Blackwater Biotope

[KpT]

Hi everyone

I am at the final stages of my biotope now

It may sound funny becasuse the tank has been up and running sicne i changed it to a biotope for a long time now but i have changed it around a lot and have finally settled for what i want after experimenting with what you can do with the south american scene, and trust me ive tried everything.

So some final ideas to make the tank at its best have come to mind.

As it stands, the tank is:

3ft long
white slica 1 and half inches deep
2 fluval internal filters, 2+ and 3+
lots of bogwood
lots of moss
few stones and a tree trunk cave
ONLY FISH IN ARE A PAIR OF RAMS

over the past i have had loads of cardinals, many fake big amazon plants, a failed floating plant, a few almond leaves, moss as a floor of the tank, lots of catfish, coloured ferns and a lot more.

But ignoring all that i want to finally:

DARKENING the sand somehow to enhnace colour of fish to follow
RE leaf litter the tank to make it more natural
RE install the peat filtration but have it hidden undera big cave with coloured bubbles
have better FLOATING PLANTS
have SLOWER moving water
PLANTING some swords and vallisneria
add plant pots and caves to reduce agression
and ADDING some ****************atoo cichlids and apistogrmma Nijessni-macmasteri plus some bottom feeders

THEN THE TANK WILL BE COMPLETE AND ITLL JUST BE MAINTANENCE TO KEEP UP

THE THINGS I NEED HELP WITH WERE CAPITILISED OUT OF THE LIST

DARKENING

i am not sure how to darken the white silica sand?
I want to use soemthing that wont affect the water and that can be messed with when i turn overt he sand
I was thinking maybe FIRST LAYER, that you can mix in with gravel to help the plants grow( which is brown
?

FLOATING PLANTS

Last time i bought a flaoting plant was also the first, i have no idea how to look after these well unfortunatley, so it was a waste of 4.25 becasue for once i didnt do my research
The plant got blown around by the current from my filters, the roots broke off when it got in the way at water changes and it just never grew becasue i couldnt find a way to fertilise it well.
The frogbit is supposed to feed of nitrates but the water is pretty pure so theres not a lot of that.

SLOWER

I need a way of slowing down my filters wihtout the risk of too much **** building up?
There is a flow reducer on the fronts of them but i dont want to put them down becasue they dont seem high enough wehn there at full, i think this is becasue the peat gets clogged in them easily and there getting a little old. I dont mind if the solution to this is buying an external filter, if that would be wiser?

PLANTING

Planting the swords and vallisneria im thinking will be tricky, as the substrate is shallow sand, but every profile for these cichlids insists ona planted tank, and im with them as regards reducing agression so im not sure. I also am not sure how to fertilise them plants either as i have not donw planted tanks for a while.
All i know is all plants apart from swords are very fussy and require a lot of CO2 and light yes

ADDING

Last but not least, the stocking of the aquarium has always baffled me, some people have managed to keep way over the limits with success and others who have even tipped the boundaries have failed miserbaly and have had to start from scratch.
So i obviously want to stock wisely, cautiously and slowly in the most logical order for territory.
All three of the new cichlids mentioned need to be 1 male to 3 or 4 females and im thinking thats like 14 fish all together working it out, and they all have potential to grow to about 3 or 4" so this is over my stocking density already without thinking about bottom dwellers.

So im asking about adding, as regards which out of the fish mentioned to add would be best, like most worth it to add if you like. And which bottom feeders would be okay with them as well???

Thanks so much for your time reading all this

Any responses will be greatly appreciated

Cheers

Sam

PS; the new species if forgotten to choose from are the cockatoo cichlids and apistogrmma Nijessni-macmasteri!!

 

[Mr Bliss]

DARKENING

i am not sure how to darken the white silica sand?
I want to use soemthing that wont affect the water and that can be messed with when i turn overt he sand
I was thinking maybe FIRST LAYER, that you can mix in with gravel to help the plants grow( which is brown
?

I'd buy some more of the white sand and some black sand and mix them together, then add to the top. That way if the white sand gets exposed due to the fish digging or something, it won't look as unnatural.

Also some dark rocks and plenty of small dark stones here and there.

FLOATING PLANTS

Last time i bought a flaoting plant was also the first, i have no idea how to look after these well unfortunatley, so it was a waste of 4.25 becasue for once i didnt do my research
The plant got blown around by the current from my filters, the roots broke off when it got in the way at water changes and it just never grew becasue i couldnt find a way to fertilise it well.
The frogbit is supposed to feed of nitrates but the water is pretty pure so theres not a lot of that.

Any plant will feed off nitrates. If you grow large swords and Cabomba they'll easily cover most of the surface (if it's an open top tank, Echinodorus bleheri can be allowed to grow right out of the tank; it grows extremely fast this way and looks really cool). If you do want floating plants, water hyacinth might be a good option. It needs space to grow above the water surface though; if the lights are too close, they'll burn the plant.

Duckweed is always an easy option, if you have the patience to shovel excess duckweed from your tank every week.

SLOWER

I need a way of slowing down my filters wihtout the risk of too much **** building up?
There is a flow reducer on the fronts of them but i dont want to put them down becasue they dont seem high enough wehn there at full, i think this is becasue the peat gets clogged in them easily and there getting a little old. I dont mind if the solution to this is buying an external filter, if that would be wiser?

How about installing a spray bar to the filter outlet? That'll diffuse the water flow and reduce the current.

PLANTING

Planting the swords and vallisneria im thinking will be tricky, as the substrate is shallow sand, but every profile for these cichlids insists ona planted tank, and im with them as regards reducing agression so im not sure. I also am not sure how to fertilise them plants either as i have not donw planted tanks for a while.
All i know is all plants apart from swords are very fussy and require a lot of CO2 and light yes

Vallisneria might be a bit tricky. This plant has adapted to use bicarbonate as a primary carbon source, so the soft, acidic environment of a blackwater tank might not suit it well without CO2 injection.

Amazon swords will want to be fertilized with root tabs (make sure the tabs contain iron; these plants melt real fast under iron deficiency). They'd also appreciate a fairly thick substrate. One option is to grow them in pots and hide the pot itself among rocks or bogwood to make it look natural.

I'd suggest Cryptocorynes. They should thrive in a low light blackwater tank. They grow slowly and look pretty. Algae is their nemesis, but in a blackwater tank with floating plants this shouldn't become an issue.

ADDING

Last but not least, the stocking of the aquarium has always baffled me, some people have managed to keep way over the limits with success and others who have even tipped the boundaries have failed miserbaly and have had to start from scratch.
So i obviously want to stock wisely, cautiously and slowly in the most logical order for territory.
All three of the new cichlids mentioned need to be 1 male to 3 or 4 females and im thinking thats like 14 fish all together working it out, and they all have potential to grow to about 3 or 4" so this is over my stocking density already without thinking about bottom dwellers.

So im asking about adding, as regards which out of the fish mentioned to add would be best, like most worth it to add if you like. And which bottom feeders would be okay with them as well???

I'd stock a blackwater tank very cautiously and not go close to the stocking limit. On one hand, ammonia is almost completely non-toxic in low (<6) pH, but on the other hand filter bacteria do not enjoy a low pH and your filter would struggle to cope with a high bioload.

Apistos are fantastic-looking, interesting fish, and most species are less prone to "random unexplained death" than Rams. A small shoal of cories would work well at the bottom I think. Fun to watch too.