My freshwater reef tank

I kept living freshwater sponge, copepods and isopods, and limpets a few years ago in a small tank and it did okay for about 6 months fed on phytoplankton and a yeast solution. As soon as I added fish the nutrient increase from the fish waste killed the sponge within about a month.

I am planning on trying them again and bryozoans in a slightly larger tank (40L arc tank) with a pump for circulation with media removed. A HOB filter with ceramic media, on a timer 3 hours on and 3 hours off for aerobic and anaerobic filtration. I will be dosing a carbon source (daily) and my own cultured bacteria(once a week) with weekly water changes to try to keep nutrients down. The tank will have a thin gravel layer with a fair amount of rock work.

Live stock will include;

Freshwater sponge; spongilla lacustris
Bryozoans; Lophopus crystallinus (which grows in my dads pond)
cherry shrimp
Freshwater limpets
Isopods and copepods
white cloud mountain minnows x3
aquatic moss

Feeding regime will be a small amount of flake and granular food daily, small amount of green algae and yeast solution every 3 days

Will update when the tank is up and running...

 

My sponges from 2 years ago

 

Can't wait to see it.

 

Lake Baikal in Russia is the oldest freshwater lake and the deepest, there are a lot of different sponge species there with associated shrimp, here a few videos from youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vA8iBfJTCbc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03-xqZ9D1UY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dRFDwqYeqs