It’s been set up this way about a year, with exception to rotating out several different floating plants… this is a hard tank to work on, as it’s built in, and exposed on both large sides, with walls above the tank… super cool to view, but a major pain to work on… substrate is 1 inch polished rocks, there are Coolie loaches that swim freely through the gaps in the rocks, that live pretty much subterranean, I do see them, if they run into a dead end, or parts of them as they swim across gaps in the rocks and they are thriving… they were not purchased as giants, but are the biggest I’ve ever seen… I don’t want to injure them, but need to vacuum the substrate…
I’m going to move one piece of driftwood, that has a vampire shrimp, and several king tiger plecos living under it… both the Coolies and the plecos don’t really belong in here, but I can’t catch them, with the limited access… so I’ve decided to embrace them… too bad the king tigers, aren’t better algae eaters… the bottom of the tank, is covered in a “tangle” of Java fern, that has been weathering the group of Armano shrimp in the tank… that group was purchased originally as adults ( large ) and over the course of about a year and a half have slowly died down to 5 or 6… the Java fern suffered, when there was so many shrimp, as they ate out between the veins, and made them look like lace plants… babies have been getting less holes, as the shrimp numbers slowly decline… this was one of the 1st few tanks I reset up, after my 20 year break from the hobby, and back then I was using squat jars with pond soil, covered by black aquarium gravel, to keep it in place… originally I had Val on top of these jars, and angel fish in this tank, and bad water ( pre RO ) and the angels suffered, but while suffering, they ate all the Vals… it was as at this point, that I introduced the Java fern, a tougher plant, which didn’t need the soil, but I weighed them, and put them on top of the 10 or so squat jars, so a lot of Java moss that’s been in the tank about a year to move so I can get the jars out and vacuum…
I have a resin hollow log for the king tigers to add, and have some tall Anubis plants to stuff in the smaller holes in the hollow log, to grow out of… and my current floating plants ( water hyacinth ) needs trimming, and the roots cleaned, & as long as I’m going in deep, the Tidal 75 will get cleaned today as well… I’m sure there will be a lot of solids in suspension to filter out… the African river tetras have all been doing great, and I’ve only lost one smaller than normal one, since they have all been added, and this tank got labeled as African…
It’s raining outside, so it looks like I have at least a couple hours, to complete this, before the outside chores start calling my name..
I’m going to move one piece of driftwood, that has a vampire shrimp, and several king tiger plecos living under it… both the Coolies and the plecos don’t really belong in here, but I can’t catch them, with the limited access… so I’ve decided to embrace them… too bad the king tigers, aren’t better algae eaters… the bottom of the tank, is covered in a “tangle” of Java fern, that has been weathering the group of Armano shrimp in the tank… that group was purchased originally as adults ( large ) and over the course of about a year and a half have slowly died down to 5 or 6… the Java fern suffered, when there was so many shrimp, as they ate out between the veins, and made them look like lace plants… babies have been getting less holes, as the shrimp numbers slowly decline… this was one of the 1st few tanks I reset up, after my 20 year break from the hobby, and back then I was using squat jars with pond soil, covered by black aquarium gravel, to keep it in place… originally I had Val on top of these jars, and angel fish in this tank, and bad water ( pre RO ) and the angels suffered, but while suffering, they ate all the Vals… it was as at this point, that I introduced the Java fern, a tougher plant, which didn’t need the soil, but I weighed them, and put them on top of the 10 or so squat jars, so a lot of Java moss that’s been in the tank about a year to move so I can get the jars out and vacuum…
I have a resin hollow log for the king tigers to add, and have some tall Anubis plants to stuff in the smaller holes in the hollow log, to grow out of… and my current floating plants ( water hyacinth ) needs trimming, and the roots cleaned, & as long as I’m going in deep, the Tidal 75 will get cleaned today as well… I’m sure there will be a lot of solids in suspension to filter out… the African river tetras have all been doing great, and I’ve only lost one smaller than normal one, since they have all been added, and this tank got labeled as African…
It’s raining outside, so it looks like I have at least a couple hours, to complete this, before the outside chores start calling my name..
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