Museum Display Tank

[wackystarfish]

Yeah in that case, triops are out. sorry!

 

[Loony Fish]

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

The bichirs are really cool and are over 200 million years old, not to mention they could live with the gar.

 

[wackystarfish]

Second the birchirs

 

[chefjamesscott]

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

Well hello there

very well and great to see you here

well the triops I want to get seem really hard to get if not impossible, I did though pick up to ripsaw cats and 2 dwarf snakeheads on the weekend

and I totally agree with the bichir idea

there is a chance that the museum will allow me to rehome the gar as it is 10 years old and start their tank over with new fish boy would that rock if i could bring the gar here to my restaurant

I will find out more from them in the days to come, though I have to do a thorough going over of the tanks filtration and various other things before I actually put fish in

 

[chefjamesscott]

well today it became official I AM A GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEE

got the call to come sign the contract between me and the minister of tourism, culture and sport for the museum tank

now time to wait to see what direction the curator wishes to go with this

 

[sic0198]

I'd put some fossilized wood in there.

 

[chefjamesscott]

ok so yesterday was my first real day looking at the task ahead of me

first I got some pictures of the resident gar

now this gar is over 10 years old and yet it is only 11-12 inches, I got the chance to quiz the person I am replacing and here is his water change regime.


1 change of 25% of the water every 2 months. I should go kick him in the rocks

in his mind she (the spotted gar) is happy with that

so we begin to do the investigation of the facility, the main tank is 6 inches below rim of the tank there is almost one full inch of mineral and salt cake on the back of the tank and the hob aquaclear filter looks like it has been out of use for over 6 months, the tank is topped with eggcrate and the drywall behind the hob is falling apart thankfully no drywall made it into the tank. The good part is that there is a built in undergravel filter system that when water change is done drains right from bottom of tank into a sump to be disposed of and there is a water fill hose above the tank, and in the loop there is a killer pond/pool filter catridge system. Here in a picture is the general state

next stop was the fish room where the feeders are kept as well as a few back up tanks. Of the which there is a red ear slider I will be rehoming this weekend-its tank has no filter, no heat, no uv light and it has no company here is a pic of its tank

the room is generally a bloody mess, I will only show one picture from the room though the feeder tank and what disgusts me so much about this is that the tank topper was leaning up against the tank. One can only guess how long this tank has taken to get like this

there is also a good side though 2 cupboards full of supplies and I mean full should make getting this tank back to niceness easy

the stocking of the tank has not been decided but I was given the go ahead to pull the fake plants and begin to redo the tank, origionally I was going to replace the substrate with a sand but the under gravel wont allow for that, but there is plans to totally remake the tank to be more eye appealing.

I did recommend taking off the hob and adding a canister to the main tank and was given the go ahead , so I pick up a fluval fx5 tomorrow

thanks to all the people who gave advice it has been heeded

just in case they say to go ahead with what I recommended I have taken the liberty to order in 2 ornate bichir and if they say no well shucks ill have to pay for 2 ornate bichirs for my own use

 

[jourdy288]

ok so yesterday was my first real day looking at the task ahead of me

first I got some pictures of the resident gar

now this gar is over 10 years old and yet it is only 11-12 inches, I got the chance to quiz the person I am replacing and here is his water change regime.


1 change of 25% of the water every 2 months. I should go kick him in the rocks

in his mind she (the spotted gar) is happy with that

so we begin to do the investigation of the facility, the main tank is 6 inches below rim of the tank there is almost one full inch of mineral and salt cake on the back of the tank and the hob aquaclear filter looks like it has been out of use for over 6 months, the tank is topped with eggcrate and the drywall behind the hob is falling apart thankfully no drywall made it into the tank. The good part is that there is a built in undergravel filter system that when water change is done drains right from bottom of tank into a sump to be disposed of and there is a water fill hose above the tank, and in the loop there is a killer pond/pool filter catridge system. Here in a picture is the general state

next stop was the fish room where the feeders are kept as well as a few back up tanks. Of the which there is a red ear slider I will be rehoming this weekend-its tank has no filter, no heat, no uv light and it has no company here is a pic of its tank

the room is generally a bloody mess, I will only show one picture from the room though the feeder tank and what disgusts me so much about this is that the tank topper was leaning up against the tank. One can only guess how long this tank has taken to get like this

there is also a good side though 2 cupboards full of supplies and I mean full should make getting this tank back to niceness easy

the stocking of the tank has not been decided but I was given the go ahead to pull the fake plants and begin to redo the tank, origionally I was going to replace the substrate with a sand but the under gravel wont allow for that, but there is plans to totally remake the tank to be more eye appealing.

I did recommend taking off the hob and adding a canister to the main tank and was given the go ahead , so I pick up a fluval fx5 tomorrow

thanks to all the people who gave advice it has been heeded

just in case they say to go ahead with what I recommended I have taken the liberty to order in 2 ornate bichir and if they say no well shucks ill have to pay for 2 ornate bichirs for my own use

That's just sick... my equipment, in all honesty, has some hard water deposits on it, but it is minor! This looks like a case of neglect!

 

[chefjamesscott]

ok so rounds 1 and 2 of tearing down and cleaning up the museum fish room are over and done.

Thankfully, the people there went with 100% agreement with my suggested plan of action and allowed me to totally dejunk the place. When done there will be a 75g tank with heated water to be used for waterchanges, a 75g feeder tank to keep goldfish and other feeders in, a 15g countertop quarentine tank which I will use to gutload the feeders and treat them with medical so as to keep them disease free for when they swim with the big boys. It is my plan to get it so that I breed my own feeders and so ensure the quality of food for the gar tank.

There is a very good chance that I will be able to redo the tank with a fresh set of tankmates and rehome the gar in my 300g here at the restaurant.

As I was looking at this whole set up, I came to the conclusion that there was someone involved who really new what they were doing. I got this from finding a closet full of fish magazines and monthly's dating from mid 1940's to the late 1990's.
Here are a couple of the magazines, and sweeet the museum told me I could have the lot since they were just collecting dust there.

It would seem that there was a radical naturalist who took care of the tanks till he suddenly passed away, and he was the very same person who did the signs that are in the museum to describe the displays. From what they tell me he was a very cool guy who knew his stuff.

Here are some shots of the displays right around where the gar tank is

this last pic is the one right behind the fish tank the access doors just to the right of it

I will save the sordid details of the state of affairs and suffice to say that I am so looking forward to getting this place totally shipped up. If they go with my stocking suggestion I have been growing the following

2 senegal bichir, 2 congo knife fish, needlenose gar, 2 niger cats and 2 dwarf rainbow snakeheads, all of which are in size range to not eat each other lol

I will know by the end of today on the stocking level

 

[oliesminis]

Congrats and well done. how long do you have to do it?

 

[chefjamesscott]

there is no set time frame for getting it set up but the desire is to get it righted forthwith

I should be able to get the new fish in the gar tank within the weekend as I have a seeded filter ready to go on and should have the water quality in line by the weekend

As far as I can tell this will be a longstanding contract of maintenance for me to take care of

 

[chefjamesscott]

well hello all been sort of busy but thought I should post an update of where things are at with this project.

Have gotten the water quality issues completely under control now. Got the go ahead from the museum to restock the tank and rehome the gar as she would eat any of the new tank mates I wish to put in. So jennifer as she is named will be coming to take up residence in my 140g or my 300g.

In her place will be 1 silver arow, 1 cuvier bichir, 2 ornate bichir, 1 needlenose gar, 2 spotted florida gar, 2 spotless clownknife. I was doing lots of thinking of this tank and came to the thought that this population was a good mix of enough fish.

here are the final shots of the fish room to show how it looks now

this

to this

the plan for the fish room is counter 20g will be feeder white cloud minnow colony, far 60g will be brackish molly , near 60g
have not totally decided on feeder but most probably a type of cichlid or even better if I can catch me some perch or smaller saskatchewan natives this summer. I timeline within a month that never will another feeder come from a pet store as I want my fish to be free of disease and totally packed with vitamins. I am also bringing in a small freezer and fridge to stock worms and a frozen food I will be making for the fish.

I redid the main tank to look like this

gives the fish lots of places to swim through and the floating wood gives them a place to hang out on the surface. I have to find a good source for plants now though since it is spring that should be easy. I want to reproduce the look of the display mossosauros just around the corner.

I will update early next week about the repopulation make sure to take pics along the way

sorry for the lateness of this post

 

[3ndl3r]

Looking good so far

 

[chefjamesscott]

well last night I added the first 2 new tank mates to the museum, I decided rather than rehoming the present gar I would grow new tankmates to a size where they would not be seen as food, with the exception of the arow that I put in last night with the knife.

I am trying to grow out 2 florida spotted gars and the arow was so competative for the white cloud minnows that I made the decision to move it at the same time as the knife, especially since it would actually try to snap a minnow out of the gars mouth and I had a horrid image of it mistakenly grabbing the gar and then goin to town by instinct.

I made sure to totally load jennifer the sask spotted gar's tank with 25 feeders the day before I added the new mates so she would be totally filled. Here are a few shots of the rehome

in this last picture jennifer is doing her usual hang out at the tank where she is closest to me, it is almost like she is saying thanks so much for taking over the tank I love what you are doing. I can even pet her when I am up doing the tank maintenance and its like she enjoys it either this or she is hoping I will fall in .

tonight I will be adding ripsaw cat maybe 2, and I also had to move the arow due to the move of the needlenose from my home growout 70g

the fish room tanks are now being super cycled and will be good to go very shortly

 

[Amunet]

I would def get rid of the ugly background on the tank if you can. Use a plain black background on it or something that's not so... bleh.
Maybe also add some larger river rocks on the bottom, or some slate, slate caves. Just something to vary it up a little bit.

Good job so far though! Thank goodness someone came along that actually cares about the fish. I can't believe they let it get that bad.