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So today after looking at the empty tank for months (and kind of enjoying looking at it empty) I filled it up... was a fail, the wood floated so I have put some rocks on top of the wood to let them soak and will try reconstruct the scape in a few days, the left hand side has kind of collapsed... I took a timelapse, the you can tell when I go off looking for some rocks...

The main driver for filling the tank was my tub of anubias and few bits of buce I had outside started to turn bad, I had it covered for so long the large leaves turned yellow / too mush, so I removed most of the bad leaves and just chucked them all in this tank, I am injecting co2 just via a in-tank diffuser thing, I have positioned it so the inline (to the filter) sucks in all the bubbles, I am hoping this works well, tho I have no drop checker to check what kind of co2 levels i am getting.

 
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Well I got my hands wet and did my best to reconstruct the scape, its not exactly the same as the dry layout but close enough, the wood is still floating and from what I read will float for awhile, I have no idea what kind of wood i have here, it all seems different so may need the rocks in place for some time... hopefully it sinks eventually!

My OCD kicked and I couldn't stand looking the the scape looking bad so I also stuffed all the plants into the nooks and crannies in the wood, nothing is glued in place all just stuffed in and hoping tomorrow morning the majority of it still is in place...

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IMG_5322-Edit.jpg by Colm Doyle, on Flickr
 
Was about to say I'm really jealous of the tank then remembered a built a similar 4ft one that I have in the loft. So might have to blatantly, albeit badly, copy your idea but I quite fancy having a go at your last stream tank first.
 
Was about to say I'm really jealous of the tank then remembered a built a similar 4ft one that I have in the loft. So might have to blatantly, albeit badly, copy your idea but I quite fancy having a go at your last stream tank first.

Thanks Mort, I love shallow tanks, these days I just have a 3ft bookshelf and this 5ft bookshelf tank, being so shallow they are pretty easy to maintain / tend to plants etc, barely get you hands wet!

The previous fast flowing river style tank was my favourite but I fried it with may to much light for way to long and couldn't not recover from the dreaded BBA, hopefully this tank with much lower light doesn't meet the same fate
 
Looks really good! I think outlet and inlet at opposite ends would help the river theme and water motion. Otherwise I think you will get circular flow at on end and no flow at the other.
 
Looks really good! I think outlet and inlet at opposite ends would help the river theme and water motion. Otherwise I think you will get circular flow at on end and no flow at the other.

Thanks I want to keep things simple with this scape / setup so minimal pipe/plumbing, also where the tank is positioned and style of stand its hard to have have the inlets / outlets at opposite sides. Saying that looking at the flow of water within the tank there is movement at the far end, I think it will be fine, the filter is rated at 1400lph and there is probably only 50ltrs of water in the tank, I have had super high flow tank and tanks with very little flow... surprisingly I had more success with the low flow tanks
 
Finally removed the rocks to stop the wood floating, one bit still floats a bit but is being held down by the other bits of wood, added about 50 cherry shrimp they going good, getting diatoms / dust algae on the glass, saying that I have not even changed the water since filling it up for the first time, I will give it a water change next week and try get some fish.

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IMG_0991-Edit.jpg by Colm Doyle, on Flickr
 
Today I added 20 Dwarf Rasbora (Boraras maculatus) and 4 kuhli loaches, the loaches where probably a bad idea considering everything I read says they will try escape from a open top tank... time will tell, they look cool like little eels!

Recorded a quick video this evening, really like the addition of fish, the Kuhli loaches are very active at times, then just hide away, very fun to watch. I didnt catch them swimming the length of the tank in this video, but they seem to like to explore end to end, it's interesting to watch them swim and you really notice their fins, look much less like eels when swimming freely. I need to work out some kind of way to minimise glare of the tank, I forgot to turn off the other lights in the house so reflections are pretty bad.

 
One iof my favs on here as I'd love a long shallow; you might struggle with the khulis as they really like to bury themselves in sand.
 
One iof my favs on here as I'd love a long shallow; you might struggle with the khulis as they really like to bury themselves in sand.

Thank you, the Kuhli loaches where a impulse buy... they suit the tank parameters apart from no soft sand or soil... I may add some behind the wood... or I will add a heap of leaf litter and let it break down
 
What causes fish to "surf" up and down the glass, I have noticed fish doing it at some stage in pretty much every fish tank I have had, the boraras in my 5ft are going crazy down at the "filter" end of my tank, they have been at it all day, occasionally a kulhi loach will join in, while about half of the fish are not bothered at all?

Looks they are they feeding / hunting something but I cant see anything.

 
What causes fish to "surf" up and down the glass, I have noticed fish doing it at some stage in pretty much every fish tank I have had, the boraras in my 5ft are going crazy down at the "filter" end of my tank, they have been at it all day, occasionally a kulhi loach will join in, while about half of the fish are not bothered at all?

Looks they are they feeding / hunting something but I cant see anything.




I noticed the same thing with rummy nose tetras in the end I concluded that they were responding to their reflections.
 
Hope everyone is doing well, here is a photo I took today of this tank, very slow going / growing, which is good, basically no maintenance, I have only changed the water once since filling it up!

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Looking nice :) did the kuhlis stay put or did they go exploring the outside world?
Cheers, they have stayed put! No jumpers (only the odd shrimp) Perhaps the black kuhli loaches are less prone to escaping? Thte stay at the bottom of the tank generally and usually hide under the wood unless I put food in the tank then they go frantic and really love live food and sinking pellets. Really cool fish to watch at night when they come out for feeding, like little eels or snakes
 
I still miss your hillstream tank! This one is nice too, any pointers on how to photograph my blackwater using a modern mobile phone?
 
I still miss your hillstream tank! This one is nice too, any pointers on how to photograph my blackwater using a modern mobile phone?
Cheers, the stream tank was my fav, maybe I will try again some day but not keep the hillstream loaches as its to hot in Australia for them (specially in my hot apartment) As for photos, I also use my DSLR so with mobile I prob wont be much help, if you can try get a tripod and see if you can shoot manually and use a longer shutter speed, blackwater is tricky to photography as its darker
 
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