3. Aquatic Habitats System
a. Overview
Originally designed to house Zebrafish, we have adapted it to raising our frogs. This flow through system uses re-circulated water, which passes through mesh particle filters, biological filters, charcoal filters, and UV sterilizing lamps. Our system has a water reservoir, which is filled with City water. An overflow pipe in the sump under the tanks allows a constant partial water change, adjustable to any rate of flow from a small trickle to a large flow. We keep the overflow at a slow trickle (we have not yet measured the volume of the flow), and increase it when we need to lower ammonia levels or adjust pH.
Note: The Aquatic Habitats drip system described here should not be confused with the drip system built by our lab. The Aquatic Habitats system was pre-built and assembled by the company in our facility.
Tank sizes originally given by Aquatic Habitats were 1 liter, 3 liter and 9 liters. These are the sizes we refer to in all of our web information. Aquatic Habitats has recently begun to refer to the tanks as 1.5 liter, 3 liter and 10 liters in size, respectively. We have not changed the information on the website, but are including this note here to avoid confusion when others are ordering tanks.
1 liter tank is now called 1.5 liter. Catalog order #: PT116 (complete set)
3 liter tank is still called 3 liter. Catalog order #: PT216 (complete set)
9 liter tank is now called 10 liter. Catalog order #: (PT916) (complete set)
The AHAB system works very well for us as a nursery and allows us to raise large numbers of tadpoles with minimum effort. Additionally, the racks and the tanks pack tightly so space can be efficiently used to house a number of animals. For example we take advantage of 1 liter tanks to isolate individuals or pairs.
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Aquatic Habitats self- cleaning flow through system with 9 liter tanks. |
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| Figure 37 Large 9 liter tanks with 2 inflow tubes running to each tank (a). |
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| Figure 38 Water reservoir tank automatically refills system |
Figure 39 Blue canisters hold two 200 micron particle filter socks and one 800 micron carbon filter sock. White horizontal tube contains UV sterilizing bulbs. |
We originally used two 50 micron particle filter socks and one 100 micron carbon filter sock in the filter canisters. This is what is used by zebrafish facilities, and was originally recommended to us. We now use the 50 micron filters in all the filter canisters to capture more debris. We have been changing the filters every 7- 10 days.
