Ted’s Fishroom

A Visit to

Rusty Wessel’s

Fish House

March, 2008

 

Rusty Wessel is a well known aquarist, aquarium speaker, fish collecter and advocate of cichlid conservation.  He is a Fellow of the American Cichlid Association, and has dedicated many years of service to that organization in various capacities.  He is a strong supporter of the aquarium hobby internationally, nationally and locally.  His explorations in Central America and Mexico have brought science and the hobby invaluable information about ecosystems and new species.  Rusty has been honored for his dedication to cichlids by having one of his fish discoveries named after him, Theraps wesseli (Miller, 1996).

I met Rusty for the first time around 1990.  We have been in sporadic contact over the years, but have communicated and run into each other at aquarium events more frequently over the past four years (ever since I became more involved with the ACA).  I had the opportunity to visit Rusty during a trip to speak at a Louisiville Tropical Fish Fanciers club meeting, which is Rusty’s local club.

Rusty has a building dedicated to his hobby, The Wessel Fish House, that is a wonderfully designed facility.  It is an excellent example of high tech simplicity.  It is also a beautiful piece of architechture.

The main room is split level.  The upper level has two rows of aquariums.  The racks are stair-stepped, with the upper tanks overlapping the lower tanks.  This area has mostly medium size tanks full of small to medium size cichlids, and smaller tanks for rearing fry.

The lower level is an elongated horseshoe of large aquariums housing an incredible collection of mostly larger cichlids.

The whole room is nicely finished and decorated with some of the art and souveniers Rusty has brought back from his trips.  There are also a lot of live plants, mostly cacti and other succulants, around the room.  Temperature is controlled with an in-floor radiant heating system.  The tanks are not filtered.  Instead, Rusty has installed an automated water change system which provides all th tanks a small water change every day.  This means that the whole fish house is almost maintenance-free, which is what lets Rusty travel as much as he does.  He does have a helper who checks on the room, feeds and does other routine tasks while he is gone, but the bulk of the work… water changes… are not a hassle.

The water change system is a basic bulkhead overflow system with spigot refill.  The big difference is how the system is controlled.  A collection of timers runs the system on different zones.  When a cycle starts, a timer triggers a solonoid valve that opens the bulkhead drains on one bank of tanks.  The water drains down to the level of the drain bulkhead in the tank and stops.  The timer then closes the first solonoid valve and opens the solonoid that controls the flow of water to the spigots over the tanks.  The water flows in long enough to fill the tanks.  There are overflow bulkheads at the top of each tank to prevent a tank from overfilling.  Here is a look at a set of solonoid valves.  These systems are also used in sprinkler systems for lawns and landscaping.  They are not hard to figure out, and are surprisingly inexpensive.  I had a very similar system of timers and valves to irrigate my landscaping at my home in Arizona, and the total cost was abot $500.

Rusty keeps species that can handle the hard, alkaline water that comes from his tap.  He uses city water that he prefilters through a professional grade carbon canister filter (like what is often used as a prefilter for water softener sytems in homes).  There are also water heaters to take the chill out of the water before sending it to the tanks.  Here is a look at the equipment the tap water comes into (the carbon filter is not visible).  It may look complicated, but some good advice from a good plumber or household water system company would enable anyone to build a system like this… or just hire the plumber!

The aquariums are not lit by lights directly over the tanks.  The room is lit in three ways.  There are south and west facing windows that capture a lot of sunlight.  The windows were specifically designed and placed to direct light onto the aquariums.  I was not able to see the room in its full lighting glory, which happens everyday early to mid afternoon, but I did see the effect when late afternoon sun hit a bank of tanks on the upper level.  Natural sunlight is the way to go if you can make it happen.  The ceiling also has several solor collectors that funnel light, with mirrors, from the roof into the room.  These units are very bright, and some are directional and let Rusty direct light onto a specific area of aquariums.  The last way the room is lit is with some electric lighting overhead so that the room can be used at night.  Here is a look at one of the solar collectors.

Most of the species of fish in Rusty’s fish house he collected himself in Central America and Mexico.  He also has some African rift lake tanks that he has been maintaining for many years that have self-sustaining populations of various cichlids.  One of Rusty’s favorite groups of fish are the cichlids of the genus Thorichthys, of which he has some of every species.  Here are some of his Thorichthys.

  

Rusty’s collection also includes some real tank busters.  Here is a picture of a Theraps bifasciatus, followed by some of his other larger species.

   

Rusty’s collection does not neglect the ‘dwarf’ species from Central America.  One of his discoveries is the popular Archocentrus/Cryptoheros (you pick) sp. ‘Honduran Red Point’.  Here is a picture of one the the fish he originally collected.  The second picture shows some of the offspring from this wild group.  If you are one of the many hobbyists debating what the HRP is supposed to look like, this is it!

Some other small species in the fish house are this breeding pair of Cryptoheros nanoluteus and a wild strain of Archcentrus/Cryptoheros (you choose again) nigrofasciatus.

One of the realities in the hobby is that there are several species of Central American cichlid being pond bred in large numbers in Florida.  This is a good thing, so long as blood lines are kept healthy and hybridization can be avoided.  One of the most well established species is the jack dempsey, Rocio octofasciata.  One important contribution travelling aquarists can make to the hobby is to bring new blood lines of established species back to be bred and spread around.  Here is a picture of one of Rusty’s wild Rocio sp. (it may not be R. octofasciata).

Cichlids are not the only fish Rusty has brought back from Central America.  he has a lot of liveberers, like this Xiphophorus helleri, that he keeps in the same tanks as his cichlids (but not with the large predators). 

 

 Rusty’s collection of rift lake cichlids includes a large colony of lime-spot Tropheus moorei and a colony of these C. frontosa.

 

 Here is a picture of the Lake Malawi community tank, which also has a few ‘contaminant’ species in the mix.  There are some Central American catfish and cichlids, and a very large (though still a baby) Oreochromis tanganyikae.  This tilapine species from Lake Tanganyika grows to be very large and very colorful.

 

 Rusty also enjoys ponds and koi.  Here is his established pond with a waterfall and many koi.

 

  

Rusty is building a much larger pond next to his fish house.  It is as long as the house, about 12 feet wide and 7 feet deep.  The filter system will have a 7000 gallon capacity!  The pond itself…  I do not know, but it is at least 20,000 gallons.  Rusty has already been colecting the koi for this pond.  They are being kept over Winter in his basement until the pond is ready for them.  Rusty made it sound like he had a dozen or so fish.  What he really meant is that there were a dozen or so vats with a dozen or so fish each.  This new pond, and the koi it will be home to, will be amazing.

   

The cement box at the back end of the pond is the filter housing, and will be under a finished deck with seating.  I can’t wait to get a chance to see this pond completed.

Thank you, Rusty, for the chance to visit your home and fish house.  I have had heard so many good things about it, and I was not dissappointed.  I really do look forward to another chance to hang out, and hopefully I can be there when the sunlight hits the tanks.