Bi-Weekly Discussion of the Week: Biotopes, is this what we should be doing?

[Geoff]

Lets talk about the different biotopes. Should we be setting up our tanks for a specific biotope?

G~

[Phishnoob]

I guess knowing what a biotope is would be a great start

Phishnoob

[Jimmer]

Ooooooooohhhh, good topic Geoff! I asked that very question about a yr ago and didn't really get a great answer. I'd love to see if there are any templates for different Bio-topes!

[Phishnoob]

Well I looked on the net under biotope and the first place sold big old sting rays and crocodiles then the next was this:

http://www.badmanstropicalfish.com/bio-type.html

This will be an interesting thread. If I understand this now a biotype refers to a habitat specific to a certain region, or am I all screwed up?

Also, is one of these tanks sufficient to feed and remove waste or do you need a skimmer, filter and feeding on such a small scale?

Phishnoob

[Spanky]

I don't know so much about bio-tope aquariums. I tend to think of it more as a certain type of aquarium to house things that like those conditions.

[Geoff]

ok, am i missing something Spanky. is it Biotope or Bio-Tope? or are we splitting hairs here.

this is the definition i am thinking of.

bi·o·tope __ _P___Pronunciation Key__(b-tp)
n. --An area that is uniform in environmental conditions and in its distribution of animal and plant life.

G~

[Spanky]

Here's the problem with creating bio-tope (you say tomato and I say tomahto) aquariums.

Both in nature and in aquariums you have micro-environments. But for the most part they are different and for different reasons.

When you think bio-tope you would think patch reef, reef crest, back reef, lagoonal - that sort of thing. But they even have micro-environments. You can have a situation when in a lagoonal bio-tope you have reef crest corals growing up on the tops of rocks, or on a reef crest you could have nutrient shade loving animals living in pockets in rocks.

A aquarium has a more consistent environment. You can put things in more light or more shade, but the nutrient levels will tend to be consistent.

If you think of designing systems around particular types of animals, no matter what bio-tope they fit in, you'll do better.

[Phishnoob]

Well I got myself into trouble and went reading again. It looks like a Biotope system has it's own food chain and trying to do this in a tank will mean stocking fish and critters to feed bigger fish and critters. It sounds nice in theory but how do you do that in 100 gallons. Also, the plants play a huge part of this equation as well. It looks like you could run a Biotope, but it will end up like the Biosphere...they crashed and burned. Sooner or later you need to order in a pizza. (Don't you dare take this thread off track..it was just making a point)

If I understood Spanky the tank is better off designed to put in things that don't eat each other and will all live matched to each other. Just /bonk me if I have this wrong. Compatibility seems to be the entire thing here well overriding any other factors such as origin of fish and plants.

Phishnoob

[Spanky]

Exactly!

Going for bio-tope aquariums as far as "looks" is one thing. Going for small, tight environments is another.

Adey (1970's) is a perfect example. While his ideas seemed all warm and fuzzy, in practice all the systems that he had a hand in designing were dismal failures.

[Geoff]

dang it Spanky, i was going to try and get to that next week.

my problem, which is wrong, is that i think of a bio-tope (i will use the hiphen, since i want to be like Spanky too) in relation to the corals or the sessile inverts/plants. i tend to think of the fish as transients across theses. there are some exceptions in my head, but there are a lot of critters in my head right now.

G~

[Spanky]

Woops

Which part did you want to get to next week?

[kwjones]

All I know is, my wife want to eventually set up a Pacific Northwest saltwater tank. All I can think is, "Do you know how much a chiller for that kind of set up can cost? And I'll need two of them, one for the tank and another for make up water..."

[Geoff]

not to mention the squeegee needed to keep the sweat off the tank in order to see the critters.

G~

[kwjones]

As humid as it gets here, yeah trying to spot a Catalina Goby with all the condensation on the tank might be a little difficult.

Not to get too off topic, but growing up in Oregon, I remember making field trips to the aquarium in Newport and they had cold water tanks with local species including a giant octopus in the petting tank. How do they deal with chilling the water and dealing with everything that comes with it like the condensation?

[Geoff]

they use really big chillers and really thick acrylic tanks. acrylic is a great insulator so the condensation problem is not as big. if the acrylic is thick enough the cold does not really get all the way through the acrylic. chillers come in home A/C sized units!

or if they are close enough to the ocean, pump it in.

G~