2000L tank, one year on.

[David R]

SO it's been about a year since setting up my 2000L tank, so here's a bit of an update. After enjoying it as-is for nearly a year I was growing tired with the current stock, and the fact that I hadn't purchased a fish in over 18 months, so decided to rehome my black arowana to make way for more and smaller fish (along with my collection of plecs, and the existing Geophagus and angels). A couple of days ago I released the first new inhabitants from quarantine, 20 lemon tetras, 20 Sterbai corys, 6 angelfish and 4 festivum. Here's some pics;

Almost a full tank shot.


New and old.


I was curious (and a little concerned) at how the corys and panaques would mix, given their size difference, but neither seems phased.




Corydoras remora?


Not at all bothered by the size difference.


And it seems almost impossible to take photos of the fish without including at least one of our Vizsla, who insisted on supervising the whole process...


Videos coming soon...

[mikeyrose]

It is so...beautiful...

I love how they all look like good friends, despite being kinda like Great Danes and Chihuahuas in size. Especially the Cory who seemed to be acting like a remora and then 'snuggling' the Panaque; they look extremely adorable. And then it's great that it's low enough for the Vizsla to see them.
My Saluki was the only dog tall enough to see into our old tank.

[flatfish]

The tanks looking great David and that's a nice royal

[7Pete]

Do I see sawdust?

The sheer size of that tank makes it beautiful with big "driftwood". Dimension?

[David R]

Pete the tank si 240x120x70cm LxWxH, the big footprint is great for the Panaques, and now the corys.

There is sawdust everywhere, part of keeping Panaques I guess, I think the corys will help stir up the dead spots and keep it moving. They certainly seem to like forraging in it.

[David R]

Brief update. This weekend I sold the three L14 sunshine plecs, 2 L128 blue phantoms, the L81 Baryancistrus and one L190 royal which had a deformed spine at the base of the tail (was still a great fish, about 22cm and solid, just didn't want any dodgy genetics on the off chance that one day I do end up with a pair of them). I also picked up six more young Geophagus altifrons as I was down to three adults in the big tank, and six tiny L18 (I think?!) Gold Nuggets.



I'll be picking up another larger nugget from a friend shortly too, and the plan is to just keep a group of the nuggets and a group of the L190 royals. I felt the Scobi's weren't doing as well on the largely vege-based diet I feed, and it felt like a good idea to rationalise the collection a bit to create the [very] long term possibility of having a breeding group. I'm keeping a look out for another 1-2 L190 if I can find some nice looking ones. I have two "pairs" with very distinct looks; two have very fine stripes, and the other two have more of a greenish base colour and wider gaps between the dark lines, which are more broken and less regular than the "typical" look. The largest one now would be about 11" at a guess.

Catching the fish to sell required the removal of all the wood except for the big stump, and it actually was far easier than I anticipated. When I first added the tangle of branches behind the stump I spent half an hour trying to arrange them so they looked natural but balanced, and still wasn't entirely happy with the result. On Saturday, after removing them to catch some fish I had sold, I hastily threw them back in before racing off to Auckland. Tonight I sat down in front of the tank after feeding them and realised that they look far better now than they did before....



Other than that everything is ticking over nicely, maybe one day I'll get around to finishing the façade around the stand and lights....