Matt's 4.5', 300Ish Litre Tang Community

[Lufbramatt]

Finally got my new Seabray tank up and running over christmas! Took me ages setting up all the light fittings etc and stunk the house out painting the back of the tank black, but fish are all in and loving the extra space

Rock is pink granite from a local fencing and paving supplier, plants consist of vallis down the back and a few little clumps of java fern. Substrate is Toys R Us playsand. Shells are a mixture of escargot shells and some pretty marine turbo shells I got from a little shop on the welsh coast.

Filtration is an eheim pro and an eheim pro3, heating is a hydor ETH300 as well as the heating element in the smaller eheim, tank temp is rock steady at 26 degrees Lighting is two 4ft T8 tubes, one juwel daylight and one juwel colorlight.

Inhabitants are my 8 brevis shellies (although I think they might be calliurus? as the males are bigger than brevis's are meant to get and their behaviour sounds exactly like what I have read about calliurus) and 5 Julidochromis Transcriptus. Everyone gets along well, the shellies pretty much ignore the julies, and the julies stick to the rocks most of the time, although they're spurizingly active and swim all over the place!

Here's some phone-quality pictures, need to borrow my dad's macro lens for my SLR to get some better ones!

Tank when first filled, water cloudy:

Terry the Brevis with Terry Jr.

Brevis juvie

left side of tank

right side of tank

julies!

 

[kiriyama]

Looking good, nice to wee yet another Tang tank in here, job well done

Cheers, Sean

 

[Malawi MaD]

Very tastefully done mate, looks brilliant liking the rocks and fish too

 

[Lufbramatt]

Thanks

After having the julies in ther for a week or so they're really funny little fish, always come to see me at the front of the tank, seem to swim around together in a little mini shoal which i wasn't expecting, I think it's because they're sub-adult still at about 1.5-2 inches long, biggest one is 2.5 inches. Really cool seeing them swimming almost upside down around the rocks, then they suddenly realise theyre not the right way up and flip over

Real wusses though, my two largest brevis fry who are just over an inch long will flare at them and chase them off even though they're twice the size of the fry!

Oh and one of my big brevis males has got a taste for flesh and has started biting my fingers whenever I go anywhere near his shell whilst cleaning the tank. Those little fangs they have are pretty sharp! Ill try to get a video tomorrow when I do their water change

 

[Lufbramatt]

took some photos last night, borrowed a macro lens off my dad

One of the Brevis fry that were hatched in my previous tank, this guy is just over an inch long:

Terry the big Brevis male:

transcriptus on the rocks:

mum brevis:

transcriptus:

Larry the brevis (this is the one that bites me, check out his teeth!):

 

[Lufbramatt]

Got hold of a pair of synodontis lucipinnis which are lovely little catfish, make a real contrast to the cichlids. I'll get 2 more as soon as I can find them locally again. Funny seeing the other fish react to them, the brevis don't care and just seem to be a bit puzzled by them, but the julies don't like them at all.

Hopefully around easter I'm going to add a small shoal of cyp. leptosoma, my new favourite LFS (Abacus aquatics in Sidcup) has a harem of Utinta neon cyps and the male looks stunning, so if he still has them the next time I go up there they'll all be coming home with me

 

[KrazyKuhli]

Nice tank you got there!

What camera do you use those photos are stunning?!

 

[Lufbramatt]

Thanks

Camera is my trusty old Nikon D70s DSLR with a Sigma 70mm F2.8 macro lens and a Nikon SB600 flashgun. Still need a lot of practice getting good shots of the fish (I took about 50 photos and they were the best ones) but the lens is borrowed off my Dad and he wanted it back lol

 

[KrazyKuhli]

Lol thats not very fair him wanting it back...


What angle do you aim the flashgun?

Some of those would have a great chance at FOTM!

 

[Lufbramatt]

Flash was angled straight into the tank, need to try getting a diffuser or bouncing it off a bit of white card or something. Trouble is the tank lights are only two T8 tubes which dont give off huge amounts of light, and with a macro lens you have to use a really small aperture to get any sort of useable depth of field, which reduces the amount of light getting down the lens . . . so I had to use some sort of flash. I need to try more settings out really, took ages finding the right exposure.

 

[minnnt]

Any updates mate? Considering one of these myself.

 

[didz04]

Hey its looking really good.

I'm currently setting up a 2ft 20g shallow tank for some shell dwellers.

Just researching on the type I can keep and looking to see if I can mix 2 or 3 species peacefully in my tank.

With the sort of layout I'm going for I think it will help.

 

[Lufbramatt]

No updates for the mo, just letting it all settle down for a few weeks to let the filters catch up with the new fish. Will try to get some vids of the catfish though

Bought a couple of 30 litre beer brewing buckets and a little electric pump to make water changes easier on my back so hoping to try those out soon. Can't really use a python as I have a hot water storage tank.

 

[Lufbramatt]

Got hold of another two Syno. Lucipinnis to keep the previous 2 company. Only these ones are only just over and inch and a half long, possibly the cutest catfish I've ever seen. Will get some pics or video up tomorrow. They've been really active and exploring the rocks and hanging out with the two bigger synos so they're all cool. Although did have a minor drama when the bag they were in sank into the tank about 5 minutes after I rested it in the top. Went to find a small cup to move water in to the bag to slowly acclimatise them, came back to find the bag upside down and the two cats swimming around the tank oblivious to it all. Oops!

 

[Lufbramatt]

just got 2 alto. Compressiceps "red fin". about 2.5 inches long from my LFS. One of them seems pretty shy but the other one was out straight away squaring up to the julies and brevis. Already seen some great behaviour, they point their bodies up vertical and bend towards anyone that is trying to attack them, apparently this exposes the sharp edges of their scales to the attackers mouth, seems to work as my big brevis male who was the previous boss of the tank has been put squarely in his place awesome looking fish, really pleased with them.