Ghent_3rd's S. American Biotope Journal

[ghent_3rd]

Hi there fish fans and welcome to my first attempt at a journal!!!

I am setting up a South American Biotope in a Rio 180 with CO2 input, fairly heavily planted with standard Juwel filtration but will upgrade lighting.

I am picking the tank up on Tuesday so don't have any pics as of yet although I have purchased a fair bit of decor as pictured below.

These 2 bits of bogwood look rearly cool except I have just put them in to be soaked and one of them is floating!!!! I have weighed it down with a bit of slate and hope it will lose all it's air and stay on the bottom soon!!

This piece will be centrepiece of tank, about 2 foot in length and 16" high!!

Slate as used in most South American tanks to create caves and step formations.


I am using small pea gravel around the back of the tank which will be raised up around the pieces of bogwood and the front of the tank will have silver sand to give the vast amounts of corys I will have plenty of fun!!

Have got a few more ideas for decor but will post those when I start putting it all together as explaining just in words is a bit difficult.


Any ideas as regards the stocking of the tank will be very welcome although I have a fair idea what I am putting in it. I love corys and all things catfish so that gives you start. Need some fish for midwater though so get posting!!

 

[Discomafia]

Let me be the first to welcome you to the 'dark side'

Yea, it is kinda true. Planted tanks are sort of addicting.

I like your long piece of driftwood ghent_3rd. As for stocking, how about a school of Corydoras adolfoi, a pair of BN plecos for algae, a pair of angels, and two schools of black neon tetras and rummynose tetras? I've always wanted to own a Pimelodus pictus, just not so sure how of it if could fit in with this setup. Only plants I know from S. America are Echinodorus sp.

Looking foward to future updates.

 

[ghent_3rd]

CORYDORAS ADOLFOI!! You read my mind disco. They are already on my definate list and cardinals are on the maybe list along with any other tetras except neons. not a big fan of angels and they take up too much room for my liking. definately getting some plecs but probably not BN's. Love my L-Numbers too much.

Thanks for your help with the plants.

 

[ghent_3rd]

Just a quickie, had to take the big bit of bogwood to my mums to get it soaked in a dustbin it is that is big!!!!

 

[Discomafia]

CORYDORAS ADOLFOI!! You read my mind disco. They are already on my definate list and cardinals are on the maybe list along with any other tetras except neons. not a big fan of angels and they take up too much room for my liking. definately getting some plecs but probably not BN's. Love my L-Numbers too much.

Thanks for your help with the plants.

Suggested BN's because they're great on algae duty. What about otos then? Instead of angels, how about some apistos or rams?

 

[ghent_3rd]

Oto's are also on the maybe list, I would get like 5 or 6 to really look good!!

Just been to pick tank up, starting aquascaping this afternoon. Should be some more pics then.

 

[lljdma06]

Is the cellular phone part of the decor? Just being smart, welcome to the "Dark Side", or rather "The Green Side"

 

[ghent_3rd]

Yeah the cell phone is for them to ring me when they are getting a bit hungry or want the lights turning off!!

 

[lljdma06]

Yeah the cell phone is for them to ring me when they are getting a bit hungry or want the lights turning off!!

Yeah, my gouramis have the share plan from Cingular, it really works well for them, and they each get a camera phone.

 

[ghent_3rd]

Just about to start aqua-scaping, I know it's late but what the hell!!!!

I am actually quite nervous I want to get it right that much!!!

 

[Discomafia]

Don't worry, odds are you won't get it right the first time. By this, I mean you won't be satisfied with your first aquascape. Its a trial and error process, and even when you think your aquascape is complete, you'll still find something trivial, which you think you can try and improve on. Don't get me wrong, all in all, its a fun hobby, and I wouldn't trade it in for anything...

 

[ghent_3rd]

Tell me about it, absolutely love it, always things to be learnt. I've got an idea what I am looking at in the tank but you are probably right and I won't get it right straight away. Enjoying setting my new tank up between feeding the baby and playing with my 3y/o!!! She likes the fish anyway which is cool and she always likes to help wherever she can and loves helping me feed them.

Couple of update pics below

My Mum and my eldest daughter helping to wash pebbles!!

Photos of tank and cabinet, the cabinet is very easy to build

These are the little beauties that I am letting go due to not being from S. America. The platy closest to the camera is over 2y/o and I have had him since I first started keeping fish.

Hopefully I will have some pictures of fully aquascaped tank by the weekend.

 

[ghent_3rd]

You can just see the pebbles I bought at the bottom of the cabinet in one of the pics. They are in a white box, fairly big but I reckon they will make a great addition once I add some plants onto them.

They are also going to be used for my corys to graze on. I am going to make a paste from lots of greenstuff and frozen foods, a bit of flake for good measure, and paste it onto the pebbles. Let it dry and hey presto, all day grazing for the cories, just like in the wild!! ( I read about this idea in PFK )

 

[ghent_3rd]

UPDATE PICS

The tank is pretty much ready now, the fish are in, old filter and media are in to cope with it all and I've been to buy 9 silver-tip tetras today to replace the 4 platys and 5 barbs that I got rid of earlier on.

Below is the tank before planting, the tank after planting barring one or two additions that aren't on there and my L-205 although not a great picture. I think that is going to be it for the planting, I'm going to see how the growth is first before deciding to add any more plants to the set-up.

Next update will be in a week or so, hopefully some of the CO2 will have kicked in by then aswell!!

 

[Alex_]

really nice!!!

are those melon swords in the front?