Hello again!

[MarcW]

It’s been a while since I have posted anything. I have moved house and my fish have been living in a temporary ‘tank’ a large plastic storage tub for way too long, I have now finally have two new tanks and have them set up for 5-6 weeks now.

I had the tanks custom made by ND Aquatics to fit the space I had available, and built the stands myself from 50x100mm CLS 16 timber, 18mm OSB for an internal shelf/base and also for the top, skinned with thin ply and painted.

The tanks measure 34x18x18 and 30x18x14 inches, length x depth x height.

The larger tank is now my

L128

breeding setup (hopefully) and the smaller is a community where I hope to also breed

L260

. The L128 tank is shown below.

I now have five (three recently purchased) L128, two are 15cm TL, three are 12cm TL they seem to have settled into their new home and are eating well, I have just started trying the Repashy foods, they would only eat Soilent Green if nothing else was in the tank to eat, I picked up some Meat Pie and Bottom Scratcher recently so will try them soon.

There are some pictures below of the largest three L128, which I am hoping are a male and two females I can see differences, so I’m hoping there is a mix of sexes. I made a visit to Pier yesterday and they thought there was a mix, from the bad pictures I showed them on my phone anyway! It would be great to have your thoughts too. Hopefully the differences will become more obvious if I am successful in conditioning them.

Whilst planning these tanks I have been doing a lot of reading trying to find Characins or similar from the Orinoco to act as dithers and add some excitement to the L128 tank. It has been a struggle to find any which would cope well with much current, the tank is filtered by an FX5 and also has two 1800 litres per hour powerheads, these are on timers for a couple hours per day to try and circulate any waste around to the filter.

I asked in Pier if they had any fish which may match my requirements and they had Red Lizard Tetras, which I believe are Iguanodectes geisleri? They look great and appear to enjoy the current when the powerheads turn on.

While in Pier I also picked up 40

Corydoras habrosus

, and wanted to ask for thoughts on if they would cope with this sort of current? If not I will put them in my community tank which just has a single Eheim 2217. They are currently in a quarantine tank so I have some time to decide, I didn't realise how tiny there are until I saw them in person, this one is next to half a pea!

Finally, I bought a pair of L260 to try and breed, I have only managed to breed

Peckoltia compta

in the past (but it's all I've tried to breed), so L128 and L260 may take me a while, but I’m hopeful.

I now have an RO unit which should help, as my water is very hard, currently all the fish are in a 50:50 mix of tap to RO, giving a ph of about 7.2 to 7.4, with a TDS reading of 150 ppm. I plan to keep the parameters like this for as long as the fish need to condition, then soften the water after a simulated dry season to try and trigger a spawn.

[bekateen]

Hi MarcW,

Very nice tank.

Cheers, Eric

[pleconut]

Thanks Mark for the shared info regarding ro water, as you are not located too far from me (Bournemouth ) it gives me a rough idea of the amount of ro I need to achieve similar params in my tank I'm setting up this week.

[MarcW]

What are you setting the tank up for? I have had some

L128

in local tap water for about 5 years prior to me getting an RO unit, and they appeared fine so long as the acclimatisation was slow, I also had

L134

breed in the same tap water, after I gave up on trying to trigger them with RO. My tap water is about pH 7.8 and 300 ppm TDS.

Obviously matching the natural habitat would be best, but so long as the water parameters are stable, some fish I have kept appear to be happy and even breed in harder water than their homes.

Good luck with the new tank.

[pleconut]

There is Adolfi cories going in, and some younger plecos. A green phantom, leopard frog, a flash pleco and an L201, all at 7 cms approx. They will eventually be put out into separate breeding groups. However they will be on a trial period together, so if it doesn't seem to be working out for any one of them they can be moved. My concern mainly is the shyer feeding L201. Also i have thought about getting 2 ..safety in numbers... The tank is also possibly either going to house some of the rarer tetras (i like the iguanodectes species) possibly apistos and be amazon themed, or a community of other soft water fish. In another tank is a group of 8 L397s these were born of parents kept in hard tapwater as are my group. Although the wood has softened the water and dropped PH in comparison to my tapwater.

[pleconut]

This is the tank so far.

Still quite a lot more more rocks, plants (artificial) and a background to be added!
Also caves for the plecos!

[MarcW]

The tank looks nice, so do the L201. I'm very new to the iguanodectes tetras, the first time I saw them was on Friday! My group of 10 seem to be doing well and my L128 seem to be happy with them, coming out more during the day with them in there.

The tetras I have, pictured above, were labeled as red lizard tetra, Pier in Wigan also had some labeled as green lizard tetras they looked the same, were the same size, around 5 to 7 cm, but where there is a red line on mine, surprisingly they had a greenish line! They are quite skitish, if you get some, make sure there is a lid on the tank, and when aclimitising them make sure there is a lid on the bucket/ the bag is covered!

Again, I'm very new to hypancistrus, the ones I have in a quarrentine tank with just C. habrosus don't seem to have moved much in the 48 hours they have been in there, but they have got their colour back nicely, so hopefully they will start feeding well. From the sounds of it yours are all similar sizes, with a bit of luck they may be evenly matched and all get some of the food.

[pleconut]

It's the green lizards I like, so will have to check out pier. If it's amazon themed -which it most likely will be, would see if they still had oil cats. More surface orientated. Quite a lot happening at the bottom.

[MarcW]

I might be going there again on Friday, im thinking of getting another pair of L260. If do I'll try to take some pictures of the green lizards and put them here.

I didn't notice any oil cats, but my interest is mainly with loricarrids so may have missed any they had. I'll take a look if I go again soon. They do offer mail order fish, as its quite a way to go, best to call them as their website doesn't list everything they have.

[pleconut]

They did have oil cats a while back, just they wasn't shipping at the time - too cold. Now weather is warmer though worth looking into. The thing with the oil cats is they are prone to whitespot due to shipping stress. So beforehand I'd need to know exactly what medications are safe for them. Having said this pier are very good.

[MarcW]

Pleconut - I did visit Pier yesterday, they had about 15-20 green lizard tetras. I took some pictures on my phone but they are not good, they had just been fed and would not stay still! I would guess they are about 8cm long, looked like nice fish. I increased the size of my group of red lizards from 10 to 16 as they were being a bit aggressive towards each other, adding 6 more seems to have calmed them down.

[pleconut]

Thanks Mark W I will get in contact with them. They obviously have them on the stock list. So if these are sold hopefully they can order some more in. See there they are with Adolfi corys, that's good as I have 10 of these, along with my new plecos