My 190 gallon tank - suggestions are welcomed

[BuffaloPolypteridae]

I'd love one of those, the longer mouth gives it a much more predatory look.

I'd go with polypterus if your doing African oddball, any upper jaw would be good for life in there and most lower jaws too. They're kind of like snakeheads and can come with each other much better so you can have a variety vs one or maybe a pair of snakeheads

Then to fill out the water some large ctenopoma, maybe an Odor pike? Or if there are any mid swimming syno cats that would be cool. I tend to mold all my tanks around my polys

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[ss720]

I'd love one of those, the longer mouth gives it a much more predatory look.

I'd go with polypterus if your doing African oddball, any upper jaw would be good for life in there and most lower jaws too. They're kind of like snakeheads and can come with each other much better so you can have a variety vs one or maybe a pair of snakeheads

Then to fill out the water some large ctenopoma, maybe an Odor pike? Or if there are any mid swimming syno cats that would be cool. I tend to mold all my tanks around my polys

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I'd definitely look into that.

Gonna fix my nano tank now.
I'm starting to think I'm going to move away the geo's and rethink.

I'm definitely in love with the hujera gars at work, ill see if I can take care of them properly there before I consider dropping them here.

Here's the old look of the nano:View attachment 1014558

And here is what I have to work with:


Will post the finished look in an hour.


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[amazontank]

That Java fern looks absolutely amazing! I have a dozen beautiful giant Anubias and some giant marimo balls I been working with.
Do you use fertilizer? Can you let me know what kind of lights/bulbs you use?

 

[ss720]

That Java fern looks absolutely amazing! I have a dozen beautiful giant Anubias and some giant marimo balls I been working with.
Do you use fertilizer? Can you let me know what kind of lights/bulbs you use?

I'm not using anything at the moment, just 15 ml of pure ammonia for cycling.

After cycling I will add some fertilizer with water changes.

It's called tropica special fertilizer.

It's meant for slow growing plants, mostly iron additive I believe.

Remember all of these plants are delivered directly from tropicas plant.
Therefor they are in perfect condition, what will be my challenge is to keep them in this condition.

They recommended me to remove and trim leafs and roots to certain degree to make the adjustment better and keep their vitality.

My light fixture is 4 times 30w life glo.
Which is standard on this light fixture. It has the possibility to add and change the lighting setup, however all these plants do not require a high light source, so I will be fine.

However I want to try use fertilizers(first time for me) in order to keep them healthy and good looking.

This is my first time I've had so many plants and I will try and learn as much possible in order to keep it looking as good as this.

Usually I just have sand, driftwood and a few Anubias and java fern, but over time mine used to get algae and start to look worn out. But that's many years ago, and didn't know about the need of fertilizers.

And I will be adding a uv filter in a few weeks to combat algae.
Eheim has a 11w uv sterilizer I'm looking into, it's meant for tanks upto 200 gallons, but I think it might be to little. I've seen some with 20-30w+ And I think bigger is better, but I'm a rookie when it comes to this.

I will ask for advice in another thread regarding this.

So now I'm a bit older and hopefully tropica will guide me forward.
I'll give them a call on Monday for further advice.

Here's the nano makeover,
I'm not really satisfied, it looks a bit messy. But my focus is on the 190 gallon. So I might change it up a bit during the week in the nano.

I also removed my bristle nose pleco, that thing poops way to much.....

I also think Anubias petite and different type of plants would look better in this.

I will definitely try that later on, perhaps even co2 and planting substrate and try and use it as a learning tool.

Again this didn't come out looking particularly good, because I compare it to the 190 and that to me looks very good. I am very pleased with myself and just hope I can keep this way.

I will update you as I go forward and share what I learn. Hopefully by the time I get the fish, the plants in the 190 gets settled in and gets rooted to their surroundings, right now they are all just tied down to small stones using a fishing line.


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[ss720]

Photos from my crabs in the nano.
Mostly active at night.

They have molted 2-3 times since I first got them 2 months ago.




And here's my favorite fish (only fish)


Sorry about poor pictures, hands a bit shaky.



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[ss720]

What about some juwel cichlids?

Would they be compatible with hujera gars? I know they are territorial, but I think red colored fish and this tank would look good..


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[justarn]

cough, they were on my list earlier!-) they are cool, i have a pair with my 5 spot jewels!

 

[ss720]

cough, they were on my list earlier!-) they are cool, i have a pair with my 5 spot jewels!

I forgot, sorry.

But they look really good, I'm not going for the Nicaragua cichlids though.

Not risking them ruining my plants, good looking though,

Going to make dinner now, and then browse through some fish books for ideas, and do some browsing at LFS tomorrow.

Also I'm going to need some paint to color the Eheim pipes I'm going to hook up to an uv light.

Tank is doing fine at the moment, temp is a bit high, have reduced the heaters a bit, trying to keep at 28 Celsius for optimal bacterial grow.
And no more then 6 hours of light a day until it's finished cycling.

Also any algae prevention advice is welcome.

Uv light won't be here until 2-3 weeks.


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[ss720]

Ok, this is what I'm thinking now:

4-6 different polypterus, all different species.

5 hujera gars

4-6 Siamese algae eaters

4-5 bristle nose plecos

Maybe a rope fish

And then some mid level fish, maybe some angels, but not sure.... Kind of bored with angels... Still love them though.

And perhaps a small group of Zebra loaches


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[justarn]

leopard bush fish like someone said earlier would be nice for the middle? personally i would stick with fish from the same continant although my tanks currently have a mish mash i know i would prefere a biotope type setup personally!-)