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The Celestial Swamp - A voyage through a flooded forest fringe (Shallow Riparium)

Great Tank Looks amazing.
Question, where did you source these little cubes from. As the cheapest i have found them in £8.49 each. Thanks

It's a mix of home made acrylic boxes, Interdesign suction cup containers ($6-8 CAD) from Canadian Tire and amazon and purpose built planters by AquaVerdi ($10 USD)... I couldn't find a source for appropriate size clay balls that most people use so I just used Seachem Matrix in the planters which of course acts as a secondary filter media...
 
Thanks, I am going to be using mine to hold Daphnia and Halfbeak fry (If i get any)

Sorry are you talking about the breeder boxes? These are from www.Angelfins.ca... they are of Japanese make, Sudobox I think... they range is size and price from $13 to $27CAD

The riparium planters have lots of holes in them...
 
69 fish all swimming around in the tank is amazing to watch! I've waited a long time for this...

It's funny to see the otos swim from one end to the next and for some reason 20 or 30 of the danios and pygmy cories all in tow...

Unfortunately even the biggest of the Celestial Pearl danios and a whole host of others have made it down to the sump... I guess I have to find another material to block the overflow but if I go any smaller in the opening size I risk creating an overflow situation if it gets clogged with crud, not to mention louder flow... grrrrr
 
I'm still trying to figure out the best method for the overflow... in the mean time at least 2/3rds of the fish have made it down to the sump... they're just chilling down there waiting for me...

Unfortunately one of the brachydanio tinwini got his tail stuck in the gutter guard and didn't make it... and I have my first jumper - a celestichthys choprae dried up on the floor...

I think temporarily I'm going to string some extra nylon window screen material I have across the overflow to prevent the fish water slide...
 
So I still can't get all the fish out of the sump... these little bastards are quick and hide so well... but on a good note there's a bunch of babies down there too!

I figure at least half of the fish are still in the sump... I try to remove one or two per day...

I ended up using #7 plastic canvas to block the overflow weir... this of course makes the holes much smaller so the fish will not going down anymore but the flow is affected with a rise in water level... it will be easy to clog too as the dead leaves, Salvinia and duckweed get stuck... I will have to monitor it constantly... I'm trying to source #5 plastic canvas which has bigger holes also in black so it blends in better...

One unfortunate side effect of smaller holes has been an accumulation of surface scum... the coast to coast weir is severely hindered now in this respect... it's like overflow teeth which aren't efficient at skimming the surface...

Now the reason I have surface scum is probably due to the fact that most of the pygmy chain sword (e. Tenellus) has melted back... I fear that with all the mass of riparium plants I am not fertilizing enough... but it could be the substrate too... the roots are fine but most of the leaves have melted... they sit where the light is the most intense so they must need more food... I did miss a week of ferts so maybe that was it...

I added half dozen Amano shrimp and I had another brachydanio tinwini commit suicide... one of the pygmy cories looks pregnant... I haven't seen the African dwarf frog in ages...
 
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I added 5 more pygmy cories and a zebra oto (Otocinclus cocama) last night... I also transfered all the syngonium into the extra AquaVerdi riparium planters I had... the wide suction cup ones I was using had crappy suction cups so I was using stainless steel s-hooks that hooked on the overflow glass... but the plastic canvas addition on the weir made it very hard to do... problem solved

I also ordered some more smaller suction cup planters from amazon for the one that was causing the block in the overflow and also to put in the HOB breeder boxes for the cat palm (Chamaedorea cataractarum) and a half dead umbrella palm (cyperus alternifolius).

The surface scum is covering the floating plants and is making it so they are not staying on top of the water surface and subsequently dieing and probably making the scum worse... perhaps long term, floating plants are not gonna work in this setup as they also hinder the surface scum from getting to the overflow... the Salvinia and duckweed is definitely gonna clog up the overflow anyways so it probably best to get rid of it... the frog bit is doing better...

I'll get some pictures up soon...
 
And the fish go jumping one by one hurrah! HURRAH!

The celestichthys choprae have a death wish.. lost another one today... I moved my lone female orange Lyretail Kili (Aphyosemion australe) in an she doesn't like certain fish near her 'spot'... she made 2 female endlers jump yesterday...

All of the riparium planters are in and filled and now I just need to fill out the empty spaces with accent plants etc...

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The pygmy chain sword (e. Tenellus) has stopped dying but it's still looking pretty rough... a couple days ago the surface scum was so bad the entire surface was translucent white... YUKK!

I realized that one of the planters was blocking the surface flow in the front right so it couldn't go around the stumps to the back overflow... obviously this was a choking point for scum... all I did was move the planter and boom! All the scum is gone!

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There's a terrible bald spot where the tenellus used to be... I was thinking of dwarf sag to replace it but it might get too tall here...

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The new fish and shrimp additions are doing well, but I think I may focus on the Celestial Pearl danios population... either by purchase or breeding... simple reason? They don't jump... I am also going to add another pair of orange Lyretail as a centre piece fish... I originally wanted somethjng bigger and more interesting (not that the males aren't spectacular) but anything bigger will probably decimate my planned cherry shrimp population... I might be adding a small shoal of glass catfish as they from Myanmar as well but they may distort the sense of scale here...

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I need to clean the front glass as hydra have made quite a colony there so it's hazy... I don't want to jinx it but algae has not appeared since adjusting the lights... but I think I still need to up the ferts to account for the huge section of riparium plants...
 
Absolutely amazing tank! One of coolest aquarium/riparium tank I have ever seen!

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