Central Taiwan Biotope Creation Log and Journal

[cockroach]

Some more pics of the little guys settled in:
The horse mouth juvies. They move so much, and so quick, it is hard to capture a pic of them

A snail doing his its bit

Two others also going for gold


The larger shrimp standing guard


His turf, his rules.


Left side of the tank


The only algae left. There is brown algae starting to cover the new rocks and the green algae from before regenerating.


Partial tank shot

 

[Ogertron3000]

I really like this project. Such a simple idea to collect everything from a local river but done so well and with some thought put into it.
Look forward to seeing it change and progress.

 

[dan518]

Some more pics of the little guys settled in:
The horse mouth juvies. They move so much, and so quick, it is hard to capture a pic of them
View attachment 1344149 View attachment 1344150
A snail doing his its bit
View attachment 1344151
Two others also going for gold


The larger shrimp standing guard
View attachment 1344153

His turf, his rules.
View attachment 1344154

Left side of the tank
View attachment 1344156

The only algae left. There is brown algae starting to cover the new rocks and the green algae from before regenerating.
View attachment 1344157

Partial tank shot
View attachment 1344155

How is it all settling in now.

 

[cockroach]

I really like this project. Such a simple idea to collect everything from a local river but done so well and with some thought put into it.
Look forward to seeing it change and progress.

Thanks, appreciate the comments.
It has started changing, the diatom algae has now covered everything. But I see some patches for better green algae growing on the wood.

How is it all settling in now.

The fish have settled in nicely. The guppies did their job and helped the skittish fish settle to the point where they were no longer scared of movement and noises around the tank. So I removed them and the Horse Mouth have remained well settled.
Feeding them is essentially hassle free. They will eat anything that hits the water.

In the streams they must feed from the surface as they appear to prefer eating from the surface and will later scavenge off the bottom.

With all the food going into the tank, and the algae growing, the 2 species of snails are taking off. I am careful with the amount I feed now and hopefully this will help control the algae growth and snail populations keeping both manageable.

Below are some pics of the tank on Friday night when I was playing around with a 10W LED worker's lamp. The branch was moved to see how it looked. Will leave it there for now.

The Pics:


A short vid of the tank with the 10W LED light. Was trying out a new app I heard of for making videos:

 

[dan518]

Tank looks great, glad to hear the fish are doing well. Are you going to keep the light.

 

[cockroach]

Tank looks great, glad to hear the fish are doing well. Are you going to keep the light.

Thanks. No I am going to look for a decent LED tank light or some small industrial LED strip light. I like the water ripple effect from LED lighting, especially on a stream tank.

This si the tank under normal lighting at the moment.
The guppies last night in the stream before they joined the guppy line breeding project we are doing.

 

[dan518]

How big do the fish get?
Once the algae starts covering the rocks it going to look stunning.

 

[cockroach]

How big do the fish get?
Once the algae starts covering the rocks it going to look stunning.

They get about 20cm in the wild but that is rare. I have seen anglers landing 15+cm specimens but most of the time it's about 12cm.
I am going to use markstrimaran approach to algae and seed the tank. I want to go out this week with a scraper and some collection containers and see how much different algae I can find in the river to seed the tank with. The watch where it grows. I colleague I worked with did his PhD in algae and diatoms. Perhaps I should contact him to chime in.

 

[dan518]

They get about 20cm in the wild but that is rare. I have seen anglers landing 15+cm specimens but most of the time it's about 12cm.
I am going to use markstrimaran approach to algae and seed the tank. I want to go out this week with a scraper and some collection containers and see how much different algae I can find in the river to seed the tank with. The watch where it grows. I colleague I worked with did his PhD in algae and diatoms. Perhaps I should contact him to chime in.

It was interesting what he was saying about different light spectrums growing different algae. Something that I might have to look into. It would be interesting to hear what your friend has to say about it.

 

[cockroach]

If I don't mention anything about him in the next week or so please remind me to contact him.

I know his thesis had something to do with freshwater algae and he actually had two of the grades he taught separating and growing different algae as part of their semester scores.