72G Mudskipper Biotope Build Log with Pictures

[owenz]

Welcome to the build log for my 72 Gallon bowfront mudskipper biotope, which has been inhabited for exactly two weeks with six Indian Mudskippers and three Orange Chromides. Construction of this tank was a labor of love that took many weeks, required much experimentation and mistakes, and a vast array of materials and techniques, many of which were gleaned from this very message board.

About me: a 34-year old guy from MA with extensive fish-keeping experience, including multiple CO2 injected freshwater planted and reef tanks. This is my first effort paludarium/vivarium construction.

To start, a description of the tank:

- 72 Gallon Bowfront Aquarium, hand drilled (by yours truly) and equipped with a fully plumbed 29 gallon sump.

- Total water volume of display tank and sump is approximately 45 gallons, with 25 gallons in the display and 20 gallons in the sump.

- Lighting in the display tank consists of a 48-inch 2x65W CF current USA fixture. Soon to be delivered for the sump is an 18W T5 strip light that will be mounted to the inside roof of the stand.

- Filtration consists of a simple prefilter of filter padding for the baffled sump, followed by a new Rena Filstar XP 1 canister filter. Currently running much carbon and chemipure where I have some concerns about chemical leaching from the extensive aquascaping.

- Water is low-brackish with a SG of 1.005.

- Water level in display tank is 10", which is half full. Water level in sump is about 13", which is about two-thirds full.

- Land and aquascaping consists of driftwood, slate, permastone (concrete substitute), handifoam, silicone, bullseye shellac, sanitred, and much much more. Every effort was made to use fish-safe products and exceptionally sturdy construction.

- Aquatic plants consist of java fern, anuabis and java moss.

- Terrestial plants consist solely of a variety of mosses. Soon to be added to with additional leafy plants and air plants.

- Fauna consists of six Indian Mudsippers, three Orange Chromides, and one bottle of Tiger Pods, which appear to be thriving under the brackish conditions.

To finish my opening post, some pics of the tank in its current state. Awaiting the soon arrival of a shipment of mangrove.

[owenz]

The first piece I designed is now located on the right hand side of the tank. It started with a nice piece of cedar driftwood. Cedar? I know. Allegedly bad for fish. But I boiled and baked and soaked this wood until nothing could leach out. My idea was to bisect the stump and insert a slate platform between the pieces.

A hole was cut in the bottom half of the stump with some extremely unsafe chain saw work, and the slate was cut to size using a wet saw. As I said in my initial post, I wanted to put an emphasis on sturdy. This piece is very, very sturdy. After cutting the wood and building an initial platform, handifoam was used to create some artificial rocks to ring the "pool".

Some pictures below.

[Grimm]

Very cool. It'll look awesome in a few months once you get more plants and growth. Mudskippers are usually the highlight of my trips to the aquarium shop.

[owenz]

After building the basic structure for the first piece, the handifoam fake stone was coated with Activa Permastone, a concrete substitute that avoids the pH issues associated with regular concrete. The permastone was mixed with sand and acrylic paint for tint, resulting in a rather attractive looking final, standalone piece. After a coating of bullseye shellac for sealing purposes, I "dirtied up" the final piece with a final permastone/acrylic/sand finish to remove the artificial looking shine. One nice thing about the swampy biotope: grimy looks good.

[owenz]

The second piece, which is now located on the left side of the tank, was a more ambitious undertaking. Again, in the beginning, there was wood. A nice piece of hallow log driftwood, to be precise. After much cutting, hacking, grinding and sanding, I had the shape I wanted. Next up: to create three separate sections throughout the hallow log. This meant spraying handifoam into the log, then coating (and coating and coating) the foam with permastone and shellac to ensure total water proofing.

To follow: a painstaking process of creating shelved fake stone ringing and surrounding the log, as well as a slanted platform in front of the main "cave", supported by dried bamboo poles.

[owenz]

After biting off more than I could chew with the fake rock work, the final coating (and re-coating, etc.) with permastone and shellac took many hours. The final product was rather nice, however.

[owenz]

After creating my two bookend pieces, I moved onto what I call the "stump pool", which is now located in the back/middle of the tank. I created this largely from scratch, using silicone and handifoam to build an artificial stump from pieces of wood.

Missing from the pics is some of the final touch up work, which consisted of more permastone, acrylic, and some fake rock extruding from the front of the stump.

[owenz]

Because I never make anything easy, it was about this time that I decided I needed the extra water volume of a sump. How? Drill two one-inch holes in my new/used 72 gallon (purchased with stand on craigslist for $100!). Drilling glass is not fun. It took a solid hour of drilling (grinding, really) to produce the holes. I then built an overflow box from acrylic and silicone. This is not something I would recommend for beginners. I relied heavily on my fish-keeping experience for this part of the project.

After placing the main pieces in the tank, I realized I needed some additional height for the main pieces. Rather than use real slate, I created fake slate using Owens Corning insulating foam boards, coated with sanitred for waterproofing. Various fake slate shelves and ledges were created from foam boards, waterproofed, and affixed to the back of the tank with silicone.

[owenz]

After creating something that actually looked like a semi-attractive tank, I promptly made a mess of things creating a back wall of handifoam, while inserting six airline tubes for water features throughout the tank. The result wasn't pretty, but it would do the trick.

**Sorry for the blurry pics. My iPhone hand was not steady this day.

[owenz]

I should also add that the background includes an independent reservoir for distilled water and housing a Python fogger. Why? The real question is, why not? The box was built with foam board and silicone, and waterproofed with sanitred. It is now located in the top middle of the tank.

Again, because nothing is easy, it turns out that fog does not automatically spill forth from my container when the fogger is turned on. As a result, I needed to find a 5-watt, 1"x1" minifan, which (believe it or not) was originally designed to fit in a paintball mask for de-fogging purposes. I installed the fan in the lid of the fog receptacle, and hooked into the timer the fogger is wired into. The result: when the fogger turns on, the mini-fan blows the fog into the main tank. Breathtakingly cool, albeit totally unnecessary, given the high humidity in the tank that I would later have to address through separate fans to dry things out.