Daize's 120L Soil Tank

TallTree01 said:

Amazing stuff Baccus! It's a shame cpds are so rare here in Australia, they are truly stunning!

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Thanks TallTree!  (Although that's the second time you've got my name wrong, haha!)
Does Australia restrict imports similar to the way New Zealand does?

Sorry Daize! I'd thought I'd edited that out in time!
I don't really know why cpds are so hard to get, the lfs says that whenever they get them in they're sold within a few days. Maybe quarantine laws or something like that.

I went back and bought the remaining six CPD's from the LFS today.  That's as many as I can get for now until one of my LFS restocks them.
 
I'm a bit worried about my M:F ratio.  I seem to have 9 males and 3 females.  My lone female from the original batch was not looking very happy today.  She's just hanging around at the back of the tank, not moving much and fairly unresponsive to the other fish around her.  She is the smallest and weakest-looking of all the CPD's.  I fear I might lose her.

The red lotus at back right is starting to look great.
 

 
  The underside of its leaves are a really intense ultraviolet colour!

It's official, I need a red lotus.
 
It looks amazing!

Lovely looking plant, isn't it?!  It took about 3 weeks before the bulb put out any leaves at all and another 3 weeks for it to reach a decent size but it's worth the wait.
 
There was a burst of activity in the tank this morning with male CPD's chasing the females around the tank.  It was a bit of a horror show with gangs of up to 7 males chasing a single female around the tank.  On occasions I couldn't help but hear Benny Hill music running through my head but I felt really sorry for the poor harassed girls.  The weakest female ended up drifting at the top of the tank looking exhausted and I haven't seen her since.
 
I took a video of some of the activity.  It culminated in what looked like a frenzied spawning involving one girl and 4 guys in my carpet plants.  
 
https/youtu.be/LR_mNRXGdQk
 
I really love the way the CPD's are so interactive with the plants.  I enjoy watching them disappear into the foliage and unexpectedly pop out somewhere else.  My platies also disappear into the plants occasionally but not to the extent that these guys do.  In contrast the threadfins tend to stick to open water unless they are spawning.  I think the threadfins and CPDs complement each other well for this reason, the threadfins giving a constant focal point and the CPD's adding interest by popping in and out of view.

Trimmed the plants a bit since it was starting to look a bit overgrown.
 

 
This was quite a lucky high-speed shot of a male threadfin flaring while racing against another male.  I somehow managed to pan the camera at the rate speed to keep the subject more or less in focus!
 

SImply no adequate words to describe this tank
 
Pulchritudinous

Lol thanks!

I added some fire red sakura shrimp a week ago, here's some pics
 
 

I have a few of those fire reds, huge difference in colour between these and RCS. They really do stand out and also much easier to spot in the tank
 
Great pics btw

This is looking great!

Amazing tank Daize!
 
I have a couple of questions if you don't mind:
 
1. Those pond snails, do you think they threaten the flora in any way?
2. Whats that orange fish in your #11th post?
 
Really enjoy the look of it

Thanks guys!
 

alexge said:

Those pond snails, do you think they threaten the flora in any way?

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Not at all, the snails have been invaluable in helping to keep my tank clean.  They are also useful little helpers in the occasional unfortunate event of a dead shrimp or fish in the tank.  In a tank packed this densely with plants I've got no chance of finding and fishing out small corpses.  I don't even know how many fish I have because I never see them all together, not even at feeding time, so it's impossible to keep a head count and it happens occasionally that one will pass away and I don't notice.  The snails make short work of corpses before they pollute the water.  Once upon a time I used to be afraid of snails taking over the tank but now I wouldn't consider it to be a proper ecosystem without them!
 
The orange fish from earlier pictures was Mickey, my original and oldest platy.  He lived to a ripe old age and finally passed away when I was on holiday this August.  Fortunately my next door neighbour was keeping an eye on him and phoned to let me know, then fished him out for me.  I'm lucky to have such great neighbours. 
 
The red fire sakura shrimp didn't do very well.  Out of the seven I ordered, one was DOA and the remainder gradually disappeared over a period of weeks.  I replaced them with a group of 13 red cherry shrimp from my LFS yesterday.  Their vivid red colour looks just as good as the sakura shrimp and hopefully they will be hardier!

 
I also got some black fire endlers (or some similar name, not sure exactly what they're called)!  I've always liked endlers and these are very handsome little chaps.  They suit my theme of small fish with reddish highlights.

 
Here's a full shot of the tank from about a week ago.

Very nice, shame about the fire reds
 
Also, very unsual endlers, have not seen these in LFS before tbh.
 
Tank is still looking gorgeous and the threadfins are looking good