Museum Display Tank

[chefjamesscott]

Well yesterday I was offered a chance to do something that just makes my week/year.

The Royal Saskatchewan Museum located here in Regina heard about my fish tanks that I keep here at my restaurant and a designer from there came by to see my tanks, and, they want me to redo the tank and then take over maintaining it.

The tank is 28"x59"x36"=250g, here is a picture

The lone resident a 10 year old gar really just sits on the bottom and does not move around much. Thought I would post this thread to fish yall for info or thoughts on what to do with this tank. They want it to stay within the confines of what would be called ancient fish but at the same time want it to pop and catch peoples attention.

I will leave off with responding to this post till monday as I wish to see what people have to say

 

[wackystarfish]

Trioblites? Really cheap, and easy to look after. Also they get quite big, and, well, you cant get more ancient than them!! I think they also get quite large if the space allows. A planted trioblite tank would look good, and quite unusual You just order the eggs off of the net, then add water!

 

[chefjamesscott]

Trioblites? Really cheap, and easy to look after. Also they get quite big, and, well, you cant get more ancient than them!! I think they also get quite large if the space allows. A planted trioblite tank would look good, and quite unusual You just order the eggs off of the net, then add water!

and where might one get these eggs, cause if you can find me viable trilobite eggs i will cut you in for say 10% when i sell the babies

do you mean triops

 

[simonas]

trilobites sound great!!!1anyone keep em on ere?

 

[wackystarfish]

Hahaha sorry about that!! My spelling gets the better of me! However, i remember a member recentl had hold of some triblites, as they were dug up in a pool after some construction. TRIOPS are super easy to keep, here are the guidlines.
22 degrees celcius
id give 2 - 3 litres of water per triops
They do like foraging so include a soft gravel
You can buy the eggs cheaply on ebay.
They will soon start reproducing, and with a gravel substrate, the eggs would be safe, so you would have a continual source. You may want to raise them seperatly from the gar to start with however, as he may fins them tasty!!!
Just use a plasticc gallon tub

 

[wackystarfish]

Here is a good website for you,
Mytriops.com

 

[OohFeeshy]

Triops? In a 250g? Urm, yeah....

Bichirs are pretty typical 'ancient' fish, a group of ropefish would be good for being both unusual and active (although if the tank is escapable senegals would be better).

Upper water, something goby/gudgeon/leaffish-ish perhaps, although bear in mind you'd probably need to plant and decorate it in typical ancient-ish style, probably with lots of wood and some suitable tall, bushy plants.

 

[Truck]

trilobites are extinct!

 

[dcarmor927]

trilobites are extinct!

this was going to be my point lol

 

[chefjamesscott]

Triops? In a 250g? Urm, yeah....

Bichirs are pretty typical 'ancient' fish, a group of ropefish would be good for being both unusual and active (although if the tank is escapable senegals would be better).

Upper water, something goby/gudgeon/leaffish-ish perhaps, although bear in mind you'd probably need to plant and decorate it in typical ancient-ish style, probably with lots of wood and some suitable tall, bushy plants.

Actually the species of triops i am thinking of for this tank grow to 4 inches and make a great food source for catfish and are a very renewable resource since they reproduce easy and there is a fish room where I can run other tanks 1 for feeders, one for shrimp one for triops breeding

look at this picture

http/mytriops.com/articles/images/Triops_numidicus.jpg

 

[OohFeeshy]

Yes, but the fact is, it's 250g. Not sure which given measurement is which (picture is fairly hard to tell), but even at 4" you'd need hundreds at a time to even notice they're in there. Not to mention short lifespan, and that breeding isn't 'easy' in that you have to dry the tank out each time.

Besides which, is that species even obtainable? Given that it seems even the author of that website doesn't even know if they're a valid species (and even if not, the same applies to granarius), let alone has kept them, I doubt they're available.

 

[wackystarfish]

That tank doesnt look like 250gals... i think the measurements must be wrong...

 

[Truck]

That tank doesnt look like 250gals... i think the measurements must be wrong...

it will be the length of the tank giving it its volume (front to back)

 

[chefjamesscott]

That tank doesnt look like 250gals... i think the measurements must be wrong...

actually when I first looked at the tank i thought so too but took measurements from the back where the tank is maintained so that I could properly know what liquid volume it was so as to not overstock

I also needed to know the volume so as to properly set up the new filtration

i put the measurements through the volume calculator on anothe fish site and it gave me that gallon amount

I have over 1500g of active water myself soon to top 2300g when I finish upgrading the restaurant tanks, I learned a long time ago that measuring the actual tank was only way to get true answer

 

[beblondie]

Hi chef yes i'm eveyrwhere unless you put in hundreds of triops they could all be gone in a few days-Anne