My Channa bleheri Setup

[Fingerling]

Heres my bleheri setup.
Tank size is 3x1.5 ft
Pretty low tech, credit goes to weeyang for the nice round rocks in the background.

DO COMMENT

[Jervis]

A rather unusual planted concept but your fish seems to be very well at home... any closer pix of your precious fish?

[JunBerG]

What are the fauna inside and what is 'that thing' lying on the driftwood? I must say you focus more on the fauna's habitat and their comfort rather than scaping for visual appearance.

[Fingerling]

haha. Well my friend "that thing" lying on the piece of driftwood is a channa bleheri. A happy channa is a pretty channa so i do try my best to make them feel most at home. This landscape is my idea of how they might look in their habitat. With the rocks and some tiger lotus slightly visible in the middle and some madgascar lace plants lying around the front.( Probably would look better when the tank matures as its still pretty new)


sure id put up some close-up pics of these bleheris Give me some time to capture them on picture

[Mez]

Very good setup.
Lots of distractions, no line of sight.
Make it a bit more 'dirty looking' and its snakehead heaven!

[vratenza]

what's the green netting at the top of the tank for? Are they jumpers?

[Cross]

haha yeah man whats the green netting covering those lights?

[Enda]

Nice! Excellent setup for Channa. You've gone to every length to create a tank just for them. Make sure there are really no gaps in the cover, because yes, they'll find a way to jump out of it.

Hope you can breed them. Are you using chiller? What's the temp of the tank?

[Fingerling]

Thanks Mez. Ill try to think of what i can do to give it a dirtier look. What would you suggest?


Haha yea that green netting you see is to form a cover so as the snakeheads dont jump out of the tank. They get pretty jumpy at the slightest things like when they are about to be fed, small fights they have and the one losing decides to bail. Another way to prevent them from jumping is to float tons of floating plants but i wouldnt wanna take chances.

And if you'd like to know, the green netting costs me about $2-3 and the clips are just normal clips you use to hang wet clothing etc. You can get them at about $1.50 or cheaper at those budget stores. It may look quite an eyesore to some people but it hasnt failed me since ive been using it. None of my snakeheads have jumped out of the tank before

[Fingerling]

Haha thanks Enda. I do hope they breed too but its only possible if the tank goes through a month or so of cool temperature and gradually warming up the tank( only possible using a chiller here ). Mm im not using a chiller for now, am looking to get one pretty soon. My water temps for now are 26-28 deg. Think the tank's located in one of the cooler spots of my home.

[BFG]

My thinking is if you would want to scape it like it is, you could place most of the plant diagonally. Half of the diagonal will be full of such plants allowing the fish to 'hide' and wait for food while the other half is an open space.


Hope this helps!

[meerkat]

Hi,

My 2 cents is to replace the green netting with clear acrylic.

And if you wish to have air movement, you can drill some holes through them.

That I think will be aestatically pleasing to eye

[Fingerling]

Hi BFG,
What would the purpose be of an open space for the channas. Would like to hear your thoughts.


Hi Meerkat.
Ive thougth of using another kind of cover before implementing this netting. But using an acrylic piece means
1) i have to drill either tons of small holes? or 1 big hole in which the whole purpose of the cover is defeated
2) i have to a small portion of the acrylic into shape for my caninster filter tubing to fit through.
3) and for the fitting of my lights, the acrylic cover has to be placed below with my lights resting on it. ( Cant possibly place the piece on top of the light, its as good as getting a custom made cover since i have to shape it according to the shape of the lightset etc.) Having the lights resting on it, more heat would be trapped by the acrylic piece, and it would affect both the flora and fauna living inside.
4) the thickness of the piece would determine how quickly air diffuses out of the tank and air coming into the tank. Say my acrylic cover is rather thick, i have my tank placed in a room where there is not alot of air circulation, i do believe( correct me if im wrong ) that there will be quite a bit of trapped air in the tank..maybe when the light set is on, and the plants are doing photosnythesis there is an adequate amount of dissolved oxygen in the tank. (But think about it, maybe it wont affect other types of fish but snakeheads breathe by going to the surface majority of the time to take in atmospheric oxygen.) Okay and when the lights are off, and when both snakehead and plants respire, carbon dioxide is released. Knowing that carbon dioxide dissipates into the air from water much faster than oxygen, there would be a certain amount of trapped carbon dioxide waiting to dissiptate through the holes drilled in the acrylic piece. And we all know carbon dioxide traps heat so this i would believe is a huge disadvantage on using an acrylic piece rather then simple netting possibly only toward snakeheads and other surface airtakers eg. betta etc.

haha hope you didnt think i was ranting at you. Just voicing what i thought earlier before i used the netting, feel free correct me if im wrong

[bryan]

Oh Man, I won't want to be a guppy wandering in there.

[Fingerling]

Here's some closer pics Jervis.






























Sorry for the picture quality, pictures were taken with my handphone camera.

[BFG]

Hi BFG,
What would the purpose be of an open space for the channas. Would like to hear your thoughts.

Hmmm, my thinking is that you could notice their behaviour while they are amongst the plant and in the open space. And if you give the tank time, the plant will cover all the available space.

[Fingerling]

Hi BFG,
Alright ill give it a thought to see where i can make open spaces or do so when i can get them a bigger setup hopefully soon.

[vratenza]

Hi Meerkat.
Ive thougth of using another kind of cover before implementing this netting. But using an acrylic piece means
1) i have to drill either tons of small holes? or 1 big hole in which the whole purpose of the cover is defeated
2) i have to a small portion of the acrylic into shape for my caninster filter tubing to fit through.
3) and for the fitting of my lights, the acrylic cover has to be placed below with my lights resting on it. ( Cant possibly place the piece on top of the light, its as good as getting a custom made cover since i have to shape it according to the shape of the lightset etc.) Having the lights resting on it, more heat would be trapped by the acrylic piece, and it would affect both the flora and fauna living inside.
4) the thickness of the piece would determine how quickly air diffuses out of the tank and air coming into the tank. Say my acrylic cover is rather thick, i have my tank placed in a room where there is not alot of air circulation, i do believe( correct me if im wrong ) that there will be quite a bit of trapped air in the tank..maybe when the light set is on, and the plants are doing photosnythesis there is an adequate amount of dissolved oxygen in the tank. (But think about it, maybe it wont affect other types of fish but snakeheads breathe by going to the surface majority of the time to take in atmospheric oxygen.) Okay and when the lights are off, and when both snakehead and plants respire, carbon dioxide is released. Knowing that carbon dioxide dissipates into the air from water much faster than oxygen, there would be a certain amount of trapped carbon dioxide waiting to dissiptate through the holes drilled in the acrylic piece. And we all know carbon dioxide traps heat so this i would believe is a huge disadvantage on using an acrylic piece rather then simple netting possibly only toward snakeheads and other surface airtakers eg. betta etc.

Looking at your considerations for the cover, you may want to consider "eggcrate" or light diffuser panels...the picture below shows the white colour grid piece I bought for my paludarium DIY background:

plus points:
1) it is allow lots of light and air to pass through
2) sturdy enough to stop any jumpers
3) lightweight enough for it not to be a chore to move it when you maintain your tank
4) can be easily cut using heavy duty hobby knife or cutter - ie. can shape it to fit your hoses as well as go around your light stands and you can even create a small flap panel using zip ties as hinges.
5) cheap ~ $13 for the size shown above.

[Fingerling]

Think ive seen this grid piece selling in some LFS, people use this to create layers in their sump tank? Haha thanks for the idea vratenza, might give this a shot when i feel like it.

[Verminator]

Stunning fish. Very interesting species. Nice to see someone following a path within the hobby that isnt often done. Such as a habitat tank for such a species of fish. I've never seen these before in the hobby.