South America River Basin Project

[nitro]

Congrats on the sand

Undawada i might be trying a blackwater setup similar to yours aswell.

Hope not to hijack your thread but i have another sand question, being a gravel user alll my fishy life i dont know much about it.

Is playsand just everyday sand and how do you know the difference between normal sand and silica sand?

 

[Undawada]

There is a sticky About Sand here.

I've used sand before, and I just use play sand I bought at Home Depot. It is made for kids, so is non toxic and has rounded grains. Most people agree that play sand is safe for aquaria, but requires washing to get rid of the smaller particles.

It's cheap, the bags are $5.something for a 20kg before tax.

 

[nitro]

Cheers for the link that helped loads.

I have an idea for a possible substrate until you can get leaves.

How about breaking of very small chunks/pieces of bogwood/driftwood and letting them just settle on the sand substrate to for another way of trying to recreate the bootom of a river? IT would probbaly take a long time though...

 

[Undawada]

I don't think I'm going to do a leaf litter tank.

I just like the look of sand too much

If anyone else makes a leaf litter tank, I'd be interested to hear about it.

 

[One_Trick_Pony]

i may well do one, but i was kinda looking for some pics first, i have tried google images, and have a thread on here but thus far no luck,

 

[Griz]

I collected red oak leaves last fall and used them throught the winter. Just recently ran out, but will do this again this fall. I'll be trying beach and white oak as well next time. They were used near the back of the tank and at the ends so that I still had a nice open area of sand remaining at the centre and in the foreground. I used a combination of and wood and rock to 'corral' them and the action of the filter return helped keep them pretty much in place. Just an idea for you.

 

[Iron Man]

Its nothing much but I still wanted to pass on a link for a biotope idea that might give you some of your own ideas. Probably wouldn't even be a bad idea to copy it if someone wanted to.

http/www.freshwateraquariumplants.com/am...ope/amazon.html

Oh....and check out the kewl video of the Amazon River....check out that bad arowana jumping like 3 ft out of the water!!!

David

 

[Undawada]

Great video! Thanks for the link.

After much research, I am considering abandoning using peat in the filter to get tannins and a low PH. I feel this would just make my tank too unstable. If I had a bigger tank, say, 200 Gallons, it might be more stable but I don't want to endanger my fish. I will just use tap water as it comes from the tap (dechlorinated, of course) and some driftwood for tannin colouration. I hope the driftwood yellows up the water to get the blackwater effect.

If anyone has any other methods to safely recreate a blackwater environment in a 75 gallon tank, please let me know.

 

[Undawada]

I purchased 3 Hemigrammus bleheri today. I will increase this number to 6 or more later.

Hemigramus bleheri are commonly called Firehead Tetras, also misabeled as Rummynose tetras. They are very similar, and thanks to The-Wolf for the tips to tell the dfference.

3 Hemigrammus bleheri cost me $13.67 after tax.
I also bought a glass top for my tank which cost $37.13 after tax.

 

[Undawada]

I got 4 Apistogramma cacatoides last night from a breeder in montreal for $19.50 after delivery. This is a great price, since the same fish in Big Al's were selling for $19.96 PER FISH BEFORE TAX!

I don't have a digital camera yet, so here are some pictures of the species I have in my tank now from google.

I believe these pictures are public domain, but if you own the copyright to any of these pics PM or EMAIL me and I'll take them down.

Brochis splendens (Emerald Catfish)

Otocinclus affinis (Oto Catfish)

Hemmigrammus bleheri (Rummynose or Firehead Tetra)

Apistogramma cacatoides var. orangle flash (Orange Flash Cockatoo Cichlid)

 

[Undawada]

Bought 6 more Hemigrammus bleheri today. The school looks nice, now that there's 9.

 

[One_Trick_Pony]

got any pics undawada

 

[Undawada]

Hoping to. No pics as of yet because I don't have a camera. I will probably borrow one.