biodives

The plants I just moved from a house with a pond and took out some of the pond plants to at least have them start up the tank. I didn't expect the hornwort, duckweed, and frogbit that handle Edmonton winters in the pond outside would survive the 26-27C tank water but they all did just fine. The hornwort literally thrives growing at least an inch a day. I also added Pistia stratiotes (water lettuce I think it is called here) which does not survive Edmonton winters but is fine outside during the summer and in the tank. All these plants and a piece of drift wood were added right after the water had been cleared by the pump. A week later I added Echinodorus bleheri (swordplant), Myriophyllum mattogrossense, Lilaeopsis brasiliensis, and Helanthium tenellum (aka Echinodorus tenellus, micro-swordplant, at least I think it is the same thing). All produced by Tropica. A week after that I added a very tall, 50+cm, bunch of Eleocharis (hairgrass) for which I haven't figured out the exact species name yet, but it looks great and is a very typical plant for the biotope I'm modeling. Outside the current, some of the stalks stick some 10cm above the water surface in the 24” high tank while those in the current are bending from the left-back corner all the way to the surface halfway the tank (check the LED light image in the first post). I hope this becomes a much bigger bush. So far all plants and fish are doing well. The hornwort needs trimming 1 or 2 times a week. The big swordplant makes 3 new leafs a week and each leaf takes a week to reach its full 35cm or so size. The Myriophyllum was slow to catch on and started out with very pale/whitish top leafs but is now bright pale green and growing 1cm a day. The microsword is creating runners with new plantlets, as is the Lilaeopsis but that one is spreading pretty slow so far. The Eleocharis is in the back and I haven’t really kept an eye on its growth yet but it has made new shoots and seems happy. Sword plant (Echinodorus bleheri) when just bought and 3 weeks later Myriophyllum mattogrossense when just bought (with white top leafs) and 3 weeks later Helanthium tenellum mother plant in back and runner with new plantlets in front Tiny tuft of Lileaopsis brasiliensis taken with macro lens. So far my least favourite plant because it is too dense and doesn't leave fish access to the substrate if it forms a lawn. I'm again pushing max upload file size limits so will postpone the fish to the final message.

I learned the ropes of keeping planted aquariums in the Netherlands where low-tech tanks were the norm and as a kid also the only way to keep things affordable. I can now afford to spend the money, and I will if it is something I want, but there is a certain satisfaction to the simplicity of a low-tech tank. Some of my methods may go against common wisdom so if you want to try this at home do so at your own risk Before getting started I’ll first show a picture of the tank as it is now after 5 weeks The tank The tank is a 90 gallon 48x18x24" all glass aquarium. It used to have a wooden hood and two 32 watt standard 4' tube lights. However, the hood has to be removed to get to the bottom of the tank so I took it off and it is now a completely open tank without hood or glass lid. The tank is placed along a Northern wall without direct sunlight but some ambient light from the living room. It is also not in a high-traffic zone so less disturbance for the fish. The light I replaced the tube lights with a 48" Current USA Satellite Plus Pro LED light. It is a 60 watt LED light with build-in programmable timer and dimmer. You can also program the intensity settings for the white, red, green, and blue LEDs independently. At 350-400CAD it is not something I would get in my student days, but it should last a looong time, save on energy and the light it produces and the unit itself look very smart. I also like the programmed dimmer that simulates a 15 minutes sunrise and sunset. It is very thin and sits very low above the water, but I have not seen any heat or light burn on the floating plants. LED lights showing the white (6500K full spectrum), with the colour LEDs shown as purple as I'm only running the blue and purple, leaving the green off. The substrate In the Netherlands we would often use sand with a thin layer of small pebbles on top as the substrate. Despite the typical washing or even boiling recommendations we would specifically use "dirty sand" to avoid making the bottom too sterile. This time I went a step further and took my bike into the river valley and dug up about 1.5 gallon of dirt from a little pool. The first pool overwhelmed me with a sulfur odour that even Shrek would have found offensive. A second pool was more sandy with some small stones, black/grey gunk, but no offensive smell. That soil was harvested and I took out 4 gallons of water. The muck went in a layer along the back half of the tank, covered with 1-2" of sand recycled from a tank that I took down several years ago and 3-5mm pebbles went on top of that. The idea was that the gunk and water would kick-start a natural bacterial composition, using the substrate and plants as my biological filter. It also provided some tubifex like worms and other weird wormy oddities but nothing that looked dangerous. Muck added to tank with two remaining gallons of "magic water" on top After adding a top layer of sand and pebbles The water I filled the tank with the 4 gallons of pool water and the rest was just untreated tap water. It gave the perfect recreation of a South American white water stream biotope, completely clouded over by the high concentration of fine particulates. An old small internal filter, rated for up to 50 gallon tanks (I think it does theoretically 200 gallon/hr), with just some filter wool in a basket. That cleared out the water in a day or two, but leaving a fine dusting on the bottom. In my book a bit of dirt is just fine and closer to the real situation in nature, but it may not appeal to everyone. I am modeling a Venezuelan/Colombian clear water "morichales" biotope that has very soft and acidic water. In contrast to the black water biotopes, morichales are heavily planted and have all the kinds of fish I love, including cichlids and tetras. But Edmonton water is hard and basic so I purchased a small RO-buddy reverse osmosis unit (90CAD from Amazon) rated at 50 gallon/day max, and producing about 30 gallon/day with my water pressure. There may be better choices but so far it is doing well and hardness of tankwater has gone down from 315ppm to 50ppm. The pH is still at 7.3 and I am now experimenting with peat and leafs to try to bring the pH down without resorting to chemicals. The leafs again reflect the natural situation of the morichales biotope, although the oak and elm leaves I am using are decidedly not tropical. Elm and oak leafs plus a dusting of particulates/mulm I don't know how many images I can include in one post so I will post the plant and fish images plust story in a separate message.

Weird. I visited Aqua Central last weekend and especially asked for C. hasbrosus. He only had the C. pygmeus and didn't seem to know about C. hasbrosus. I should learn the English common names for fishes although that has its own confusion problems. For instance Baensch calls it the Rio Salinas cory. I will get in touch with AC and ask specifically for the salt & pepper cory. Thanks for the tip. Very helpful.

Thanks Jason, I've been keeping a weekly eye on his stock list and it is indeed the most promising supplier in Canada I have found so far, with Canadian Aquatics having some W/C as well (W/C rams at the moment). Right now nothing on my list but I'm sure if I'm patient, and that is the hard part, they will show up sooner or later. I should develop an interest in plecos as they seem to be all over the place.

Old thread but I was looking for others interested in SA dwarf cichlids. I just got a pair of Apistogramma macmasteri from Big Al's in Edmonton. I was actually looking for A. hongsloi but was told at Aqua Central that the only ones that made commercial sense to bring in where the various captive bred strains with much bolder red colours. The A. macmasteri are likely captive bred to, I need to go back and ask, but they are relatively close to what wild specimens are supposed to look like, perhaps with a bit more pearly markings on the cheeks. Anyway, sometimes you fall in love with fish when you see them in the store and most of the time those purchases and up being good ones. They have quite a few more including many gorgeous males. I've got the prettiest girl though PS: PetLand has two very nice green severums, about 2-2.5", but unfortunately two males. Very pretty though. Otherwise I find fish selection of SA cichlids and other less common SA fish rather limited in Edmonton. Still looking for Corydoras hasbrosus, Nannostomus eques, Dicrossus filamentosus, and Hemigrammus stictus (or Moenkhausia collettii will do as an alternative).

In addition to the above you could consider mesonauta as a species that occupies the top half/surface of the tank and I think Biotodoma's (Cupids) are very pretty too. Much smaller but very pretty are the Dicrossus checkerboard cichlids.

To the list of Eugene you can add species of Laetacara, nannacara, Dicrossus, Angels, Mesonauta, and probably some but not all cichlasoma. I have personal experience with several Apistogramma, Laetacara, Nannacara, and Angels. All did not molest plants or dig them up.

Oh, and another cool thing about them is that fishbase states they all start out as females and then at 8-12 month of age one of the females can change gender to become the dominant male. You gotta love cichlids, always some surprise. Btw, I am looking for Corydoras hasbrosus. Any idea where I could get some? Bart

Hi David, Great you are having so much fun with your new tank. I'm in a similar situation with a now 1 month old tank and still in the stage where every first sign of a new plant forming on a runner or new leaf forming in the amazon swordplant is exciting. The fish are even more fun, especially the time after adding a new species and seeing it learning the lay of the land and the routine of feeding. Cheers, Bart

I recently got the USA Satellite Plus Pro LED light. Definitely not one of the cheap ones but I was having the LED act like a strobe when run at full power and running ok but with very hot power supply when run at 75% of full power. Looking at the power supply I noticed its volt/amperage combination was not nearly enough to drive this 60 watt LED light. Communicating with the manufacturer was not very efficient (but I didn't try very hard. Instead I got it sorted out by going back to Big Al's. It turns out the power supply was meant for one of the much smaller units and not for my 48" light. They swapped out the power supply for one with the right specifications and since then it has been running like a charm. I expect the problem resulted from it being returned by a customer with the wrong power supply or someone in the assembly plant having a severe caffeine deficiency. Bart

The hydroponics community is also using LED lighting to grow their plants, including some that only give of in the blue and red parts of the spectrum that plants use for photosynthesis (but that only helps if you like everything to look purple). I think they also use "daylight" LEDs that may have the power you need. I think some of the bulbs were selling for $35 or so. Normal LED bulbs for use in the house sell for less than $5 for a 5 watt bulb (60 incandescent equivalent, but to my eyes they look brighter than that). There are 100 watt incandescent equivalents as well if you need more power. Bart

I just got "Encyclopedia of Aquarium Plants" by Peter Hiscock in the mail today. I only had time to skim the content but one section discusses hard vs soft water and the impact on plants specifically. One problem is that hard water is typically basic which converts CO2 to the bicarbonate form that has poor bioavailability for plants. Hard water plants are adapted to handle that but soft water plants can suffer unless combined with CO2 addition. I need to reread that section and will update if needed. On a different note; I visited Aqua Central this weekend and asked if they ever bring in Tonina fluviatilis. The answer was no because it doesn't survive in Edmonton's hard water. http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/plantfinder/details.php?id=88 indicates that hardness should be at least below 5. So there are definately plants that do not like hard water, but if you are flexible with your plant choice then there are also plants that thrive specifically in hard water. So matching the plant to your water may be more effective than matching your water to the plant. On yet another note; I am more concerned about the metallic and sulfurous smell. Sulfur forms a very insoluble salt with many metals including iron. I wonder if your yellow leaves are due to metal deficiency. Even though the metals may be there, the plant may not be able to take them up efficiently. I don't know if it is easy to test for sulfur or if there is an easy way to get rid of it if it is a problem. For what it is worth, I'm running a planted tank in RO water. So far all plants are growing well but the tank has been up for only 4 weeks with the water at 50 ppm only for the last week or two. Time will tell how well this works but I am limiting myself to plants that come from soft acidic low-nutrient clear water streams, so they should be able or even happy with these conditions. Bart

I recently bought the RObuddy for my South American biotope aquarium. You may get better value for money by avoiding the mark-up that comes with being targeted to aquarists but it is a nice small system and if I recall it was under $100. So far it is working beautifully. I have the luxury to dedicate one shower stall to RO water production and just need to open one valve to start production, filling a 12 gallon bin in about 8 hours, so I run it overnight. The good thing is that if anything starts leaking or I forget to switch it off, it can't flood anything as it is in the shower and all goes in the drain. The RO water is about 5 ppm, which is about a third of a degree general hardness. The tank, which I initially filled with Edmonton tap water, is now at 50 ppm, down from 315 ppm. Tap water is measuring just over 200 ppm which is very close to the values reported by the Edmonton water provider. So far I have not done any remineralization prior to using the RO water as the tank is currently still having more dissolved ions than I'm aiming for. I have added a little bit of plant fertilizer on occasion as the RO water lacks those as well. Unfortunately, pH has been very slow to come down and has taken 4 weeks to drop from 7.8 to 7.3. I try to avoid using any chemicals and hope that with patience, further softening of the water, and addition of peat and leaves I will get to pH in the 6.0-6.5 range. Bart

I have just started to buy fish for my new tank. I buy them at late afternoon so that they are finished acclimatizing shortly before the lights go off, currently at 7pm. Once the lights go down and there is just ambient light, but still quite a bit of ambient at this time of year, they relax much more, come out from between the plants and start to explore the tank. Once they are used to the new environment they, at least the species I have so far, don't seem to care much about the light. So I think light does affect their "being at peace" but many are quite tolerant to variable conditions. But species from heavily forested streams that are used to living in the shade may not like bright light. Cardinal tetras are often given as an example but I have seen underwater footage of cardinals in very bright clear water, although that may not be typical. There are also reports that some species need very dim or dark conditions for spawning and viability of the eggs/fry. It all depends on the species, what environment it is adapted to and if it is a generalist that can easily adapt or a specialist that is more picky. In general I am always surprised at how adaptable they are. Like Geleen said, if they are showing natural behaviour and spawning I would expect they are relatively happy and that makes me happy. I bought one of the LED lights that include both a timer and programmable dimmer (USA Satellite Plus Pro). At "sunrise" the lights go from "nightlight" to 100% "daylight" in 15 minutes and at sunset it happens in reverse. You can define the light intensity and colour spectrum for both the nightlight and daylight settings. I have nightlight set to be completely off, some people like a little blue or white light to simulate the moon. I have daylight set to 100% white (6500K), 100% blue, 100% red, and 0% green, because blue and red are predominantly used for photosynthesis and I like the resulting colour appearance. One reason for getting this light is that at 60 watts it is powerful enough for a planted tank, at least a low-tech planted tank, but if it turns out to be too powerful or you want to temporarily lower the intensity you can do so. Bart

I agree that it is very hard and probably unrealistic to aim for total purity in setting up a biotope tank. In addition to depth/size limitations I have already bend the rules by including three plant species taken from Alberta lakes that survived Edmonton winters in my pond. To my surprise they seem to be perfectly happy at the current 26-27C tank temperature. I am equally surprised that those species, in particular hornwort (Ceratophyllum demersum) is known to occur both in Canada and the tropics. So in a sense it is appropriate for my biotope. Another challenge is to find accurate information about what lives where and in what kind of habitat. That is part of what draws me to it. In addition to just enjoying their beauty I love to learn more about how they live and behave and a biotope tank gives an incentive to do just that. Cheers and thanks for the response. Perhaps we'll meet some day at and ACE meeting or elsewhere. Bart

I have been born with the aquagene and have a life-long love for anything aquatic, in particular fishes. The closest thing to heaven is scuba diving in the ocean but for the remaining 50 weeks per year I need alternatives. I've kept aquaria off and on for the past 45 years and restarted a 90 gallon Orinoco biotope tank one month ago. I am hoping to find some like-minded local hobbyists to share experiences, tips, tricks and plants or fishes. Here is the tank after one month Current fishes: 16 red phantom tetra 7 otocinclus (I believe they are O. vittatus) 1 pair of Apistogramma macmasteri I'll post more specifics in other forums once I get better at taking pictures Cheers, Bart