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My shallow tank.

mattb180

mattb180

Member
Joined
11 Jul 2010
Messages
138
Location
Wellingborough, Northants
Hi all,

I have posted every now and again for a little while but have never really shown off any of my own tanks. I did promise when asking questions a while back that I would attempt a journal so here goes....

Specs:

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3ft x 3ft shallow cube. 30cm high. Custom build from ND Aquatics.
Aquamanta EFX 200 filter
2 x 1000hd tiles and an 8 way aquaray controller

This has been up for exactly a week today.

The inhabitants at the moment are fish from my old tank - probably not what I would have chosen if starting from scratch but they probably deserve a decent home and seem to be loving the space. There are 15 CPD's, 8 dwarf corydoras and 8 khuli loaches. The loaches are about 3 years old so no way was I getting rid of them. I am hoping to breed the CPD's in due course, they may spawn in this tank but if I see no fry within a month or so I shall be setting up a specialist breeding tank and have a go that way.

Plants are mainly low tech staples - Bacopa, Ludwigia, Echinodorus, Crypts, Java Fern, Java Moss. I also have some hairgrass. No doubt I will add more as I go.

The emmersed section is literally a pond plant pot that I had been growing out in the pond all summer. I dumped it in and there are hollow areas underneath where the loaches vanish to in the day. It is surrounded by pieces of bogwood and is growing in quickly.

I have seen growth on all of the plants although some of the java fern is emmersed and going through a transition phase now. The hairgrass is throwing out runners already and the ludwigia is poking above the water line already. The echinodorus has thrown up two new leaves to the surface in a week.

A few early pics....lots of growing in to do yet!

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Apologies for the picture quality - Iphone5! Excuse the sofa and the animal ornaments!
 
This is awesome man! What fish do you plan on putting in there in the end? And what plants are in there mate? I'm interested in that pink flowered emergent plant!
 
Dominic said:
This is awesome man! What fish do you plan on putting in there in the end? And what plants are in there mate? I'm interested in that pink flowered emergent plant!
Click to expand...

I am hoping to have a large group of CPD's in there in the end. If anyone has any ideas throw them at me! I only got that plant the other day - It is a bit of an experiment but seems to be doing ok. I cannot for the life of me remember the name of it at the moment. It is one where the bases of the leaves need to be filled with water if that helps anyone? I have kept the plastic tags from the tropica plants and they are:

Ludwigia palusris green
Eleocharis Acicularis
Limnophilia heterophylia
Ludwigia palustris red
Bacopa compacta
Echinodorus chrileni
Cardamine lyrata
Various crypts - these are from my old tank so mixed

BigTom said:
My kind of dimensions :)

Looking forward to watching this one.
Click to expand...

Not ashamed to say yours was the inspiration! Long long way to go yet!
 
CPD's sound sweet man! What about some sort of centerpiece fish? Tom had a peacock goby, but that's assuming you dont have any shrimp apart from large amanos? What about some sort of apistogramma? I have a group of honey gourami in mine, but they just dont feel 'prominent' enough, to me. Have been thinking about German blue rams.

That does strike me as some sort of large bromeliad, does the name ring a bell? Or neoregelia? Where did you get it from mate? I do remember seeing that sort of plant in supermarkets and garden centres etc.
 
Dominic said:
CPD's sound sweet man! What about some sort of centerpiece fish? Tom had a peacock goby, but that's assuming you dont have any shrimp apart from large amanos? What about some sort of apistogramma? I have a group of honey gourami in mine, but they just dont feel 'prominent' enough, to me. Have been thinking about German blue rams.

That does strike me as some sort of large bromeliad, does the name ring a bell? Or neoregelia? Where did you get it from mate? I do remember seeing that sort of plant in supermarkets and garden centres etc.
Click to expand...

Bromeliad is the one! It was a fiver from Homebase.

As for the fish I am not sure about gourami's. I can't say I have seen anything that really draws me in. One day I will find the time to sit down and hit the books and find a few idea's. There are cherry shrimp in there - the dregs of a group where the population went from 25 to a few hundred and has gradually dropped off. Need some new blood lines. That was over about 3 years so to be expected I think.
 
haha ace man! Theres loads of types of bromeliads mate, some dont even like to touch water, so i have no idea what exact species it is! Haha!

Yeah man same, all the fish that do draw me need some sort of specific care requirement or exact water parameters, which is too difficult for me, lol! And it may well be worth introducing new blood lines mate, my cherries have only just started and had their first spawn, and i swear theres already hundreds in there, once the population grows a little more ill send some over to you if you like?
 
BigTom said:
My kind of dimensions :)

Looking forward to watching this one.
Click to expand...
See what you've gone and started...:rolleyes:

Looking good so far Matt...;)
 
mattb180 said:
Spotted the CPD's being a bit frisky this morning. Hopefully will result in some fry but if not I will have to get a breeding setup started I think!
Click to expand...

Nice. If you're running an external filter then it's worth keeping the water that you empty out of it when cleaning and letting it settle in a bucket for a bit. I always found one or two tiny D. erythromicron fry in there when I kept them, I expect CPDs will be similar.

You do have to really look for them though, they were generally about 3mm long and extremely hard to spot. A torch helps, as does a brightly coloured or clear bucket.
 
BigTom said:
Nice. If you're running an external filter then it's worth keeping the water that you empty out of it when cleaning and letting it settle in a bucket for a bit. I always found one or two tiny D. erythromicron fry in there when I kept them, I expect CPDs will be similar.

You do have to really look for them though, they were generally about 3mm long and extremely hard to spot. A torch helps, as does a brightly coloured or clear bucket.
Click to expand...

I will remember this. I am tempted to add D. erythromicron but have heard they can hybridise with the CPD's. Given that they are from the same body of water I guess this is a possibility in the wild, although it is a big lake and depends on the localities of the species i guess. Hybrids would no doubt be quite interesting to look at!
 
Okay, time for a brief update.....

Firstly I have been suffering with some very bad surface scum, I guess the tank is going to take a month or two to settle down completely. I have purchased a small eheim skimmer to deal with that for the moment and tried it for the first time tonight - very impressed!

There have been a few minor bacterial blooms so far, again to be expected i guess.

Unfortunately the bromeliad did not seem to take very well to having its feet permanently wet and so that has come out and been put in a pot on the windowsill instead! Too nice a plant to waste. It has been replaced by various bog plants that I got from the local garden centre, they seem to be taking quite well already. Under the water a few different stem plants have been added to the rear which needed filling out a bit. Some more bacopa and rotala. An amazon sword has been added middle left and I am hoping it will grow to be big and have it's leaves above the water line. That has taken very well and thrown up two new leaves in a week. More hairgrass has gone in at the front - little money saving tip here, I got a huge pot from Maidenhead Aquatics that was being sold as a pond plant - it cost me £3.50 and I got more than my original 4 pots at £3 a pot from it alone! You could easily plant a nano with one pot. I am looking at adding more crypts to the foreground in the near future.

As for fish I have added 5 D. Erythromicron, I did want more but they were the last 5. Shall add more when I see them. I would love to add a couple of 'feature fish' to bring it to life a bit more and hopefully encourage the CPD's and D.Erythromicron out. Struggling to make a decision on that though. Any ideas anybody?

Photo's will follow when this latest bacterial bloom has cleared!
 
All sounds normal to me, nothing to worry about! It will clear up as you go on :)

As for the plants, I found with my tank it was a lot of trial and error. Some didn't work, some worked better than others!

Good job with the eleocharis btw, i've noticed that at my MA but they always seem to be very sparse pots.... haha!
 
celestal pearl danios.
nice tank. when I have a big enough lounge I would like tank of similar dimensions!
 
I have added 12 threadfin rainbows to this tank over the weekend and it has really come to life now. Great little fish.

Everything is really growing in well, hopefully will add a few more crypts soon.

I also saw my first fry this evening, I am assuming it is a CPD. Considering the tank is a month old and it is free swimming it must have been part of a very early spawn! Hopefully there are more and they stay out of the way of hungry mouths.

*Now I know where to look I have seen three fry!
 
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