Creating natural, functional cichlid display tanks

[tiger15]

Some of the mountain streams here in NY have almost CO2 injection, very cold, fast flowing water. underwater they are totally green with very often 5+ types of plant growing in one square foot. The tend to be very shallow (<6"), and have no fish, shrimp or red plants though, but otherwise theye look a lot like those nature aquariums.

Spring fed streams are in reality CO2 injected because groundwater is saturated with CO2. The clarity allows green algae and submerged plants to thrive.

There are share of many crystal clear mountain streams, rift lakes in East Africa, and sink hole lakes in Florida, Mexico, Indonesia and elsewhere. Weeki Wachee is a popular tourist attraction in Florida where you can swim or ride glass bottom boats to enjoy 100 ft of clarity. The rocks are covered with green algae and grazed by fish, but unfortunately, I saw Mbuna introduced to bring interest.

The Spaniards classified the Amazon waters into white water, black water and clear water. White water is sediment loaded water in the main channels, black waters are tributaries stained with tannin, and clear waters are by name clear of tannin or sediments. Clear waters are extremely rare in the Orinoco and Amazon river systems.

Here are two videos by George Fear and Ivan Mikowi on Orinoco discussed in post #84.

https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/threads/natural-habitats-of-cichlids.670096/page-4

https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/threads/natural-habitats-of-cichlids.670096/page-3

George Fear's videos are representation of majority of the habitats: water not clear, detritus and leaf litters everywhere, and dirty looking brown algae or moss covered objects.

Ivan videos show more picture perfect habitats but he acknowledged having hard time finding the 0.5% clear waters he could video.

So I am not misleading or nick picking that many riverine habitats where most of our aquarium fish came from do not have clear water or prettier scape than our aquariums.

 

[jaws7777]

Spring fed streams are in reality CO2 injected because groundwater is saturated with CO2. The clarity allows green algae and submerged plants to thrive.

There are share of many crystal clear mountain streams, rift lakes in East Africa, and sink hole lakes in Florida, Mexico, Indonesia and elsewhere. Weeki Wachee is a popular tourist attraction in Florida where you can swim or ride glass bottom boats to enjoy 100 ft of clarity. The rocks are covered with green algae and grazed by fish, but unfortunately, I saw Mbuna introduced to bring interest.

The Spaniards classified the Amazon waters into white water, black water and clear water. White water is sediment loaded water in the main channels, black waters are tributaries stained with tannin, and clear waters are by name clear of tannin or sediments. Clear waters are extremely rare in the Orinoco and Amazon river systems.

Here are two videos by George Fear and Ivan Mikowi on Orinoco discussed in post #84.

https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/threads/natural-habitats-of-cichlids.670096/page-4

https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/threads/natural-habitats-of-cichlids.670096/page-3

George Fear's videos are representation of majority of the habitats: water not clear, detritus and leaf litters everywhere, and dirty looking brown algae or moss covered objects.

Ivan videos show more picture perfect habitats but he acknowledged having hard time finding the 0.5% clear waters he could video.

So I am not misleading or nick picking that many riverine habitats where most of our aquarium fish came from do not have clear water or prettier scape than our aquariums.

You are 100% correct. Now can the thread move on ?

 

[dan518]

In the title it says "functional" to me that would mean that your going to have clear water with out huge amounts of detritus so you can actually view your fish.
Your not going to base your scape of a crap bit of the area in question, you would base it on the best parts.
This thread is in sa/ca cichlid section which covers half a continent, there are some beautiful rivers all around the world where you can find popular aquarium fish.

 

[mrrobxc]

I think tiger15 has good intentions here but as J jaws7777 mentioned, it’s time to let the thread move on. Lets call a spade a spade and let move tk gunner things like...this thread is awesome!

 

[Hendre]

Well, I think the concepts in this thread are awesome. I'm hoping to do a native biotope in the next while, something small in a 15 gallon. Our natives are pretty awesome and there's lots of natural material to work with

 

[jaws7777]

So damn you Stanzzzz7 you got me thinking now. Im a fan of nicely scaped tanks as long as they arent mine lol.

Seriously i love the way they look but i also like the spotless almost sterile look. You went and made me add some more fake plants lmaoo to the bichir tank. Imo heavy decor and big lumbering bichirs dont mix. BUT i do have a handful of spare tanks i would like to set up after i get this surgery out of the way.

Ive been thinking about doing a low maintenance temperate water tank filtered with a few sponge filters and some plants.

I may try my hand at this whole aquascaping business. mrrobxc recently set up tank is also to blame

 

[mrrobxc]

So damn you Stanzzzz7 you got me thinking now. Im a fan of nicely scaped tanks as long as they arent mine lol.

Seriously i love the way they look but i also like the spotless almost sterile look. You went and made me add some more fake plants lmaoo to the bichir tank. Imo heavy decor and big lumbering bichirs dont mix. BUT i do have a handful of spare tanks i would like to set up after i get this surgery out of the way.

Ive been thinking about doing a low maintenance temperate water tank filtered with a few sponge filters and some plants.

I may try my hand at this whole aquascaping business. mrrobxc recently set up tank is also to blame

You’ll fall into the deep end quickly. Trust me!

 

[jaws7777]

Hahaha no no no im too OCD. One beautifully messy tank is enough.

You’ll fall into the deep end quickly. Trust me!

 

[The True Guapote]

Fantastic information provided by Stanzzzz, I too find myself obsessed with recreating a more natural looking tank but I too found it difficult, the portion regarding the scale of objects in your aquarium in relation to tank size really helped me. I will say my tank is by no means as beautiful as some of the ones shown in this thread but I feel like after having read this article I have a better grasp on what to do to improve it! Thanks for the excellent information.

 

[mrrobxc]

I love it. Try mixing up the substrate so that the grains aren’t too uniform. Mix in different size grains of gravel and sand.