Re: Apisto Predators

["David A. Youngker" <nestor10@mindspring.com>]

From: YE
Sent: Tuesday, April 11, 2000 7:43 PM

> How about going a step further? Introduce something
> thatll feed all the smaller fishes, perhaps some sort of
> aquatic insect from a lab bred colony, perhaps daphnia,
> others?

That's what some of the cultures are for. And I don't normally have problems
in that area  ;-)

> To totally minimize human intervention of a true enclosed
> eco-system, except for maybe a supplementary feeding
> once a week...

I want to minimize the human intervention factor, all right, but I don't
mean to imply the Biosphere "closed- system" approach, lest anyone get that
impression. But my presence is certainly an artificial influence, and the
less they notice me the less it influences there behavior. The other extreme
would work as well - "familiarity breeds apathy" - but I don't foresee being
able to spend all _that_ much time with them.

I had considered "fronting" the glass with a sheet of the "one- way glass"
type of appliques so I could move around or be able to watch relatively
unnoticed, but the reflected surface is too "mirror- like". So I'm thinking
a film of 25-50% neutral density backed by a darkened room. Another
advantage to the garage.

> Keep the top of the tank exposed to sunlight through
> a glass/ plexiglass ceiling supplimented by either
> metal halide (sp?) or compact flourecent lights.

I had initially considered 8-ft tanks because that's a right handy size
where flourescents are concerned. But your mention of sunlight coupled with
metal halides reminded me of the tracked systems which some hydroponics and
reef tankers use. That lead to, believe it or not, Ernest Hemingway's "The
Old Man and the Sea". I've never read the book (never was excited by his
very straightforward style), but the Spencer Tracy movie had a passage
concerning what a fish must experience during that shift from dusk to
darkness as the unseen night predators begin to appear.

While I wouldn't go so far as to hang a pendant from a motorized track, I
can see some utility in controlling dusk/dawn intensity gradients.

> Just daydreaming and throwing some ideas out there. :).

Shoot - and it's only what I was hoping people _would_ do...

-Y-




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