Apistogramma uaupesi "red face"

[skoram]

I made a few more changes to the tank layout - added more plants, floating and substrate, added some more driftwood, and removed the 3D background. I'd like to plant several more Echinodorus, preferably cordifolius or bleheri, but for some strange reason there is a huge lack of variety of these plants in Korea.

I received my TDS meter last week and, to my small surprise, my water is not as "clean" as I presumed. Tap water came out to 106 TDS. The tank water is not too far off, about 115. I've been having some difficulty getting the pH down - it's now at about 6.5 - and I wonder if this is because the water is harder than I thought based on the Tetra GH and KH tests.

Here is an updated photo:

 

[skoram]

P.S. thank you to Mol_B for the excellent suggestion of pointing the spray bar towards the glass. That effectively reduced the flow in my tank and allowed the floating plants to spread out a bit, as you can see from the photo above.

 

[Mol_PMB]

Looking great
Try the Salifert KH test which is much more accurate at lower hardness levels

 

[skoram]

It's been a pretty long time so thought I'd post a quick update.

In a nutshell, tank is doing well and A. uapesi seem very healthy. The male uapesi was extremely dominant so i moved the agassizii to my community tank where they seem much, much happier. Most of the plants have grown and floating plants have multiplied, so the density and cover has improved somewhat. pH has remained constant at about 6.2, TDS around 100.

I'm starting to think about trying to breed them - I feel it would almost be a waste not to try, since they are a wild caught bonded pair (and expensive!). I've started to make some plans for a separate breeding tank of about 10 gallons (42 liter). I've accepted the fact that it is too difficult to adjust my tap water to the appropriate levels so I will probably purchase distilled or RO water and add peat/leaves to drop the pH.