Interesting biotope ideas

Q

Quo Vadis

Gambusia
MFK Member
Apr 12, 2014
912
21
18
Wisconsin
Hey all!

I'd love the hear your ideas for unusual, or very specific and accurate biotopes. I feel like often when people say "biotope" they just lump all fish from a continent together, as if all the fish from South America regularly run into one another. I am interested in doing one or two with some spare tanks and seeing how I like them. Put your suggestion down!

Rules:
The following tank sizes are the options for the biotope: 90g/75g, 55g, 40g breeder, 45g/38g, 29g, 20g long, 20g, 10g, 5g. (Those are the sizes of my extra tanks).
Must have at least two fish species.
Must be fish that at least could conceivably live together in the wild - e.g. overlapping ranges and environments.
Include info on aquascape and if there are any plants/invertebrates that would work.

Also be creative, I'd love to hear about unusual biotopes! Post pictures too if you have one of your own, or if you have found good pictures online.

Go
 
souzie

souzie

Peacock Bass
MFK Member
May 13, 2014
746
616
115
Ontario, Canada
I have a Rio Negro biotope.

One of the most important aspects of this system is the driftwood as this is what gives the water it's brown color.

In the Rio Negro, there is very little aquatic vegetation and no floating plants...just sand, driftwood and leaf litter.

My tank is based on the Rio Negro Igapo or the Blackwater-flooded Amazonian Forest...

image.jpg

image.jpg

image.jpg

image.jpg
 
tlindsey

tlindsey

Silver Tier VIP
MFK Member
Aug 6, 2011
23,363
24,269
1,660
Ohio
souzie said:
I have a Rio Negro biotope.

One of the most important aspects of this system is the driftwood as this is what gives the water it's brown color.

In the Rio Negro, there is very little aquatic vegetation and no floating plants...just sand, driftwood and leaf litter.

My tank is based on the Rio Negro Igapo or the Blackwater-flooded Amazonian Forest...

View attachment 1070832

View attachment 1070833
Click to expand...



Awsome aquascape ! :) I bet the shoal is less nervous in the blackwater.:)
 
Q

Quo Vadis

Gambusia
MFK Member
Apr 12, 2014
912
21
18
Wisconsin
Sweet! I am personally not a fan of piranhas but you could almost convince me to become one!
One of my top choices I am considering is a Convict cichlid biotope. Most people consider them trash fish but I really like them and I think done right a group could be gorgeous +super cheap! Other fish I'm considering working around that I already have in community tanks or have access to:

Rainbow cichlids
Keyhole cichlids
Cryptoheros nanoluteus
Krobia xingua (sp??)
Apistogramma cacatuoides
Ptychochromis oligacanthus
African Dwarf Frogs
Stiphoden gobies/hill stream loaches?
Any other interesting oddballs??

Any thoughts on these options?
 
Yuki Rihwa

Yuki Rihwa

Redtail Catfish
MFK Member
Jan 22, 2015
2,596
1,432
154
Asia
My Biotope focus on 2 points: Top and bottom species (my tank till on working progress).
So I'm using some drifwoods and fast grow tall plants like green fox tail, red tiget lotus (draft water lily), short and medium tall plants are Java Fern, Anubias.
Those tall plants will become my water surface cover for some bottom shade spot and will be top predator cover and ambush hunt.
I'm aim to keep bottom area for bottom predator like wolf, and top predator Hepsetus Odoe :D

**the above picture took sometime ago, so as it stand now the water lily leaves covering almost half of the right side top water surface and the green fox tail cover the left half tank water surface.

IMG_0134.JPG
 
B

Belly up

Piranha
MFK Member
Sep 19, 2008
637
169
76
Wolverine, MI
Quo Vadis, Anyone that considers any fish trash regardless of how common, well lets just say their opinion has little value to me. If you like convicts now try keeping some outside over the summer, you will be amazed at their colors when you bring them back in.


I have a hillstream set-up, fifty gallon tank with six reticulated loaches. I LOVE THESE FISH! They are very entertaining to say the least. There is a lot of info on the web so no sense in me going over it here, but I would encourage you to look into setting one up yourself. You can decide which fish you like the most then figure out what is found with it. I know there are shrimp found with some of them too since you want an invert too.
 
elting44

elting44

Piranha
MFK Member
Oct 8, 2007
1,168
93
81
38
Salina, KS
Quo Vadis said:
Sweet! I am personally not a fan of piranhas but you could almost convince me to become one!
One of my top choices I am considering is a Convict cichlid biotope. Most people consider them trash fish but I really like them and I think done right a group could be gorgeous +super cheap! Other fish I'm considering working around that I already have in community tanks or have access to:

Rainbow cichlids
Keyhole cichlids
Cryptoheros nanoluteus
Krobia xingua (sp??)
Apistogramma cacatuoides
Ptychochromis oligacanthus
African Dwarf Frogs
Stiphoden gobies/hill stream loaches?
Any other interesting oddballs??

Any thoughts on these options?
Click to expand...
Here is my 55g 'Rio Matina' Costa Rican Biotope, it contains a breeding pair of convicts and a 2 female rainbows (looking for a sub-adult male to grow out)







If you are looking for inspiration, member Nutty on MFK has the best Costa Rican biotope aquarium, in my opinion. His had a number of veija, c.sajica, and at one time there were some really cool swordtails too, I can't recall, I will try to find it, it really is stunning.
 
Q

Quo Vadis

Gambusia
MFK Member
Apr 12, 2014
912
21
18
Wisconsin
Well it looks like Convicts and Rainbows would overlap in the wild, along with Green Swordfish, so that would be pretty cool. Only thing I may be worried is whether the Cons would be too aggressive for the Rainbows, but the one Con I have right now is really very peaceful... but then she is not breeding.

It doesn't look like Stiphodon gobies and Hillstream loaches would overlap, but if I break my own rules and go more general, I think a goby, loach, and White Cloud "Asian" stream tank with crazy strong current would be sweet.

It looks like Krobia would overlap with Lemon tetras in the wild, so that could be cool. They have been one of my fish I have been interested in breeding, so that setup might work nicely to do that.

Keyholes are another favorite of mine I wouldn't mind trying to breed... trying to figure out which tetras they overlap with or if they overlap with any Apistogramma.
 
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