300 Gallon Fantasy!

Let's see how much fun we can have with this: You've just been given a 300 Gallon tank (72" x 36" x 27") and stand, and $3000 to set it up any way you like. The only hitch is that you have to put newts or salamanders in it. The species can be legal or a fantasy choice (you can specify both). No other amphibian or reptile is allowed. What critters would go in there, how many, and what equipment and decorations would you use? Be as elaborate and as thorough as you like.

I would make a cold stream tank and fill it with as much D.tenebrosus as I can fit in there. I would also stick a pinetree in there, which will be decorated at Christmas of course.

I would invest some of the cash into a chiller. I would use it to attempt captive breeding of a large species, but I'm having trouble deciding which one. D. tenbrosus is a good suggestion. Maybe tiger sals. Maybe one of the large aquatics, like sirens or Necturus.

I would split it in half for half land and half water. There would be a stream and waterfall on the land. Lots of moss and natural hides. I would stuff it with as many even numbers of male and female tritrus marmoratus and become the biggest supplier in the world!

300 gallons is, like, really big, right? I have a 40 ga and am trying to imagine something 7.5 times as large....

I'd set up a European pond bank with a mossy shore and lush plant life in the water and some wooded back country with a small creek flowing through a canyon in a beech and oak forest. There would be populations of European newts breeding in the pond. There's be slow worms and grass snakes basking on the edge of the pond. In the forest, there's be Salamandra breeding in the creek, and wild boar would come and snuffle in the leaf litter for beech nuts and oaks. Fallow deer, though shy, would be seen occasionally grazing near the pond in the morning light. I'd have a small cabin - nothing fancy, just a modest little home - set up on the meadow by the pond, and all the animals would love me and come hang out with me and I would be a friend to all of them. There would be no cell phones, e-mail or computers. Only soft rain, mild sunshine, and the smell of wet soil and flowers and damp moss......

Ah, Molch, you had me, teary eyed and vulnerable, until the no computer bit. Other than that if i had a soul, i´d sell it to live in your fantasy.

The largest tank i´ve ever had is a 84l (22 gallons?) and i´ve only had it for over a month...i think if i ever got to have a 300 gallons tank i´d collapse with froth in my mouth.
After months of recovery and several brain surgeries i would try to recreate a section of a rocky river bank as accurately as possible and get a Cryptobranchus. Then i´d work on arranging things so that i could spend the rest of my life sitting in front of that tank.

LOL! Molch, I think you were thinking of the 300 ACRE "tank". But I would enjoy such a set-up as well. My motto for keeping pets is if they have to stay in captivity, they should be living THEIR dream life. I would do an Autumn-based tank for Marbled Salamanders, complete with fallen leaves, logs and rocks strewn about, and planted densely with plenty of hide boxes with a very shallow pool. I would use artificial plants but there is enough lifelike stuff out there to really dress it up. Simply, my favorite sallys in my favorite season. The biggest tank I have owned is a 180. The 300 makes it look puny. Definitely 'froth-worthy' as Rodrigo said.

hehe, molch i know of a place near my home town which has wild boar, deer and ponds and typical southern swedish landscape with mixed pine and leafed trees, lots of moss etc. Used to go there as a kid, the boars arent that shy they would come out with their little ones if you sat still. The males are massive, ever since then I have had great respect for pigs in general hehe. seeing how many European kings have been killed while boar hunting, I think it is a healthy respect :happy:

Shame we only have two newt species in Sweden.

Jesper said:

hehe, molch i know of a place near my home town which has wild boar, deer and ponds and typical southern swedish landscape with mixed pine and leafed trees, lots of moss etc. Used to go there as a kid, the boars arent that shy they would come out with their little ones if you sat still. The males are massive, ever since then I have had great respect for pigs in general hehe. seeing how many European kings have been killed while boar hunting, I think it is a healthy respect :happy:

Shame we only have two newt species in Sweden.

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yeah, I know...the place in my 300 ga tank is a real place, one I used to go to as a kid. The pond had all 4 German newt species plus Hyla arborea plus B. variegata plus grass snakes and slow worms plus roe deer and fallow deer plus king fishers plus plus plus. The little beech/oak forest was just a few hundred yards away, complete with Salamandra creek and wild boar. I put up a hammock once and spent the night between the trees and saw a whole boar family come to look for acorns, stripy little piglets and all.....

There's so many choices, but I think I would make a half land half water Taricha torosa tank with numerous specimens and start a breeding colony.

I'd go for something streamtype. Either a stream with spring (Gyrinophilus porphyriticus) or blackbelly salamanders (Desmognathus quadramaculatus) or a stream with together Pachytriton, Paramesotriton and Chinese hillstream fish species.Like Pachytriton granulosus, Paramesotriton chinensis, Tanichthys albonubes and Pseudogastromyzon myersi.

Or, a huge, planted colony of waltls and marmoratus together. Natural mix!