Aquatic Insect Starter Pack

Description

The Aquatic Insect Starter Pack solves the problem of uncertainty for new keepers. New keepers often wonder which types can live together and how many can live in a particular aquarium with respect to volume.

We have selected the following quantities on the basis of a 5 or 10 gallon tank. Obviously, a 10 gallon could hold many more aquatic insects but spacing is a subjective thing. More bugs = more activity, of course. Please feel free to ask about adding other species to your tank (see related products, below and in our aquatic insects section of the website).

The Aquatic Insect Starter Pack includes:

1 Rhantus atricolor diving beetle
1 Rhantus gutticollis “gold” diving beetle
1 Thermonectus nigrofasciatus diving beetle
2 Small water scavenger beetles (species vary)
3 Small backswimmers (species vary)
2 Water boatmen (species vary)
3 very small random aquatic beetles (species vary)
1 Ramshorn snail

If there is anything in the above group that you don’t want, we are happy to remove it from your shipment (no discount, no substitutions, sorry).

Overnight shipping is highly recommended, especially if temps in transit will be near freezing or over 83 degrees.

We drop dead insects and fish food pellets (related products, below) into our communal tanks that include these active, little aquatic insects. We also recommend that you drop a few leaves from your yard into the tank (no chemicals/pesticide residues) to provide food for the scavengers. This will help to start an algae cycle in the tank and microbial cycle that will benefit the little ecosystem you are building. Filters should be higher up in the tank. We like to use them but they are not necessary. They do, however, minimize how frequently you need to clean your tank. Placed too low, more powerful filters may suck your smallest insects into them. We do recommend floating a piece of bark, etc. on the surface. Many beetles do like to climb out for an hour or two, sometimes.

We will soon embed a video on this page about “how to put a tank together” for this starter group. Stay tuned, but for the sake of inspiration, check this video out of one of our larger tanks…

@bugsincyberspace

Diving beetles and other aquatic insects in the aquarium are fun to watch #aquaticinsect #freshwateraquarium #aquariumhobby #divingbeetle

♬ Barracuda – Heart