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Hi Neal, I have river sand, and only a few stems of Ceratophyllum and Java moss (indeed, they are not doing very well after 5 weeks in the tank, pale and stretched, I thought because of the limited amount of light - 6 h, now increased to 8 h - and the increasing salinity). pH has always been...

:-( How high can it get?? All other parameters look OK, pH 7.8, KH 9, NO2 0, NO3 50+ (can't help, it's the tap water). I'm adding weekly 105 g of marine salts to reach eventually SG 1.002 (I'm at 1.001 now). I believe the salts together with my sand are responsible. Or, is my Sera reagent not...

Nope, I tried Ikari Cichlid Gold (they'd rather starve than eat that: I gave them this for 2 days in a row, after one day with no food at all), and Tetra Cichlis Sticks ( abit better, after breaking the sticks in smaller pieces, but again, they prefer to skip it). I see Sera has a series (FD)...

Hello, I have something quite similar to what you're planning, or already made. I indeed used a sheet of plexiglas (I had it spare...) on top of my tank, and I cut a hole through it so that I can feed the archers normal food. I also mounted some fake "mangrove" leaves hanging from the plexiglas...

Absolutely lovely. I'm looking forward to try adding some insects in the aerial part. At least one of them is very much into spitting at any time. :-)

Well, I just have them since about two weeks, and started feeding them with frozen bloodworms, so they might have gotten spoiled. Actually, I feed them one cube of worms for the three of them, and they spend the rest of the day scavenging the bottom for the last worms! So perhaps I'm...

Thanks Fishguy, yesterday I got a mix of shrimp and crustaceans for turtles suggested by a shopkeeper, promising I'd get the money back if it doesn't work. They're clearly not crazy about it, but they do eat it on the long run, when nothing else is given. So for this time I'll keep going with...

Anybody has experience/suggestions on dry food for archer fish to be used in automatic feeders? Sticks didn't really work, nor dried shrimp... Thanks!

Yep, it's actually three artificial "mangrove roots" put together, can't recall the producer: http://www.zooplus.com/shop/fish/decoration/artificial_root. Two Large and one Small. They're not strictly identical to the mangrove roots, but I like them as the best option. Recently I found these...

Indeed, there are some epiphites glued to the aerial part of the roots: some tillandsiae, and a micro-orchid (Schoenorchis Fragrans). There are some close-up photos in the blog.

I was in Brazil a couple of weeks ago, in a mangrove swamp looking for some seedlings, and indeed I met two caimans (little)!! :crazy:

I chose what looks to me the most similar to mangrove leaves, it's the silk ficus of Exoterra. I'd love to add more than the above list, but I believe with 150 l that will be it. The filter is a lovely Eheim professionel 3. More plants... My initial plan was strictly a mangrove river bank...

240 l Eheim tank, filled with about 150 l. Just started modifying salinity from fresh, I'm adding 105 g of sea salts per week until final goal of SG 1.002 will be reached (5 weeks). The first inhabitants are 3 Toxotes Microlepis, added some 2 weeks ago. They spit like hell to everything, today...

Yep, I tried the sticksa, but they are not recognized as food. It helps if you break them in little pieces, but then most of them will end uneaten...

Hello Shovelman, it's a pleasure to answer (although I have them since less than a week...). My impression is that they got a bit more shy with time, instead of getting acquainted: the first day they were quite easy, going around and allowing me to shoot some decent pictures. But let's see, I'm...

Thanks Fluttermoth, very interesting. Indeed I did switch on the room lights some 10 min before going for the tank lights. The thing is, however, that it's only happening to one of them out of three. Will keep monitoring, and surely avoid trying to feed them once the lights are off.

Hello folks, I have three T. Microlepis in a 150 l tank (freshwater at the moment, final goal SG 1.002) since a few days. One of them has clearly been more shy than the other two, but the interesting thing is the following: I made the mistake for two consecutive evenings to let the lights go...

Nope. It's white. And strictly growing on the wooden sticks and mangrove seeds. So far.... What is it?

Fishless cycle almost completed, I added plants and mangrove propagulae. Plants are OK, but after 24 hours the mangroves and their (wooden :-() support got covered with mold, which is steadily increasing in volume. A friend told me to almost ignore it, since it's inevitable when wood matter is...

Hi, thanks, I'm aware of Neale's page, that's mainly what I meant with my statement on existing descriptions, together with what's available in Wet Web Media's brackish pages: from what I see from Neale's sketches, I'd say Microlepis, which is just what I need, but those long black bands are the...

Is anybody able to identify this guy, from such a bad picture? I know the main issue is the dorsal fin spots and rays, but there was no way to get better photos than this, with a mobile, and given the elevated position of the tank. My main doubt concerns the loooong black bands, extending all...

Deep into cycle now, nitrites steadily decreasing, nitrates in the 100s. Got the plants yesterday, so here is how it's going to look like. More pics in my (B-)log! :rolleyes:

Yep, I'm aware of the cycle theory. However, my impression is that NO3 is peaking insanely well before NO2 has reached its peak, simply because I have so many already in tap water (sure, I measured it. I'm using Tropic Marin tests and the Tetra stripes, which help me where TM goes off chart)...

Day 26 in fishless cycling, I'm stuck with about 200 mg/l of nitrates. I believe the main (only, hopefully) source is the ~50 mg/l from the tap water. My last attempt to change things was: I changed 128 l (85%) with unconditioned water. NO3 down to ~75 mg/l (best I could do!! :sad:). Added 5.2...

Two days ago I changed 128 l (85%) with unconditioned water. NO3 down to ~75 mg/l. Added 5.2 ml of ammonia 8%. 24 h later, NO3>>100mg/l (offscale, likely around 200 mg/l), whereas ammonia keeps being eaten completely. Where are all those nitrates coming from??! :blink: I just have river...

Right.. Thanks, will do!

Yeah... Pity I have almost 50 mg/l straight from the tap...

So. Good and bad now: ammonia has finally dropped (measured 0.5 mg/l yesterday), so I added again the amount (8.4 ml of the 8% solution) to reach 5 mg/l. Today measured all parameters (day 18 of cycle): NH3+NH4 around or above 5 mg/l NO2 10 mg/l NO3 200 mg/l pH stable at 7.4, but KH down to 4...

For those of you still interested in the topic (and with a lot of money!), I found this danish producer selling very good replicas: http://www.unimati.biz/group.asp?group=345 IMO, they still don'ty look like the real thing (for some reason, manufacturers just don't get the fact that mangrove...

Hello, I'm using ammonia solution 8%. I used the calculator available here in the forum to estimate the correct amount...

OK, a bit of help now: 14 days into cycle, ammonia+ammonium didn't move a bit from the (extrapolated! The chart ends at 3) value of about 5-6 mg/l set at the beginning with ammonium hydroxide (added 9.4 ml for 150 l of water). I haven't bothered measuring the nitrites until now, finally did...

OK, a bit of help now: 14 days into cycle, ammonia+ammonium didn't move a bit from the (extrapolated! The chart ends at 3) value of about 5-6 mg/l set at the beginning with ammonium hydroxide (added 9.4 ml for 150 l of water). I haven't bothered measuring the nitrites until now, finally did...

Hello all, I'm not sure it's gonna last, but... The original idea was to collect pictures of my tank in development for my future use, in order to learn from possible mistakes (I'm a beginner), then I said - why not sharing this with people? The more expert ones can give help, and the others...

Thanks guys, then I made a big mistake: the plants are coming tomorrow, and I haven't started cycling yet. I thought it was OK to cycle wth the plants in. Well, I'll make a refugium for them (it's sturdy stuff, just Ceratophyllum and Java moss). I hope I can just dump them in a little plastic...

Thanks! I was planning to add plants at the beginning, while the water is freshwater, so to acclimate them slowly... Alternatively, I should cycle first freshwater, then when ready add the plants, and start increasing the salinity. And then finally start adding fishes.... :/

1. Is it OK to start changing salinity while starting the cycle of a brand new tank, or will it just make too complicate to follow the cycle evolution? I'm planning to add a few plants at the beginning, and then slowly acclimate them to my final low-end brackish value (SG 1.002), while cycling...