biodives

Thanks for all the tips. I did cycle back to pick up the metronidazole, the last bottle left at Big Al's. But by the time I got home the fish had gone to bluer pastures I could not find any of the other meds mentioned at Big Al's or Petland, both within my cycling range, but will check next time I get to Aquarium Central. Based on this experience I would like to have some meds at hand so I can start treatment ASAP, but on the other side don't want to have a whole collection some of which I'll never need/use. Is there a small set of go-to medicines that are worth stocking up on in advance? It seems that medications for itch and other external parasite as well as fungal infections are widely available, so I can get them when needed. If I just get Clout or Jungle Parasite Clear, would that cover most bases or are there others that people consider must-haves. Or maybe I should talk the Edmonton fish club into starting a little pharmacy.

If it is a single small tank going with commercial solutions takes less thinking/risking and won't cost too much. If it is a big tank or the first of many I would go with a play sand cover layer and organic/clay bottom layer. I was just looking at clays today and Edmonton has a clay specialty store for pottery that would be interesting to check out. Originally I was going to dig up some bentonite clay from the river valley but discovered that there are different bentonites that use different metal ions: magnesium, calcium, barium, iron, potassium, or sodium. I guess the latter is the safest choice and it apparently is exactly what some "all-natural" cat litter material is made off. Somebody just brought up cat litter as a cheap and easy substrate material in another thread last week, so I bet this is how that would work. I would still add some organic material as well. Either organic, non-fertilized, potting soil or peat moss. Someone on the net also used vermiculite as a component for his substrate and this is another variety of clay. So many choices but I expect that many of them do the work so no need to overthink. In my last project I actually just dug up dirty sand from a pool in the river valley and used the blackish goo as the bottom layer. It worked so far but on my next tank I will try the clay/organics approach.

Thanks Andrew. Sounds like I may have to cycle over to my LFS once again. They will start to think I'm working there But it is a great fish so it would be a shame if he didn't make it.

Actually the central filter/aquaponics idea isn't the main focus. It could just be a thin sheet of (black) plastic or something that more closely resembles a river bank. I just need something to separate the front and back halves of the tank so the water will circle around it. The filter/aquaponics gives the separator another useful function, but it also reduces the amount of space left to the fish, so I may be better off to keep it simple. What I'd like to know is if a "linear-flow" river biotope has been set up before using a central separator with the water flowing around it in circles.

This thread doesn't fully fit any of the forum topics but since it will have plants I've decided to put it here. Now that my planted Orinoco biotope is running smoothly I am looking at starting a second tank. So far I am just in the planning stage but I have not been able to find any examples of the tank I am planning to build which means it is either a stupid idea or it is original (or I am not good with Google). Anyway, I thought I ask here to see if this has been done before and, if not, if there are good reasons not to even try. The motivation is to recreate a river stream where all water flows linearly in one direction. In typical aquariums the pump creates circulation that bounces of the glass and flows in all directions, which is rather unnatural. There are a few web pages that discuss such a tank with (powerful) pumps on one end and water intakes on the other, connected by under-gravel tubing. This gives a semi linear flow but with ugly pumps and sponge-covered inlets on both ends. It also feels unnatural to me that the "river" starts and stops at each end of the tank. The tank that I have in mind is a 48x24x12 inch "coral fragment tank", apparently used to grow pieces of coral. My plan is to put a 3 foot divider right in the middle, or perhaps a wider center island acting as a filter/aquaponics with emerged plants on top. This separates the tank for the middle section but both ends are connected. So seen from the top it looks like a squarish "O" with circulation pumps on each end to create a linear water flow that circles around. See image below. The aquarium can be viewed from both sides giving two times 4' of river habitat. I could also place the separating wall a bit off center to give a narrow side with high flow rate and a wider side with slower flow rate. In the image below I have placed both pumps on the narrow side which is the side close to the wall where they will be less conspicuous. I have a nice spot separating my living room and kitchen that is just the right size for such a tank and with wall outlets in the right place. I would still have to think on how to light the tank and whether to have a simple central divider or a filter/aquaponics centerpiece. I would place giant hairgrass and some long stem plants that bend with the current along the river bed and possibly some plants that grow over the edge of the centerpiece and float along the water surface. I don't plan to make it a supercharged current (though that could be nice for loaches and other critters that like turbulent rivers) but certainly one that is more prominent than the general planted or community tank. Anyone seen something like this before? or having suggestions that I haven't thought of?

Thanks Jason. Apparently Big Al's carries it so I will try to get some tomorrow. New Life Spectrum's small fry starter may also come in handy as my Apistos may be getting close to the point where they can take it. At the moment the sick Apisto isn't eating so that would be a problem for the Thera-A formula but hopefully the paraguard will help enough to get the appetite back up. Is this the kind of food that would be good to feed occasionally in a preventative manner, as it does not seem to contain any harsh medicines and be a good form of nutrition in its own right.

One of my Apistogramma stopped eating at the start of this week and now has long "empty" strings of poop. It looks like a thin sausage without filling. He was still coming out at feedings but not eager to bite and it he did he would immediately spit it out again. He might bite it a few times in a row but never swallow. From what I've been reading here and elsewhere, Jungle Parasite Clear would be a good med but they don't have it at Big Al's or Petland. Walmart had it but it is out of stock. I have put the patient in a 10 gallon quarantine tank with Seachem Paraguard as treatment. The description reads as if it is mild enough that it shouldn't hurt, but it also focuses on ectoparasites whereas I think I'm dealing with a disease that is gastrointestinal origin. Any advice on whether Paraguard may work, what else to try, and/or where to get Jungle Parasite Clear in Edmonton. Thx. Bart

Frustrating perhaps, but also exciting. Chances are they will mate again giving you time to prepare.

Two new additions. First off, I finally found the dwarf salt&pepper cory, Corydoras habrosus, at Big Al's and bought a dozen. Here is a picture of a pair hanging out on the Myriophyllum mattogrossense, which is now so large that it completely hides the pump and heater. The next development is that the big sword plant, Echinodorus bleheri, has started to make a reproductive stalk. So far it is only the stalk but the adventitious plantlets can't be far off. Perhaps I will have some plants to put up for sale on the next ACE auction. The number of Apistogramma babies has gone down to 20-30, with some being snatched up by the red phantoms despite mom's best efforts to protect them. Dad is the only fish that is allowed to get close to the babies and he does not eat them but he isn't really helping out either. Mom has to do all the work. I have started adding some freshly hatched brine shrimp nauplii with a turkey baster and mom doesn't seem to mind too much. The babies are eating some but not as well as I had hoped. Hopefully they will get the hang of it soon as I find them a bit skinny. However, they are growing and have a bit more color/patterning than before, in particular the white dashed on the caudal peduncle.

I have been looking in vain for Cabomba in several stores for over two months. Since it is produced by Tropica I thought it would be commonly available but when I asked about the possibility to bring in Cabomba aquatica I was told importation of Cabomba is prohibited. Checking on Canada customs, only Cabomba caroliana is listed as a potential pest (and it has become an invasive species in some provinces, Ontario I believe), but its status is "not regulated". Anyways, Cabomba aquatica and C. furcata are tropical species that should pose no risk to Canadian natural waters. Does anyone know if all Cabomba is indeed off limits or it not, where it can be purchased. If it is off limits, do any of you have C. aquatica, or know someone who does, and can spare/sell some. I would be willing to give C. furcata a try as well but probably needs more light/CO2 than I can give it right now. I'll pass on C. caroliana as it does not occur naturally in the Orinoco basin.

Impressive, and I'm not just talking about the size.

Just over two weeks have gone by and I wanted to give a brief update. The main reason is that the Apistogramma macmasteri pair has just produced their first spawn and the female is proudly parading her young in front of the driftwood. They are hard to count but I estimated there are 30 to 40 of the little ones. The female had been behaving as if she was guarding eggs, chasing the phantoms away and only coming out briefly when I was feeding. But I had spent so much time watching the tank that I was sure they could not have mated without me noticing. I regret not having seen their nuptials but am mostly glad to see baby fish. The Myriophyllum has continued its growth and is due to reach the tank surface in just over a week or so. As it grows it is also getting more and more light and starting to get very nice and wide feathery leaves. The sword plant is still adding 2-3 leafs a week and they now grow 50cm tall to touch the surface. The hornwort has slowed down a bit and has become a little thinner and less attractive. The goal was to replace it with Cabomba aquatica but I still haven't found any. I did find the Corydoras habrosus that I was looking for and was planning to pick them up this weekend but may hold off to see what happens with the baby fish. Very happy :)

I have looked at a lot of LED lights online but had not come across this one. Quite different from any of the others I have seen and decent price for 550 lumens.

I just bought a smallish plastic tub, 14x9.5x9.5" and a aluminized muffin pan which fits perfectly on it and can even be "clipped in" using the clips that normally hold the lid. The, perhaps wild, idea is to use it as a heatsink and place a 1 watt LED in each of the 12 muffin wells. The wells can act a little as a reflector, or perhaps just as a nice cup to protect the LED. I am not a handyman and certainly not an electrician based on what I've been reading the current LED systems are pretty much plug & play, a bit more advanced that LEGO but not that much. That said it may become a great fiasco but it will certainly be a nice learning experience. If things progress I will post a DIY thread later. Cheers, Bart

and the very thin vertical unbranched roots also suggest duckweed. I have them and like them. If they are as good in removing nitrogen as Jason says, then I like them even more. And they remove waste products without competing for CO2, as they take that from the air.

I have bought a very nice LED light for my living room display tank but it is too expensive to buy a bunch of them for smaller tanks I hope to get. I've looked at DIY LED lights as well as LED bulbs designed for hydroponics. With teaching starting tomorrow I will have limited time in the near future but am collecting ideas and your tub is one that has gone onto the idea list.

Nice and simple. What do you use for lighting?

Thanks for the feedback and appreciation for the planted tank. I agree with your stated benefits and costs of larger tanks but I am already contemplating a larger tank for next year, assuming my Condo flooring is up to the higher load. I'd also like to get a few smaller tanks to experiment and hopefully raise some fry. A low-tech tank does avoid some of the higher costs your mention. I don't use a canister filter, CO2 supplementation, chemicals, and (almost) no fertilizer so I expect electricity for heat and 60W LED lighting will dominate the monthly charge. I'm also starting to grow my own life food (Daphnia and red wriggler worms) and hope to get that going before the winter sets in. So far heating has not really been necessary for the first month where the tank ran at 26/27 degrees without any heating, just the Edmonton summer warmth, plus the 5 or 6 watts from the internal filter pump. I recently placed one 150W heater set to 24 degrees but most of the time it is not active because the tank is warmer than that just relying on solar heat warming my living room (it is a very well insulated house so it stays warm, even during the night, without heating). Of course that will all change soon and I will likely need to my second 150 Watt heater, which is good as a redundant fail-safe anyway. Another recurring cost may be reverse osmosis membranes and associated filters, but I have to wait and see how long they last. Many people, or at least youtube videos, use potting soil under a layer of sand as the substrate. To me that is more artificial than using a natural soil. I just had to make sure my dirt wasn't contaminated with any chemicals, that is why I went into the river valley. It is a natural aquatic soil with organics from surrounding deciduous trees and, I assume, the kinds of bacteria that are suitable for such an environment. As I said, I am not advocating this for general use but is something I wanted to experiment with and so far it has worked well. I will can't say it worked better than potting soil as I didn't use that as a control experiment. If I get a bunch of smaller tanks I may do something a little more elaborate to see if my approach sped up the cycling of the tank.

The, by far, best description of the issues surrounding the perennial question "can my floor support my tank" is at this link: http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/aquarium_weight.php, written by a structural engineer who has actually investigated floor collapses. It is long and detailed, but well-written and worth sitting down for it you are interested in how things work. If not, the finally paragraph is useful in itself: "I apologize that there are no easy answers or quick fixes. All I've really done is throw some doubt into your mind which maybe isn't so bad. I just don't want anyone to rush out and buy that 180-gallon tank and put it in the middle of the floor based upon some faulty newsgroup logic."

Good luck and I am jealous of the large number of tanks you and many others have. I definitely need to get a few more to experiment with different plants, fishes, and conditions.

If you would like to have lights on longer in your tank can't you reduce the power to let's say 75% and add 2 hours to the day length. I have just extended my day length to 11.5 hours and will wait and see how the tank responds. One other plant I'm looking at is Cabomba aquatica. It should be ok for a low-tech plant and apparently easier than Myriophyllum. It would over time replace the hornwort, which is doing well but not my favourite plant and it needs too frequent trimming.

Hi SIF I started out with the preprogrammed "sunlight" setting (the orange button on the remote) for 10.5 hours/day. I guess that is the same setting you use. I used the remote to check what settings this actually corresponds to (just use the up/down buttons to see the percentage for each colour) and I believe it was 100% white, 100% red, 50% green and 0% blue. Hence the warmer tone than the "full spectrum" that has everything at 100%. Because plants use red and blue for photosynthesis and reflect most of the green I tried out 100% white, 100% red, 100% blue, and 0% green and liked the result. I have that now programmed for my "daytime" setting. It is a bit cooler than the "sunlight" setting but I have some tannins in the water so that warms up the colour. Perhaps give it a try. As of this week I have increased day length from 10.5 to 11 hours and intend to slowly ramp it up to about 12 hours/day, which should be close to daylight duration year round in the tropics. I also appreciate having the lights on so I can enjoy the tank when I am actually at home. What is the rationale of using the much shorter day length you and others are using? A Current USA brochure rates the light at 100+ PAR at 12" depth which is very bright and they list it as suitable for "high light level" plants. I find that on a 24" tall tank it is certainly not too bright and less bright than I had expected, even in the areas without floating plants. So I am glad I didn't go with the more basic Satellite Plus model or other less powerful LED lights. For a 24" tall CO2/fertilized tank I expect you would need two or an even more powerful unit. I bet it is quite a bit brighter on your 14" tall tank though. At the moment my most demanding plant, listed as "medium" on Tropica, is Myriophyllum mattogrossense. It had a hard time the first 2 weeks when it was just 2" tall but it is now 6" and much happier. I hope it will do even better as it keeps growing towards the light. I also hope to get in some Tonina fluviatilis which is supposed to be very demanding and not really suitable for a low-tech tank. My hopes are not very high for that one but it will be in an interesting challenge.

The fish pt. 3 The last addition has been a pair of Apistogramma macmasteri. Apistogramma hongsloi would have been a better match for the biotope but they seem to be very hard to get in Edmonton unless you go for special breeds with unnatural bright red colouration. A. macmasteri and A. hongsloi (as are A. viejeta, and A. hognoi) are all closely related and the macs were just too pretty to resist. This pair was acting like a pair in the store and I hope that in time they will turn to mating in my tank as well. Like in nature, they swim close to the substrate and take mouthfuls of sand and detritus which they sieve through their gills. They have started eating micropellets and bloodworms but need to get a bit more assertive during feeding to compete with the phantoms. They are however very good at spotting and picking up pieces of food that have fallen on the substrate, something the phantoms are not good at. A. macmasteri female (left) and male (right) Apart from trimming the hornwort I have not yet cleaned windows or substrate. I do clean the pump filter about once a week and occasionally thin out some of the floating plants if they start to create too much shadow. So far I have added about 2 x 2.5ml of Flourish (micro nutrients) after big RO water replacements because I was afraid I was diluting out too many of the micro nutrients they need. Those are really small doses for a 90 gallon tank and I hope/plan to keep fertilizer additions to a minimum now that I’m down to water top-ups and just small 5 gallon/week or so water replacements. But my plants will tell me if I can get away with that. In the Netherlands we sometimes used a syringe to inject clay slurry around plant roots and I may give that a try with some of the bentonite clays you can find in the river valley (after testing it is not a calcium/magnesium rich clay). I bet growth would have been even faster and plants more lush with CO2 and more fertilisation but I am pretty happy. So far the main mistake has been the top layer of small pebbles. Reading more about the morichales biotopes it is clear they normally have just fine sand with some dirt, leafs and branches/roots. I got most of the pebbles out while leaving the water, red phantoms and plants in the tank. Decidedly not the ideal way of doing things but that is what happens if you are too eager to get started before completing the required reading and watching of underwater biotope footage. Anyway, I’ve been having lots of fun and am happy with the results so far. I’ll update when new additions, triumphs or tribulations happen and hope to learn some Canadian tricks on aquarium keeping in the process. Cheers, Bart

The fish pt. 2 A week after the phantoms and about a month after starting the tank I added 7 otocinclus. Stores I checked don’t tend to include the species name but based on some studying I found what I believe to be O. vittatus, which has the widest distribution and is one of only two otos that can be found in Venezuela and Colombia. So far, they much prefer scraping the windows, plants and hardwoods and leaving the delicious zucchini mostly untouched. I take that as a good sign and a benefit of not cleaning the tank too much. I have been reading some scientific papers about them and may write something up later. Close-up showing the "teeth" on each scale. Males have a different arrangement of these teeth on the tail base and I want to see if at some point I can get a picture of that.

The fish pt. 1 Two weeks after filling the tank I added a school of 16 red phantom tetras. I like them because they are very lively with a lot of intra-species display and rivalry, but no inter-species aggression. I also like their deep body shape and pretty fins that they like to display fully stretched out. There are larger and more colourful look-alikes, such as the serpae tetra or bleeding hearts, but the red phantoms are the only ones found in my biotope. They are described as being peaceful but I relearned that they are also very fast and ferocious feeders so I may have to reduce the size of the school if they prevent slower or more timid feeders from getting any food. Another reason for getting them first is that they are pretty hardy. At the start they were struggling with the size of micropellets (Hikari) and I had to crush them before feeding. But now they gobble them down at an amazing speed. Red phantom tetras (Hyphessobrycon sweglesi) female left, male right On one occasion they were showing mating behaviour before the lights went on. This happened the day after I remove the pebbles as much as I could manage. It seemed like a major disturbance and the aquarium was very cloudy until the pump could clear things up. I don't know if they got in mating mood despite my disturbance or if it reminded them of the start of the rainy season?