Touch Tank Ideas

[fabulousfavia]

Hello, I am interested in starting an invert touch tank. I was wondering if anyone has ever attempted one of these builds before and if so could they share suggestions.


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[ichthyogeek]

Well...what type of inverts are you thinking of? I'd assume you'd want urchins and starfish probably, and depending on species, those are pretty easy to keep. You'd probably want a depth of a foot or so (plus or minus inches due to some people having really long/short arms), but you'd also want a larger kinda tank.

[fabulousfavia]

Originally Posted by ichthyogeek

Well...what type of inverts are you thinking of? I'd assume you'd want urchins and starfish probably, and depending on species, those are pretty easy to keep. You'd probably want a depth of a foot or so (plus or minus inches due to some people having really long/short arms), but you'd also want a larger kinda tank.

I am going to do horseshoe crabs for sure as I know how to feed them and they are super cool. I am also thinking about tuxedo or pincushion urchins, linikia and chocolate chip sea stars, slipper lobster(s), maybe an arrow or shame face crab, maybe a Yellow Sea cuke (have not been known to cause tank crashes), some blennies, maybe chitons. I may want to do acrylic though. None of these choices are definite except for the horseshoe crabs. I also would like to include some sea grass and macro algae.


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[ichthyogeek]

Ok..you know how to feed them...but will you have the space to keep them? I know that they like large amounts of open space, even juveniles. And if one gets too big, will you have someplace to keep it? It seems that they get prettttty big as adults, and I'd think they'd need almost cownose ray level requirements of space (which is a lot)...

I know that choc chip sea stars are more beginner stars, so that's good, but will a linkia be able to do well in the tank?

Macros, you'd be better off asking in the macro/mangroves subforum. I know that C. prolifera would be better than seagrass though, since seagrass needs 8"+ of substrate, and the horseshoe crab would most likely dig up any seagrass you had.

[fabulousfavia]

Originally Posted by ichthyogeek

Ok..you know how to feed them...but will you have the space to keep them? I know that they like large amounts of open space, even juveniles. And if one gets too big, will you have someplace to keep it? It seems that they get prettttty big as adults, and I'd think they'd need almost cownose ray level requirements of space (which is a lot)...

I know that choc chip sea stars are more beginner stars, so that's good, but will a linkia be able to do well in the tank?

Macros, you'd be better off asking in the macro/mangroves subforum. I know that C. prolifera would be better than seagrass though, since seagrass needs 8"+ of substrate, and the horseshoe crab would most likely dig up any seagrass you had.

Good call as the horseshoe crab would likely uproot the seagrass. It would be cool to to mangroves though and it is perfect timing as I am growing out some seed pods that I hand collected. But then I would definitely want to make the tank acrylic. For the amount of room I know it will have to be large but probably not cow nose Ray size. What dimensions do you think it would have to be. Not sure about the linickia so I will do more research. I definitely want slipper lobsters so that means I should probably do a rock Island in two corners of the tank and mangroves in two others also spanning the back. Having things in the corners will also prevent the horseshoe crabs from getting stuck (I put the horseshoe crab I have now in my 55g display and he kept getting hung up in the corners). I will want this to look like a mangrove lagoon (I have snorkels at the horseshoe in Marathon Key and it was a beautiful mangrove lagoon except when my snorkel partner accidentally kicked an upside down jellyfish [a cool species but hard to maintain and not touch tank friendly] and it released all of it's stinging cells in the water and we probably got stung a billion times anyways that's what I want it to look like).


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