium with land
>> plants - grass, clover, maybe an herb or two - whatever. Could I then
>> support five inches of animal?
>>
>> My LFS also has a reptile section with a variety of small lizards.
>> These animals are invariably kept in ten gallon aquariums with
>> astroturf lining and a heat rock. To me this is ugly - and I've kept
>> iguanas before and know that cleaning those tanks is no treat (no I
>> didn't keep an iguana in a ten gallon tank - it was a three cubic foot
>> cage for a juvenile, but cleaning a lizard cage is cleaning a lizard
>> cage regardless of size). It isn't nearly as bad as cleaning up after a
>> hamster or guinea pig but it's still no fun.
>>
>> So what if I add dirt to my 10g tank and heavily plant it, maybe throw
>> in some earthworms and whatever other land inverts might be easy to
>> keep (crickets?). Then add a small lizard (no not an iguana - something
>> that is less than five inches full grown). My theory is that I'll never
>> have to clean the aquarium. I should be able to keep tank maintenance
>> down to feeding and watering (well, maybe wiping off the glass now and
>> then).
>>
>> Obviously I'll have to research my choice of lizard first - I mean I
>> wouldn't put a goldfish in a ten gallon tank and expect it to be
>> trouble free but a guppy would be. By the same token there should be
>> some non-destructive lizards that would make a good land analog.
>>
>> My long term idea/goal is to maybe put together a 100 gallon tank this
>> same way with grass and plants and insects and then add a mouse. This
>> would be extremely cool IMHO and I think it could probably be done
>> given the proper knowledge. My plan is to try it out with a lizard
>> (theoretically much less waste) in a small tank and if it is
>> successfull then move up to a mouse in a large tank.
>>
>> Thoughts?
>>
>> Has anyone tried this?
>>
>> -Daniel
>>
>
> I did just this very thing with a 10 gallon terrarium and 6 common green
> anoles. It was heavily planted with a dirt/mulch material for the
> substrate, a couple of sticks, and some plastic stacking rocks. I misted
> the tank once daily (which could also be automated nicely). The anoles
> were fed primarily crickets, which actually started to breed in the tank.
> At that point, I stopped feeding the anoles completely. The tank ended up
> being perfectly balanced and staying that way for a year with nothing more
> than my daily misting and occasional cleaning of the mulch.
>
> It would take a while to strike on that type of balance again though ;)
>
> ---scott

I should qualify this by saying that I have kept many different types of
reptiles for YEARS before I ever started with fish, including iguanas,
savannah monitors, anoles, bearded dragons, chinese water dragons, (in
addition to scorpions, tarantulas, and the like). So I was was very familiar
with the conditions necessary to keep the anoles environment stable in
temperature, etc. The plants were normal house plants (don't recall what
type) and they grew EXPLOSIVELY in this high humidity, high temp
environment.

---scott

[dfreas]

Well this is encouraging. I've kept two iguanas (one of them grew to be
over three feet before I moved on to a navy base and was required to
get rid of him because of a no reptile rule they had) and a ball
python. So I don't have tons of experience but I do have a good bit of
knowledge about both plants and balanced aquariums. My hope is that in
my research I'll find a small easy lizard to learn with.

-Daniel

[dfreas]

This is the last post I'll make to this thread - I have started
bringing this idea to life. If anyone is interested in getting updates
on this project please send me an email (the email in the header of
this message is real). I will email updates whenever I have them
(probably one or two messages a week, possibly less) to anyone who is
interested. The emails will let you know about my progress and what I
learn in the process.

I still plan on posting a final status here to the newsgroup but that
will only be a single post (it is off topic after all) and it will
probably not be for three or four months when the project is complete
and fully self sustaining.

-Daniel

[Jesse Joe]

sophiefishstuff wrote:

>
> yes, though I'd envisaged the plants covering the surface of the soil,
> which might be colouring my view of things. You're not going to have any
> rain etc to get the waste into the soil, and as the surface is going to
> be relatively compacted I think that you're unlikely to see the worms
> coming up and mixing the wastes into the soil themselves. They are
> terrific composters but I know from experience that they process stuff
> that they're moving through the best; anything lying on the surface of
> the stuff they're moving through gets broken down significantly slower.
>

Just one thought.....crickets dig. A lot. They love to dig. They dig
little holes and poke around in the dirt. And they poke little holes in
the dirt to lay eggs.

And, lizards eat cricket.

Of course, the worms will eat some of the cricket eggs too, but crix lay
a lot of eggs.

--jjoe