Asian river tank

[Beastije]

I'm sure mine are flavatra... fearless little critters, swim right up to an 8 inch Tin Foil Barb, & take the food out of it's mouth... they were doing that at a 1/2 inch, & could have easily been swallowed

I bought a newer batch to add to the existing one and it took them over a month to actually color up the same way the others were. Maybe that is the case? I also have one that hangs at a different corner than the others

 

[Beastije]

So I lost another sewellia, the female purchased in June. It was active, feeding and dead in the morning. I have a remaining male but I will never buy a sewellia again as I don't understand why I am loosing them.

I wonder if there is some other fish I could put in the tank. The tank is around 21°C during winter and up to 26°C for two months in summer otherwise around 23C
Maybe a whiptail catfish? Or some sort of a pleco?

Meanwhile the shrimp have multiplied so much there is almost a hundred of them and they are everywhere and a water change is a hassle. I dose bacter ae occasionally to feed the garras so they really thrive and nothing eats them apparently. The moss is now almost all the way to the surface.

 

[Magnum Man]

I really like my Panda Garra's, very personable, active & peaceful

 

[Beastije]

I really like my Panda Garra's, very personable, active & peaceful

I have seven of them

 

[Magnum Man]

I think you'll find the Temp is too low for most of the South American Suckers... my tank also has a couple Flying Foxes, & a medium Sized pink Kissing gourami... I mention this Gourami, as in my tank it's a gardener, keeping the algae under control on the plants...

I went back through your thread, sorry about missing the Pandas... were you a part of the "bio film" discussion a while back??? I think you have had yours longer than I, but I have been supplementing my bio film with Bacter A E... & so far ( fingers crossed ) mine have been doing well, with the Bacter AE, Repashi, tank Bio Film, & food scraps from the other fish

​

 

[Beastije]

Finally found the time for a much needed trim

Before (and not even the latest picture, the moss reached the surface !!!

now

looks almost empty now

 

[Beastije]

So, since I will be redoing my other big tank, and I grew tired of all of my anubias, instead of throwing them out, I threw them all here. I squished the now cut moss and put like 8 or so anubias plants here. The garras LOVE them, they hang on the leaves, so a good decision
I think I have a brotia baby, which is insane, given there is only one brotia and was added in february already. But yay ! Hope it does well

Remade tank

panda garra photobomber

my brotia snail (unsure if armata or pagodula)

and the baby snail

 

[Magnum Man]

Did I miss what you are using as floaters in this tank??? in my Asian tank, the Tin Foils & Gourami, are pretty hard on plants, so I have emergent Lucky Bamboo as the main plant, I think it works well... but I tried to introduce Asian Water Moss, but the bigger fish over grazed the roots, & I could never get it to take... currently I have Water Hyacinth in that tank, & the roots are still getting over grazed, but it's a tough & durable plant... My African tank, is also a high flow tank, & plants like Red Root Floaters & Frog Bit, did not do well with the water flow... the Water Lettuce & hyacinth grew very well, but were more maintenance than I wanted... so I have some Asian Water Moss in there now, & that looks like a winner, after trying 6-8 different varieties of floater...

this is the water moss... Asian Watermoss, Salvinia cucullata

 

[Beastije]

oh I have the usual salvinia natans, but none of my fish eat plants. It goes ok, when it covers the whole surface, I scrap bucket of it, and let it regrow is not bothered by the flow and now, it gets stuck on some of the anubais leaves so it works in its favor.
I have frogbit in my other tank, nice long roots, but almost no snails, no flow and no plant eating fish either, so

 

[Beastije]

I took out the willow and moved it to my other tank.
New pictures from all the sides, the anubias has algae but it floats I sometimes put it back under.

 

[Beastije]

A year later, some changes. No hillstream survived. I am down to 5 panda garra, one got stuck under a rock, one I didnt find, no clue what happened They are a bit more boisterous now, not sure if it is the spring or what. I took out this filter and put it in the 70 liter tank, put an external eheim here, not better flow tbh, but works.
I put in a heater, 24°C, removed all the minnows (reshuffled them to the big tank, sticks tank, big tank again. They are easy to catch, too easy if you are cleaning up the floating plants. You will always catch a minnow)

And I put in 6 mickey mouse platies. I havent had livebearers in ages, and thought why not. It has been four months and I am not impressed by them. Until last week I havent seen fry either, I thought it was strange since the tank is 50% moss, but suddenly they started appearing.

I will give them until summer and if their behavior or breeding doesnt appeal to me more, I will give them away and think about a different fish to this tank. I saw halfbeaks today at the fish store and was almost tempted.
The tank has way more algae on the stones and on the plants and on the glass. Not loving it
Oh and I got a blue female betta. It has been 3 months, her fins are way better than when I bought her and she is always full. I hope she will help control the platty population a bit. And she is not mean!

Better full tank shot will have to wait until dark

Every single picture of the platties is out of focus, so this is the best one

 

[Magnum Man]

sorry the Hillstream's didn't work out for you...

I'm just starting again with some live bearers as well, but not in my Hillstream tank...

 

[Beastije]

sorry the Hillstream's didn't work out for you...

I'm just starting again with some live bearers as well, but not in my Hillstream tank...

I think the problem is in me. Hillstreams didnt work. Indostomus after a year didnt work. No corydoras ever work,... the common factor seems to be me

 

[Magnum Man]

some fish just seem to have our number...