1.20m South America biotope

[Gert]

Hi everybody,

I want to show you people my South American aquascaping.
Tank size is: 120x40x55cm.

Water Parameters:
PH:6,5
GH:3
KH:2
NO2:0
NO3:10
PO4:0,1
Temp: 27°C
EC:294µS

The fish that are swimming in this tank are:
17 Nannobrycon eques (will be leaving this tank)
8 Nannostomus mortenthaleri 4f 5m (want to enlarge the group to 15)
2 Mikrogeophagus altispinosa (will be leaving this tank)
1 Apistogramma borellii (my own breeding and will be leaving this tank)
1 Apistogrammoides pucallpaensis male (searching for two females)

Over a few moths I will start with a new setup and that is going to be a Peruvian biotope. In that new biotope I am going to use only wood (probably Spiderwood) and floating plants. In this biotope I want to keep this fishes:

15 Nannostomus mortenthaleri
6 Parotocinclus sp. Peru
1m 2f Apistogrammoides pucallpaensis

Here are some photo's of how my tank is right now, hope you like it



My Nannostomus mortenthaleri's:



My Nannobrycon eques:



My Mikrogeophagus altispinosa male:



My Apistogrammoides pucallpaensis male:

[Gert]

A new update.
I changed the scaping and the 5 Mikrogeophagus altispinosa are now swimming in someone else tank. Because I still got the Apistogrammoides pucallpaensis male, I started searching for the same species and I'm getting 10 Apistogrammoides pucallpaensis. The fish that are going to swim in this tank are soon:
17 Nannobrycon eques (already got them)
10 Nannostomus mortenthaleri (already got 8 swimming)
11 Apistogrammoides pucallpaensis (ordered 10 at a LFS)
6 Parotocinclus sp. Peru (ordered 6 at the same LFS)
2 Otocinclus (these are still swimming in the tank and doing fine)

Here are some new photo's:

[Gert]

[benny]

Nice! I had a South American biotope sometime ago that looks very similar to yours. Do keep us posted of the development of your aquascape.

Cheers,

[Gert]

Thanks, I will keep posting the development of the scape and the fish.
On the left side of the tank I want to add some branches and some more leaves.

[benny]

I think that will enhance the 'natural' look/feel to the overall ambience of the tank.

Cheers,

[Gert]

New update:

I added some new fish to my tank, group Apistogrammoides pucallpaensis and Hypoptopoma thoracatum.
These are the fishes that are swimming in the tank:
17 Nannobrycon eques
11 Apistogrammoides pucallpaensis
8 Nannostomus mortenthaleri
4 Hypoptopoma thoracatum

I also added some oak leaves in the tank for a more natural look.




Some pictures of the new A. pucallpaensis:













Hoped you liked it

[Gert]

[AquaObsession]

all fishes are community fishes??
I feel scared for some of them!

[Gert]

The Nannobrycon are fishes that you can combine in a community tank but the Nannostomus mortenthaleri and the Apistogrammoides pucallpaensis are species that I would not combine in a community tank, because they need special care. All the fish-species that I've got in this tank are found in Peru. I don't know if the Hypoptopoma is a fish that can go in a community tank,because this is my first 4 species that I keep. The plan was first to keep 6 Parotocinclus sp. Peru in this tank instead of the Hypoptopoma but unfortunately they didn't survive the quarantine period. In this tank I keep the conductivity as low as possible for all the fishes. The conductivity is now around 180µS and I slightly want to lower it to 100µS.


What do you mean with "I feel scared for some of them!"?

[barmby]

Thanks for sharing. It is difficult to find Hypoptopoma in Singapore. Also, there are many coral red pencils. I love it. But I believe they are very aggressive to their own kind. Don't they fight till death?

For those who is not sure: This is Hypoptopoma. This is not otocinlus. haha..

[Gert]

Thanks for sharing. It is difficult to find Hypoptopoma in Singapore. Also, there are many coral red pencils. I love it. But I believe they are very aggressive to their own kind. Don't they fight till death?

For those who is not sure: This is Hypoptopoma. This is not otocinlus. haha..

I haven't seen that much aggression with the Coral Red Pencils. The males are sometimes fighting with each other for a female, but not till one of them dies. I had problems with two groups that just died without any visual reason. I think these specimens had trouble with an internal parasite. The wild caught specimens that I've got now are much better and haven't seen anything weird on them. In The Netherlands it's sometimes also difficult to find these kind of fishes. This is because the most LFS in the Netherlands only want to sale the most common aquarium fishes. It's the same case with my group Apistogrammoides pucallpaensis. It is a specie that is not common in the Netherlands.

[Gert]

Some new pictures. I loved the first picture. My adult A. pucallpaensis male saw a young female and he just couldn't resist to show his colours.

View pictures of my Hypoptopoma's

[barmby]

Fantastic. Keep the pictures coming. We definitely not seen this for a long time.

[Gert]

The first A. pucallpaensis nest is a fact. One of the half grown females has just laid her eggs in a ceramic cave. Now I can observe the behaviour of the group and the female with fry. She laid her eggs in the ceramic cave on the right side of the tank. I hope to make pictures soon of the female and fry.

[Dean]

Very nice natural-looking tank. (Y)

Looking forward to the development of your A. pucallpaensis eggs. Do post pictures of the fry when the time comes!

[Gert]

I will certainly post pictures when she's got fry. It is a very dark area where the female is holding her eggs. I am going to try the make some pictures tomorrow.

[Gert]

I just haven't got the change to make a picture of the female and her eggs. The reason is that she is on a place were it is to dark for me to make a good focus with the camera. Also I think that a second nest is going to be a fact. There is another half grown female that showing her ovipositor (hope I choose the right word for this?). She has some disagreement with the full grown male about the place and time of laying there eggs. Here are some pictures of the female and the male.

[Gert]

[Gert]