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Prehistoric Reef

DarkSide

Fish Crazy
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Dec 24, 2004
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Fort McMurray Alberta, Canada
I have considered this a few times. I was just wondering if other people thought it would be cool to have a prehistoric fish tank. Looking at the fossils, so many of the invertabrates and fish from the Cambrian era and such were amazing. What does everyone else think?

Joel.
 
The problem is that many animals from the Cambrian are now either dead or changed beyond recognition, many times directly into our familiar Quaternary animals.

All modern phyla have their ancestors represented in the Cambrian, but in addition to these "familiar" phyla (Chordata, Cnidaria, Arthropoda, et cetera) there was as many as 50 more phyla that left no ancestors, and indeed many of them appear "like something out of a science fiction movie". Amoung these was Obapinia, a five-eyed creature with a trunk like appendage, and Tribrachidium, an animal expressing tri-radial symmetry. In addition, reefs weren't built by corals back then, and arthropods were the top predators (Anomalocaris in particular is sometimes reffered to as the world's first super predator).

Many of those animals that survived unchanged, such as sea lillies, are nearly impossible to keep in aquaria, but a few, such as brittle stars, are very familiar to us.

So basically, you could make a bird sanctuary and call it "Jurassic Park", but no one would really think of it as a "prehistoric" location. Though if you want to have a tank full of hagfish and brittle stars, be my guest; just avoid the animals that are impossible to keep.

-Lynden
 
im not sure but i dont think it was meant to be a reality thing, just to consider how cool a prestoric fish tank would look :p

though you could collect fossils stick em in and make them move ... almost real ... kinda -_-
 
yeah, i dont see how these speciemens would be obtained, have you mastered time travel?
 
Lol, thanks for the info Lynden, I already knew most of that, because I was and still am extremely intrested by fossils, and prehistoric animals. My favourite fish was a giant devonian fish called Dunkleosteus. However, I didn't know that Sea Lilies were still around. ;)

Anyways. You guys are really to serious. I was asking this as a hypothetical question, as in IF you could get the animals and invertabrates, and IF there was extensive knowledge on how to keep them alive in an aquarium, would you try to recreate. Thats all I was asking :shifty:

Joel.
 
*cough* i pointed out u didnt mean it seriously *cough* :rolleyes:

interesting thought though! and we wotn need to master time travel, just need to learn to resirect fossils lol!
 
If you like the idea of prehistoric aquarium inhabitants, check out Triops cancriformis (you can buy them there too) here.:D.

They can even grow up to 10 cm, although the largest I've ever had was ~5 cm (excluding tail).
If you were give them as big a tank as possible and keep the water conditions good (no ammonia or nitrite, they can deal with tonnes of nitrate) while feeding them high protein food, I should imagine them to grow much bigger.

Though the standard for most people seems to be keeping them in nothing bigger than 2 litres, they do surprisingly well in small tanks :).
 
Well if you can't make one maybe make a replica with today's species?

Caribbean Live Rock, maybe an abolone, some earthy looking gobies, and some snails?

Just an idea.
 
You should get some horseshoe crabs for the ceolocanth tank, you can get them imported from a couple of German websites :good:.
That would be pretty cool XD.
 

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