Kinbote

Does anyone have experience with geos and pygmy chain swords? Also, has anyone ever tried wooden storage pallets as a cheap if ugly aquarium stand? http://bhagwatitimber.com/photos/1-1.jpg Or is no one else as cheap as me? It's been a nightmare to find any sort of adequate stand for the approximately one tonne aquarium without spending $500+, whereas I could probably do the job with two stacks of pallets for about $10 judging by trademe prices. Throw a cloth over them or something.

Hmmm...

Oh, thanks. All of that stuff's going to demolish the greenery isn't it?

You sure that's the name? I'm not getting any results for that on google.

This isn't looking too good. The authentic substrate with leaf litter won't work with geos or corys, the geos might choke to death trying to eat the tetras and the plants will all be out of place. Hmmm. :-? Did anyone watch any of the Monster Fish episodes on National Geographic today? 'Traditional megafishing techniques'.

Interesting, I'll check it out. All glory to the hypnotoad.

What are the risks of spreading diseases to the tank by doing this? I'd considered it [while being swarmed by mosquitoes] but figured I'd need a clean source to be safe. And will bleeding heart tetras eat mosquito larvae or is it too big for them? I asked a woman at an LFS if they sold any live food for fish and she looked at me like I was a monster. :roll:

Photo looks pretty sweet. What size is it?

Hahah, well that isn't funny. What I'd read was that the surinamensis gets to about 11" and the jurupari and brasiliensis get to about 10", so didn't think there was much difference. Is that wrong? Yeah, I'll build up the numbers. I'm not too concerned with price, within reason. Any other suggestions? Some wild looking piranha-like fish like silver dollars / pacus would be nice except they'd destroy the plants. Also, any recommendations for fish that stay near the surface, other than hatchets?

That's the one, good spotting. Damn, that's the stuff. Going to keep pirarucus in it? Yeah, I'm really happy with the shape of it. It's basically the same length and twice the width of my current tank, plus a little extra in both directions. Hoping I can get some good foreground, midground and background space going on. At first I'll be transferring the fish from my current tank; 10 rosy tetras and 5 bleeding hearts. After that, as I mentioned in my post above, I've seen angels, cardinal tetras and geos together in the same place, so I'm planning to use that as a starting point. I'm thinking six angels, 10 - 15 cardinals and 2 geophagus surinamensises, and probably a few corys. Very open to suggestions, though. I'll see how the tinting goes as to how dark I make it, but it will be viewable from both sides and lit with about 160 watts via four t8 daylight fluorescent tubes. But I like the idea of having to work a bit to see all the fish. Good point. Dwarf chain swords are exactly what I was thinking, to get a sort of lawn look, although according to the article at the top of this page, no swords actually grow in the amazon. Geos would probably be even worse for that than the corys. Were you using whole leaves? Thanks, I'd love to check it out in the new year. Will return the offer once mine's setup.

Yeah, when I say amazon biotope I mean something that could conceivably be some specific, yet to be determined part. Not the whole river in one tank. That said, in the Amano Takashi pics that I linked on the first page, there seem to be angels, cardinals and some sort of geo together, at the least. There's always that. Cool, I'd like to see that. I think I've seen clear parts of the Suriname river in a few pics.

Do you know of any sfw image hosts? sfwimage.com definitely wasn't. These look good: http://www.amazon-below-water.com/index.php 'Neon tetras in their natural habitat'

Arowanas are pretty sweet but I don't want to keep something that could end up being a metre long.

That's interesting, thanks. Yeah, what I have at the moment is just South American, and it's more of a geotope than a biotope.

That brings me to the question again, do you know anywhere on the web that shows the common aquarium plants in the wild?

The whole leaves? I bought some indian almond leaves crushed up in teabags; thought about sprinkling them on the sand.

Hmm, sorry about that; I flagged it non-adult. :dunno:

Thanks for the replies, guys. Here are some pics of the new tank waiting to be setup. It's 160x100x50cm.

Is that a fine gravel you've got sprinkled on the sand? Looks good.

Kick ass tank.

Hey everyone, I just discovered the forum and this is my first post here. Will look forward to getting to know my way around. I'm working on setting up an Amazon blackwater biotope, and I'm wondering what you could suggest for the most realistic substrate. In all the photos of the Amazon that I've managed to find, it looks like the bottom is leaf litter on more or less white (dirty) sand; here for example: http://www.amanotakashi.net/portfolio/a ... water.html. My tank's going to be fairly heavily planted, though, and I've never been able to find any pictures of the common South American aquarium plants in the wild, so I don't know what it's like where they grow. If anyone's seen it and has links, I'd be very interested, and if anyone has experience with using leaf litter in the aquarium, I'd like to hear. Here's a pic of my current 340 litre (obviously non-blackwater) setup, which is about 6 weeks old, but will be replaced as soon as I get a table for my new 800 litre tank.