Blackwater aquarium? Anyone? Share here pls!

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I agree you do have a lot of fish, I am doing a 50% water change again today, sometimes I do up to 75% with 48 fish in my 55 gallon tank I want to make sure the water is clean. I like your fogbite, I can not get that here so have salvinia instead. I went from gravel to sand.
Occasionally i’d change 50% of the water once every 2 weeks and take out all the driftwoods and soak them in tap water, then vacuum the debris from the gravel. Is this okay?
The frogbits are much more healthier when i got them delivered to me months ago, now they have yellowish leaves, some are rotten, despite of their fast growth. My fishes like to nip at the roots, i think they eat them sometimes. What fishes do you have there?
 
Occasionally i’d change 50% of the water once every 2 weeks and take out all the driftwoods and soak them in tap water, then vacuum the debris from the gravel. Is this okay?
The frogbits are much more healthier when i got them delivered to me months ago, now they have yellowish leaves, some are rotten, despite of their fast growth. My fishes like to nip at the roots, i think they eat them sometimes. What fishes do you have there?
Don't wash anything in tap water, always in a bucket of tank water. There is chlorine in tap water that will kill all the good stuff on the things you wash.
 
Don't wash anything in tap water, always in a bucket of tank water. There is chlorine in tap water that will kill all the good stuff on the things you wash.
I see.. but can i do it on purpose if i want to eliminate the algae thats sticking on my driftwood? Or is it just fine to brush them in the tank water? I mean, will the algae come back faster?
 
I have neon, glow light and ember tetra, the biggest shoal is 27 neon tetras plus an I have an albino cory. I use RO water to soften the hard water. Here is a picture of my 55 gallon tetra tank.
 

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Hello guys, if you have a blackwater fishtank, you can share it here, the more detail the better! Also if there’s any question, I think we can discuss together with other members as well. Starting from me, thank you! :D
That's a really cool-looking tank. Happy fish!

I used to have a black water Rio Negro/Orinoco tank. Here's a vid. Video quality is crud but it gives you an idea what it looked like. The tanins came from the soil substrate and juniper branches I used as tree stumps, and really made the neons and lemons pop.
 
That's a really cool-looking tank. Happy fish!

I used to have a black water Rio Negro/Orinoco tank. Here's a vid. Video quality is crud but it gives you an idea what it looked like. The tanins came from the soil substrate and juniper branches I used as tree stumps, and really made the neons and lemons pop.
Nice setup man! It’s hard to find such good branches here. My tank used to be heavily planted also, but once there were “green caterpillars”, they ate up all my plant so I got rid of them all! :byebye:
 
Green caterpillars???
Yea i bet a very few people know about this. This doesnt sound familiar at all. But yeah, those parasites are ruining the entire tank. Theyre about 1 cm in size and have those “hairs” on the entire body, just like the caterpillars youll find on non-aquatic plants. It still confuses me until today, how they look pretty much like a regular caterpillar but they live in a fish tank.
 
Yea i bet a very few people know about this. This doesnt sound familiar at all. But yeah, those parasites are ruining the entire tank. Theyre about 1 cm in size and have those “hairs” on the entire body, just like the caterpillars youll find on non-aquatic plants. It still confuses me until today, how they look pretty much like a regular caterpillar but they live in a fish tank.
Can you get a picture? Sounds like some sort of insect larva.
 
Amazing tank!

I know @Blackwater guru and @NCaquatics have one, there may be others. :fish:

These are some images of my blackwater aquarium over the months

I might add more images later but right now the only plants I have are floaters because I had to get rid of all bottom plants because a piece of moss from one of my driftwood pieces started spreading like wildfire.

On the plus side it somehow manages to still look natural because of the vast amount of salvinia floating plants in there along with all the driftwood and rocks.
 
These are some images of my blackwater aquarium over the months

I might add more images later but right now the only plants I have are floaters because I had to get rid of all bottom plants because a piece of moss from one of my driftwood pieces started spreading like wildfire.

On the plus side it somehow manages to still look natural because of the vast amount of salvinia floating plants in there along with all the driftwood and rocks.
Cool tank! Mine has some algae that spreads like wildfire too, they dwell on the amazon frogbit’s roots.. Btw how do you get different light colors?
 
Cool tank! Mine has some algae that spreads like wildfire too, they dwell on the amazon frogbit’s roots.. Btw how do you get different light colors?
The way I achieve these colours is by using a light dimmer where I can adjust the lighting settings , I also put several bags of roibos tea in there and I typically use 4-5 of them to mimic the appearance of a blackwater river in the the Rio negro.

Where these fish live bottom plant life tends to be scare because of the decreased light levels caused to by the huge jungle canopy below but also because of floating plants ,the bottom which might have sand or gravel is typically filled with fallen driftwood and various botanicals like fallen fruits or leaves such as banana leaves ,these botanicals release tannic acids when decaying and it's this that gives the river the appearance of black coffee.
 

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