# Academic discussion on self sustainment in Aquariums



## TitanTDH (Sep 21, 2012)

Hi everyone, I was just reading the thread from flear regarding self sustaining aquarium. 

Please before blasting me, I found the thread a little confusing, and I am certainly not looking for answers. Just opinions and ideas.

I guess the guts of it all is pretty much recreating nature. After reading and trying to digest the info I was pondering how I would attempt to achieve this with minimal interaction after setup

The idea I have is simple in design however; complex in conduct 

1. Identify a specific species of fish (add 1 male and 1 female)
2. Build biotope specific tank (don't add fish)
3. Identify as many filters in nature relevant to the biotope and how they take waste from the water column and return nutrients and trace elements(recreate each filter in specific tank)
4. Food chain ( maybe incorporate it into the filter elements) bacteria to copepods to the next stage until we reach fish food)
5. Re-circulate water back into biotope including fish food 
6. Add fish
7. Fish breed and hopefully we achieve equilibrium.

Would anyone care to start at step one and maybe we can research it from there.
Cheers

Titan


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## Embouck7 (Jan 11, 2015)

You need a big tank to support enough food production for what will be an apex preditor (given the ecosystem goal).
The major hump I can see is long term plant growth as will need to look like a seaweed bed (burns alot of nutrients, aka the rainforest effect)
Second point is in order to do ecosystem your gonna need the bugs and these bugs you will not want spawning in your home. (Who infects their house with a swarm of mosquito's or the like haha)


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## beaslbob (Oct 17, 2012)

Just short of a totally self substaining aquarium would be the "beaslbob build", walstad , balanced, leiden, natural planted, and many others.

the idea is you allow food additions and water additions to replace evaporation but that is it.

See the link in my signature for more details.


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## Warhawk (Feb 23, 2014)

It is a very nice idea, but you will need a huge tank to get a full ecosystem going. I would guess that to feed a fish in the 5" range you are going to need 1-2 thousand gallon range. But I would assume with some serious math you could work out what a min tank size for a given fish but that is all above my ability.


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## Embouck7 (Jan 11, 2015)

Haha thats like a small pond but yeah the first and second layers of the food chain require lots of space..... Then there is more space required to make sure your apex doesn't eat everything to fast and wipe your operation..... Been trying to get a food chain going myself and so far I have three tanks in the mix and I still need more.......10-gal shrimp and snail, to a 55 with livebearers and small chilids, to a 90 gal apex.......to suceed I feel like I need to dubble or tripple my amount of water and space in the tanks.....


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