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5ft Bookshelf Aquarium - River Scape

Than they probably were parasite infested from the LFS.. As far as i know they are wild catch and not yet captive bred. Good thing to learn and recognize when fish are not healthy or show depressed behaivor.. It's hard to explain in words what to look for, i kinda learned it over many years trail and error. And now i see at first glance when not to buy and leave them in the shop and wait a few weeks for another batch to arrive. With boraras/rasboras they should be full color with a somewhat silvery shiny round belly. If they are pale and or skinny or belly is even worse and concave. Than do not buy.. Tho experience makes you see if it concers very young fish that still are in transition periode from larval stadium to young adult, these always look skiny and flat and have relative to body size i bit larger eye. Learn to see these small details, the smaller the fish are the smaller the details to overlook. :) Belly should never be concave in shape.

But the Kobutai are realy very lovely little fish.. In my tank they also regularly play in the filter outlet stream.. Healthy specimen are extremely playfull and constantly showingh sham battles and chasing eachother back and forth around the tank.. :)

Cheers for the info, I cant really recall what they looked like when I first got them, the few remaining are very big now (compared to the other boraras I keep) seem healthy and very active, like you said they zip around and show the other fish who is boss... even tho there is only 3 of them and about 30 other boraras.

I have a few golden mountain minnows in one of my outdoor thanks that I want to rescape so they will be the first fish into this tank, I may just stick with mountain minnows
 
Hi
If U deside on tge minows favour.Try to find
Tanichthys linni wich has more colour and long fins.I have them i my tank with the Sap puffers and they are my best buy.Great colours and personality
Regards Konsa
 
For the scale of the tank (long but neither tall nor deep so I'd treat this like a smaller tank rather than a typical 1.5m tank) I'd go with fish smaller than the common mountain minnows
FWIW I've seen M kubotai in a 120cm long tank & they loved the length (flow in this tank was moderate, I don't think of them as riverine fish - unlike some of the loaches etc)

Anyone else see this the round stones ?

800_prisoner_blu-ray2.jpg
 
For the scale of the tank (long but neither tall nor deep so I'd treat this like a smaller tank rather than a typical 1.5m tank) I'd go with fish smaller than the common mountain minnows
FWIW I've seen M kubotai in a 120cm long tank & they loved the length (flow in this tank was moderate, I don't think of them as riverine fish - unlike some of the loaches etc)

Anyone else see this the round stones ?

800_prisoner_blu-ray2.jpg

I do agree, smaller fish would be better, and with the flow not being and high as I would have liked M kubotai would probably enjoy the tank, any other small fish that enjoy flow?
 
Wow they are freaky cool, cant say I have ever seen them in Australia, similar to whiptail catfish which I have been wanting to keep for awhile!

Dunno, sounds strange, because their distribution is closer to Australia than it is to Europe. Makes you think to should be easy to obtain.
 
Dunno, sounds strange, because their distribution is closer to Australia than it is to Europe. Makes you think to should be easy to obtain.

You would thinks so but Australia have very tight laws on importing any plants or animals, even more so strict in my State, we cant buy plants from outside of Western Australia, makes aquascaping pretty tuff!
 
Added some wood, unsure if it will stay, would like to find another bit that I can stick behind the biggest stone to make it look like the wood flows the length of the rock formation.

27306621398_3b06d13bd1_b.jpg
IMG_1413w
by Colm Doyle, on Flickr
 
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Woods looks perfect too me, looks very natural

Cheers to me it looks to distracting / busy, but I think when the Val grows across the tank more it will make the wood look more natural
 
Agree - more wood behind the biggest stone :)

Hard jerdoni are "less likely" on most fish lists - AFAIK they are wild caught so seasonal
They definitely prefer cooler water or perhaps it's just about oxygen levels (natural waters are high in oxygen)
 
Added some wood, unsure if it will stay, would like to find another bit that I can stick behind the biggest stone to make it look like the wood flows the length of the rock formation.

27306621398_3b06d13bd1_b.jpg
IMG_1413w
by Colm Doyle, on Flickr

Great scape, hope i dont ruin it by saying - reminds me of super mario and yoshi landscapes
 
Added 8 "tanichthys micagemmae" Vietnamese White Cloud Mountain Minnows yesterday, the store only had 8 but said they should get more so I will hopefully add to the school. They are super skittish and scared of any movement around the tank, hopefully they settle in and get use to some movement around the tank, I may add about the same amount of glowlight danios next week to see if they help make the minnows feel more at home.

I had to remove the wavemakers, they trapped the fish several times and the fish didnt like them at all, I guess wavemakers are not designed for such shallow tanks, if the fish got anywhere near them they basically got trapped by the force of the wavemakers pulling water back into them, it was concerning to watch.

I am going to run a second filter so that will be 2x 1400lph filters but I think adding any hillstream loaches my have to be put on hold until I rescape, without wavemakers surface movement is minimal, i think next time I will create a proper river manifold setup
 
Beter late than never.. :) I lost the url of the tutorial to build a river strean setup from a standard tank in aestheticaly the best way possible.
With using the same pumps like @Edvet metions, connected to an inlet piping layed over the bottom bellow the sand to the other end of the tank. Where the inlet is above the sand with a filter sponge.. This creates the best liniar stream like flow patern available in a standard fish tank. I'm sure @Tim Harrison still knows to locate this Tut.. I remember he posted it here some time ago... :)
 
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