My own little eco-system! Long post, sorry!

With all my animals I have the idea in my head to make their environment as natural as possible. Sometimes it doesn't work out how I have planned it in my head, most the time it's 'work in progress'!

I have a terrestrial frog that lives with worms in his tank in the hope that they keep the substrate fresh. The frog also has quite a few plants to make it more natural looking and he has an underground burrow where he like to spend a lot of his time made from a PVC pipe with different angles in it.

I even have the crickets that I feed to my frog in a natural looking environment. They are on compost which has been seeded with grass seed. They now have a healthy looking lawn! There are also worms that live with the crickets to help keep down the waste and I have noticed the crickets don't smell half so much! There is a feeding dish in the crickets home that sits on top of a 'well' in the soil (a part that has been left bare right to the bottom of the cricket box) this is where I water the grass. I lift up the feeding dish and water it with the leftover tank water I use to rinse off the worms that I feed to the axies.

I have now got my three male axies in their four foot tank with lots of bogwood and some (dare I say) flourishing plants!

I have found the best plants to be Java fern and Anubias, these have proved the most hardy. I am often moving the 'furniture' round in the tank so my plants have to put up with a lot, with me and 3 clumsy axies!

I also bought some fern-like fronds of some type, but they have been next to useless and 'moult' little hair-like pieces all the time (not recommended, if I knew the name I'd tell you). The other plants that I have had mixed success with are Pennywort and a shorter purple leafed Anubias.

The Pennywort has lost a lot of the leaves that were on it and lots of the stems that were in the pot came unattached and I had to keep trying to wedge them in different places to stop them floating round the tank. I have lost about half the plant, but have noticed new growth on the remaining parts, so not too bad!

The small purple Anubias has also been a bit hit and miss. It's very slow to grow roots and as it's such a little plant I have found it hard to attach to the wood or to get it stay anywhere I try to wedge it (note the technical terminology). Once it's been messed about with a bit (my fault) the outer leaves quickly dislodge and become a soggy mess, or they stay on the plant and become a soggy mess! BUT....I have noticed today one nearly bald little stem is growing a new offshoot, so there's hope yet!

Can't you tell I'm just so greenfingered?

Sorry this is turning out such a long post!

So....about 4 weeks ago I went out and raided the local stream and brought home some river shrimps (Gammarus pulex). I quarantined these in a seperate tank and now I have added some to the axolotls tank. So now I have some muck cleaner-uppers! With the tank more heavily planted, I try not to move everything out in one go to clean, like I would've done before, therefore I get a fair bit of gunk collecting under the wood. I'm hoping the shrimps will be a little clean team. I'm also hoping that as I have kept the shrimps for four weeks that they are actually breeding in the outdoor tank so I can have a continual supply in case they start magically disappearing!

While quarantining the shrimps outdoors the tank water got very green, so I have now added some daphnia to the mix! They are happily chomping all the algae and I have put a few in with the axies as well, just for the fun of it! I now have a much more interesting and lively tank, all hours of the day!

Well done if you've read all that, I just wanted to share with you all my experience.

Sounds interesting, like your creating a mini perfect world to look apon.

Pics?

Right after I read this post I went down to my room to feed my pets and put some pothos sprouts in my tiger salamanders tank, so then i thought "hmm i wonder what would happen if i put some earth worms in his tank, just so they could wander in the soil" you have inspired me Kerry and I thank you.


-Collin

Thanks for the comments.

I have some quite recent pics in my album, if you'd like to have a look. I don't have any there of my frog tank, but I'll put some up soon.

By the way, it seems all the shrimps have disappeared! I think the axies have been seeking out some snacks!

This is a delightful post to read. Other than Java moss I can't seem to grow the Anubias for my axies. It all ends up a brown mess that has to be removed.
Do you think having it on real wood makes a difference in growth?
Your tank looks terrific.

Hello Nora,

I'm actually amazed that my anubias have done so well! I have them tied onto the bogwood with cotton, though none of them seem to have a 'grasp' of the wood yet, so I don't know if it has added anything to their growth.

The difference I have with growing plants this time is having a light on the tank. I know anubias and java fern are said to survive fine in low light levels, but in my experience this has helped them take off much better. I have my tank light on a timer for 5 hours a day, the axies don't really appreciate it (they hide when the light is on) but the plants seem to love it!

Also, as I said in the main post, I'm not removing ALL the waste from the axies ALL the time. I don't know if this is helping the plants too?

Anyway, I'm sure if I can grow plants then anyone can, I'm really not at all green fingered!

I've added in a couple of photos that I've taken today, I don't know if you can see any difference from the previous pictures in my album, but the plants are doing really well. In fact, they were growing so tall that I had to rearrange the wood so that the piece with the most plants on was on the bottom as they had started to come out of the water!

Just to add another note to this thread for those that are interested.

I've just finished a water test on all my tanks, the four foot with lots of plants 3 axies, the three foot with a few plants 1 axie and the 2 foot shrimp tank, with a few plants. The results are as follows......

(Sorry I don't have accurate numbers, I go by the colours in the tubes)

Four foot tank
Nitrate, nitrite, ammonia and Ph all spot on (nitrate around 60ppm)

Three foot tank
Nitrite, ammonia and Ph all just fine, nitrates showed a lower level around 20ppm

Two foot tank
Nitrite, ammonia and Ph fine, no nitrates registering yet as the tank has only been running for about 4 weeks.


I'm very pleased with the results. The four foot tank runs with an external canister filter and the three foot with an internal filter, (the shrimp tank has a little filter, more to keep the water moving than anything else). I have been doing 20% water changes once a week (more in the shrimp tank) and at the same time removing the muck that I can get access to without removing all the wood, pots and plants.

So this goes to show how much plants can have a positive effect on the chemistry of your tank.

I think I'll add a low light to my plants. Your plants look great and the benefit to water quality(when they thrive) seems to be worth the effort. Maybe I'll look for some purple Anubias to try next.

Hi Kerry
It seems all your efforts have paid off your pics are beautiful!!
I really need to start sorting my tank out as my axies are in large tubs at the moment.

You have given me ideas...Thank you!!

Mel

Hi Kerry,
Where did you get the bogwood from in your tank?
Mel

Purple Anubias, Didn't even know that existed.

Do you not prefer to use subrates in your tanks? I love your plants and setups I feel like the only thing missing for a natural look is something on the floor.

Kerry, this is an amazing looking set-up. Congrats on your project!

@ Mel - I already posted a response to your question about the bogwood, but it seems to have not come up for some reason, strange! I bought the bogwood really cheap at my local petshop, they've now put the prices up though so I think they realised they were missing out!

@ Amphibians - I used to use sand as a substrate but found no substrate is much easier to keep clean and to see any waste. I also like the 'clean' look of no substrate.

@ Johnny - Praise indeed from the master of vivaria, thank you!

Though I'm sorry to say the tanks don't look quite so beautiful now, a lot of the plants have died and the shrimps weren't such a success. I don't have the light on now either as the bulb blew and I can't afford to replace it. There are just a few leaves of anubias left, the java fern is mostly dying off and the elodea is just about hanging in there!

I only have the four foot tank for the axolotls now, in there are adult male and female leucistics, male wildtype and juvenile wildtype.

In another tank (3 foot) I have 5 Alpine newts and they have a fair amount of plant growth (elodea mixed with java moss) and some bog wood.

My Kassina's (frog) tank has proved pretty much self sufficient. I still have earthworms and woodlice in there from months ago, I also added some tropical woodlice a month or two ago, but I'm not sure if they're still there, but I'm pleased that this eco-system has worked out, no bad smells or anything.