Rio 400 renovation
Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2008 3:25 pm
About a week ago i completely re-did my rio 400. I wasn't happy with the look, green algae completely thrived and the sand got into the wood making it look bad and i noticed it actually started clumping in some places. So i spent over £150 on some new aquarium sand, fake plants, wood, many many pebbles and cobbles, and piping and power heads for the river flow manifold. It's now looking good i think. Henry (A male geophagus brasiliensis) loves the extra flow, so do the loaches!
I've taken the internal background out for the time being - Henry has on a couple of occasions somehow got behind and knocked a couple of scales of him so it's out for now.
This is what it looked like when i first set the tank up over a year ago,
Then about 6-7 months ago, the plants were doing very well at this point BUT Henry started tearing the hornwort to shreds - same for the vallis and java fern. Most of the java moss has just disappeared. I've saved the java fern & moss and hornwort.
From that pic you can see the HUGE java fern plant, the moss was running riot, the vallis (Bottom right) was doing good and the hornwort picking up, before Henry used it as his new chewing toy it just spread like wildfire - i've never known anything like it!
Right this is what the tank looked like a couple of days ago,
Left,
Right,
The powerheads are cover on the right by bogwood but i need to sort those left pipes out on the left.
Now the fish in there,
Henry,
Note the blue in the first pic, his colour looks excellent in the daytime (The daylight).
Yasuhikotakia nigrolineata - black lined loach or false chain loach - thought rarer (And more expensive!) than the rare dwarf chain loach. Oh and they should grow to 4", not quite dwarf!
^ They are hard to get pics of - very fast active fish! And one of my favourites.
Other fish include Melanotaenia australis, Sinibotia pulchra and Devario sp giraffe.
I should also be adding when Henry moves into a rio 180, my Weather loach (along with some more), danio roseus, "panther" danios, garra cambodgiensis and some acanthocobitis zonalternans (after i've bred them) from a smaller tank upstairs. But also some more garra sp, danio sp and some more loaches!
Thanks for reading and excuse the poor image quality. The camera is showing it's age!
David
I've taken the internal background out for the time being - Henry has on a couple of occasions somehow got behind and knocked a couple of scales of him so it's out for now.
This is what it looked like when i first set the tank up over a year ago,
Then about 6-7 months ago, the plants were doing very well at this point BUT Henry started tearing the hornwort to shreds - same for the vallis and java fern. Most of the java moss has just disappeared. I've saved the java fern & moss and hornwort.
From that pic you can see the HUGE java fern plant, the moss was running riot, the vallis (Bottom right) was doing good and the hornwort picking up, before Henry used it as his new chewing toy it just spread like wildfire - i've never known anything like it!
Right this is what the tank looked like a couple of days ago,
Left,
Right,
The powerheads are cover on the right by bogwood but i need to sort those left pipes out on the left.
Now the fish in there,
Henry,
Note the blue in the first pic, his colour looks excellent in the daytime (The daylight).
Yasuhikotakia nigrolineata - black lined loach or false chain loach - thought rarer (And more expensive!) than the rare dwarf chain loach. Oh and they should grow to 4", not quite dwarf!
^ They are hard to get pics of - very fast active fish! And one of my favourites.
Other fish include Melanotaenia australis, Sinibotia pulchra and Devario sp giraffe.
I should also be adding when Henry moves into a rio 180, my Weather loach (along with some more), danio roseus, "panther" danios, garra cambodgiensis and some acanthocobitis zonalternans (after i've bred them) from a smaller tank upstairs. But also some more garra sp, danio sp and some more loaches!
Thanks for reading and excuse the poor image quality. The camera is showing it's age!
David
The powerheads are extremely well hidden!
I'm not sure i would, hes a bugger to catch and gets very stressed when i do try and catch him. 
)
Congratulations!