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

Hi all,
hitmanx said:
As it turns out I still have lots of fish in there... I couldn't see then before
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Small fish are usually happier in <"densely planted tanks">, it is being out in the open that is is much more stressful for them.

I've now got used to not seeing the fish, it used to worry me, and every now and then I'd search for them, often unsuccessfully, but a few days later they would re-appear. Now I just tend to leave them to it.

cheers Darrel
 
I think the fish feel comfortable even in the open space because they have so much hiding spaces behind the driftwood that takes up the other half of the scape...

I haven't seen any of the celestichthys margaritatus or celestichthys erythromicron in a long time, but here they are swimming around out front with the Microdevario kubotai:

Quick video of the fishes
 
The view from my couch...

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The maiden hair fern is done... the leaves are browning off and it looks terrible... the sphagnum moss and the hair net holding the roots on the driftwood stump have completely disintegrated so maybe that's why it's dying... either way I'm done with it

Besides, it has reproduced around the tank with gametophytes growing on some of the stumps and the poret foam filter in the sump so it will continue living in my tank in some fashion...

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I will need to fill out the void on the right side now and decide what to grow on the open stump in the middle... preferably something smaller...
 
It's been fun watching the maiden hair fern grow from a small plant into a massive multi stemmed rhizome, but I never liked how it took over... I always wanted the simplicity of the large leaved spathaphilum as the back drop to other smaller plants as focal points of interest... although these spaths are probably hybrids of South American species, there are spaths from South East Asia that look similar so to me they fit right in...

So anyways it's about time I cleaned the sump and poret foam filter... mulm accumulation is starting to happen again on the substrate. After I cleaned it last December, a lot of the mulm and gooey algae problems went away...

Besides, a bunch of fish have made there way down to the sump again so it's time to send them back up top... and maybe rethink the overflow weird guard... on a more positive note I haven't had a jumper in a long time...

In preparation I've decided to do daily small water changes... about 5 gallons per day with remineralized RO water, trying to get as much of the mulm and organics out as possible from the display tank and sump... using a water change calculator I figure it will be about a 40 to 50% water change over the week... the TDS was about 430ppm when i started... it's already down to 350... my goal is less then 300ppm...
 
I must admit as much as I love the maidenhair fern I had in my old tank, I don't miss it since I took it out. The speed of growth just dominated the emerse growth and it suffered from random die off every so often that I think has been discussed on here before. It had a nice leaf structure and I'm still trying to replace it with something better so eager to see what you add as a replacement. I must admit I like the openess of your tank now it's gone and think something shorter on the wood will be an improvement.
 
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Certainly a different feel to it without the blob of fern in the middle...

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Not sure what to put on the wood stump now, but I figure it will be over shadowed by the spaths soon anyways... maybe a diy wabi kusa with an anthurium on it? I'm going to fill in between the spath planters with smaller spaths to cover up the empty space under the big leaves... at this point the overflow and plumbing behind is very noticeable...

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I ended up sucking up some of the aquasoil while cleaning the mulm and it appears that there is some kind of off white goo or bacteria colony growing under the first layer... I sucked up the top layer in the middle front and you can see the difference... in some places I sucked out the goo layer and under that is virgin aquasoil... no sure what this is...

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You can see the dirty aquasoil, the goo layer and clean aquasoil... under closer magnification the goo layer is made up of stringy white masses... algae?

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Some of the older dwarf sag leaves have BBA on them...
 
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3.5yrs in and the tank is still humming along... Im still alive and the tank isnt going anywhere... time to clean the sump and filter... haven't done it since Dec 2018..... o_O

As usual everything is over grown... trimmed it back yesterday... the peace lilies are taking over and have spaths that reach above the lights, but because there are so many the pollen drops into the water and leaves below and make a dusty mess...

I ran out of Thrive fertz so some of the underwater plants are suffering as is the frogbit which is compounded by the aphid infestation that I've been dealing with for 2 years..... they seem to like malnourish frogbit :eek:

I planted a grove of Val awhile back and it's doing really well... I removed all of the H. Polysperma temporarily to see if I want to simplify the scape by only having Vals, crypts, and dwarf sag, but I will need to fill in the space left behind.... I have some H. Zosterfolia sprinkled around too but it grows fast... not my style

I have some BGA, BBA and fuzz algae... need filter cleaning and more regular water changes and not leave the RO top up until 10+ gallons is needed at a time... life gets in the way... low tech tanks means I forget I even have a tank save for top ups and feeding which are both few and far between...

The fish are still humming but the sump houses alot of them :mad: I want more fish but it seems if I have too many up top they get feisty and I get jumpers... I was thinking about something easy like endlers but that doesn't go along with the south east Asian aesthetic... of course more CPDs would be nice but they are expensive here and my breeding attempts have been fruitless...

I will post some pictures when I have a minute...
 
I replanted some of the H. Zosterfolia around the bases of the Vals... I really don't think I want to use the H. Polysperma anymore... it grows fast and takes up too much space... I also like the idea of all the underwater plants being being grass-like instead of bushy...

I ordered more crypt wendtii 'green' to fill in the open spaces and more dwarf sag which grows super short in this tank but doesn't seem to send out many runners....

I did a water change and used a turkey baseter to remove alot of the accumulated mulm from the sump... back breaking o_O

I also managed to catch 3 Cpds down there and returned them to the tank... there are lots of others in the sump, but too hard to catch and I will have to wait until I fully clean it... the 3 glowlight danios are still alive down there too... they are pushing 4years old now...

When I get the new plants i will clean things up a bit in the riparium section... then again I may not touch the tank for another couple months...;)

The Cat Palm is finally growing large after being in the tank for 3 years...
 
Still possibly my favourite tank on here. I just love the above and below aspect.


I have 3 glowlight danios from a group of ten that are over eight years now. I'm really surprised they have lived that long but I do find them a little boistrous and am waiting for them to pass before I add some smaller fish.
 
mort said:
Still possibly my favourite tank on here. I just love the above and below aspect.


I have 3 glowlight danios from a group of ten that are over eight years now. I'm really surprised they have lived that long but I do find them a little boistrous and am waiting for them to pass before I add some smaller fish.
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Indeed, they are quite rambunctious... that's why I moved them to the sump... I was tired of picking up dead fish caused by their constant chasing of the smaller inhabitants...

Over the course of this tanks life, I have learned to manage expectations.. . I have spent a lot of money on failed plants :mad:Despite supplying copious amounts of fertilizer compared to other low techs, the riparium plants just eat it up and most underwater plants fizzle out... so far only h. Polysperma, h. Zosterfolia, Vals, easy crypts like wendtii etc, and dwarf sag have been able to survive...

I always question the light intensity... I really have no idea how much PAR the substrate gets... it's certainly brighter then other low techs I have done that could grow more exciting things...

Because there are only 2 rows of lights, they are over the riparium section so they only shine down on 2/3 of the tank back to front... what I do know is that the plants in the very centre of the tank always show deficiencies so the lighting can't be that bad..
 
Filling up the space... still need more

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Filling the substrate has been a challenge since flooding this tank...

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Like duckweed, frogbit shows deficiency first... they are looking rough...

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The damn aphids are not helping :mad:

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Taken out to clip old leaves and mulm covered roots...

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