blackwater tank cycling?

[anewbie]

This will probably be my last post unless something interesting happens. Nothing much to say the ec before water change was 34 and after water change was 28; the ph has been hugging 5.6-5.8 and i took these 3 lame pictures (2 of the male 1 of the female - these are the two that hang where i put most of the food; the smaller ones that get less food are on the other side and i've been making a point to give them more food; not sure how many are over there as i only saw 3 (that makes 5 out of 8); these two look like full size adults but no indication or hint they have any desire to breed - not that i really want to deal with frys right now; and as always the otto always come to the front to say hi when doing water changes - i'm wondering if it has soemthing to do with the change in current pattern (i turn off the sump pumps while doing water changes the only current is the python taking out water).

Oh and if nothing else the plants seem to be growing well - that golden anubia has put out several new leaves. I realize these post and thread is kind of boring - the only thing really unique about this aquarium is raw size since it larger than your typical black water aquarium on the bright side when the male snaps at the female she just darts under a leave and he is left standing there looking confused.

 

[anewbie]

Nothing really new - but took a few pictures. Last night i saw 5 of the 8 a. Bitaeniata; so at least a few are still alive

Today i saw 9 of the 12 otto. Ec has been between 25 and 35 and ph is bouncing between 5.5 and 6.5. Dont' really trust this ph pen/monitor but maybe hte low ec is also hurting the readings.

From the top during water change; you can see the python front left.

A few otto:

some n's

One of the a. b. Hard to get a good picture of them because the best picture is taken by putting hte phone against the glass and that usually spooks them:

The area in teh back where i'm growing aquatic plants emerrsed:

The crypts and s. porto (sp) and s. repens seem to grow easiest. The nana anubia is struggling as well as the e. opacus.
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My a. sp winklefleck aquarium - the ec is lower in this aquarium and i know i would get dinged for horrible layout for apistogramma but since she has turned yellow he has left her alone - they spend most of the day side by side or close proxmity (which seems weird for a polygamous species); though not sure where she is in this picture. A lot of time she darts in and out of the coconut shells but i don't believe she has eggs. She has been yellow for about 2 1/2 to 3 weeks now. You can see the python in the top pushing the plants down as i was doing a water change.

 

[anewbie]

This is a 20 long i setup last week for a pair of a. lineta:
This is the full aquarium; stocking includes 10 n. morthenthaleri; 1 pair a. lineta; 1 L600 and 2 nerite snail. There is a coconut shell behind the driftwood on the left that i will probably remove; and i'll be adding more leaves slowly - probably 4 more this week and a few more after that. When the morthenthaleri get larger (they are around 1/2 to 3/4 an inch) i'll either remove 4 or 5 or remove them all and replace with a new set of small pencil. When the L600 gets a bit larger (1 1/2 to 2 inches) i'll remove him. Really dislike that coconut shell. The female mostly hides on the right but there are other places she can hide if she needs to. One odd thing is in the 180 the 2nd pair of a. lineta spend a lot of time swimming side by side; guess the larger aquarium makes them feel less secure or something (it is the discus tank that currently has 30 cardinals and 14 glowlight and 6 1/2 inch rams).
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This is the female - will get a better picture later:

This is the male - just missed having his dorsal fin in full display - maybe next time; he was showing off to the female

The itsy bitsy pleco:

Anyway we will see how it goes.
:

 

[Mike Wise]

I'm not surprised that your apistos are hiding a lot in the 20Long. It is much too open and bright.

 

[anewbie]

I'm not surprised that your apistos are hiding a lot in the 20Long. It is much too open and bright.

Obviously the structure could be improved; the light is actually fairly dim and you can sort of tell that from the grain in the female picture. I hadn't intended to buy them so the tank was converted in a hurry and will be working on it the next few weeks. But the primary purpose of this post is the behavior changed. The male never bothered hiding but now the female has taken the coconut shell and the male sits outside talking to her and she sort of pokes her head out but won't actually come out and he won't go in. However she isn't yellow (I presume this species turn yellow like other species but maybe not). The key thing (for me) is he seems to have stopped harassing her. Anyway my primary goal in structure is to add large leaves slowly and maybe another piece of drift wood - she had quite a few hiding places because the leaves are about 10x her size but we shall see what happens.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

It is much too open and bright.

I'd have to agree with Mike, it needs a lot more structure (like your other tanks).

Anyway my primary goal in structure is to add large leaves slowly and maybe another piece of drift wood - she had quite a few hiding places because the leaves are about 10x her size

I'd just chuck them in, I think being large is actually probably an advantage.

Personally I'd remove the L600, even as a small fish it will try and get in the cave and disturb the Cichlids at night. I'd also remove the Nerites, they are going to shell attrition fairly rapidly and they can't then repair the damaged shell.

cheers Darrel

 

[anewbie]

This is the top when not doing a water change; normally i remove a lot of the floaters to allow lower plants to do better but in this case all i have are anubia and java fern at the lower level and the anubia seem to be doing quite well; still the density is at some point going to need a bit of reduction. I did have a problem during the week where enough plants grew around the overlfow box that they manged to clog it - not a good thing so there is a bit of disturbance there (plants combination of water lettuce; red root floaters and excessive number of frog bit). I would say the major difference between this aquarium and my tap water one is the frog bits are a bit small.

 

[anewbie]

Here is an updated picture of the lineta aquarium. The male/female haven't been fighting (as far as i can tell) since the last picture. Now when the male swims up to her she flicks her tail and he leaves her alone. I couldn't get good pictures of them - they aren't 'shy' but they never sit still. Just not like the winkelfleck that are sort of like dogs that go into this 'begging' mode when i walk up to the aquarium.

The aquarium is actually fairly dark but the auto-balance lightens it up. In my opinion it could use some more drift wood and a bit more hardscape at the mid level but there are a lot of hiding area if necessary.
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In the 180 the lineta pair are much more in the open (of course it is a more open aquarium for the discus); sometime they swim side by side and sometime they are on opposite end but like the 20 long they mostly ignore me and rarely sit still making photo-graphing more difficult. The cockatoo will sit still for long period of times - the winkelfleck problem is getting them to stop begging. None of these three species are like the cupido which actively try to avoid me (i.e, swim to the opposite side of the aquarium); 'cept when i actually feed them.
(population is 8 to 10 pencil fishes and 2 lineta and some plants). Temp is 80; water is ro but can't comment on ph.
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[anewbie]

This is an updated picture of my fat male winkelfleck; i think i'm feeding him too much don't you agree (he and the female get fed a pinch of bug bite twice a day); sadly most of hte pictures were out of focus so i'll try again another day - he was displaying to the female and kept raising and lowering his fins et all.

 

[anewbie]

This is my converted shell fish - pretty sure she has eggs in there:

 

[anewbie]

A couple of new pictures of the 4x4. None of the a. bitatina; i did see 4 the other day so at least 4 are doing well - yesterday i saw one and as soon as i looked at him he darted under a leaf and poof was gone. None of the tiny emerald eye rasbora or various hatchet fishes have died but several of the Nannostomus seem to have gone mia or died. Not sure what is happening there. Ph stays around 5.8-5.9 and ec has been steady between 27 and 35. These are after the water change - the tank is 4 feet wide but i take pictures via putting the phone flat against the glass because of high level of reflection; this is approx 8 inch area from the left side; you can see how the glass reflects the plant on the very left. Not sure why these aquariums are so reflective but it is suppose to be low index glass. The stuff on the top are the roots from the floaters (mostly frog bit); the top is now about 99% covered.

You can see the rasbora and one of the hatchet fish. I have 3 species in there - marble, silver and giant silver - or i guess names: Carnegiella strigata, Gasteropelecus sternicla and Gasteropelecus maculatus

This last picture is taken via the side and you can see the opposite side in the image (which is a wall); the distance here is 4 feet. For the two above the area behind the glass has black stuff that blocks the area since the stuff for the land mass is behind it. We did that when we had the fix the land mass area (see images above that show emersed plants); basically the original platform was constructed of something not able to withstand water from the mist system and fell apart after 5 months. As seen in the picture there are a fair number of dither fishes - i think 12 rasbora and 20ish hatchet fish and some number of remaining pencil fish - maybe 5.

 

[anewbie]

Just a few pictures and didn't want to create new threads:
a. ortega tank:

an a. ortega:

ivanacara (or is it nannacara) bimaculata; tank:

and one of the ib:

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I'm finding two difficulty when it comes to photographing these aquariums:
FIrst the phone is able to display colours et all on the screen but when i actually take the pictures most of the colours esp in the fish are lost due to low light. The ib have a lot of nice red et all; the other is because the tanks are so dark the shutter speed is very very slow and the gain is very high making it almost impossible to get a critically sharp image of the fish. Over time as i do weekly water changes the tanks should lighten a little. The ortega aren't that bad in the sense that my activity doesn't trigger a response but they are always moving; the ib are not used to me yet and stuff like pointing the phone at them or even looking into the aquarium will result in them darting under a leaf or driftwood.

Anyway i'll focus more on trying to get a good picture of the i.b; they are only around an inch but very nice looking fishes even tat that size; in person the a. ortegai do not have much colour though that will likely change as they age. My winkelfleck since the picture i posted a while ago has added a *lot* of colour esp to the fins.
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behavior wise the ortega mostly ignore me; the ib are too new to tell how they will shape up but right now they are very skittish; the winkelfleck are spoil brat that demand i put the food in their mouths; the lineta are a good mix of being friendly but not spoiled. they have some other interesting behavior - i would term it as 'clever' even if it does not accurately describe it but they are also a less colourful fish.
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The lineta kind of confuse me because they show what i consider quasi pair forming behavior - that is there is not so much aggression between m/f which includes the female leaving the male alone while she is taking care of the frys but i thought they were documented as a polygamous species. Certainly a lot more passive (m/f) then other polygamous species.

 

[Mike Wise]

I think you have discovered that a cell phone is not a good camera under less than optimal conditions. Even with a decent quality camera photographing small fish can be a challenge. Present day phones are "a Jack of all trades and a master of none". Even audio clarity of phone calls is reported to be sub-par to the early cell phones from the 'old' days when they were only used for phone calls.

As for your A. lineata, they are an iniridae-group species. If anything like A. iniridae they are very selective about breeding partners.

 

[anewbie]

I think you have discovered that a cell phone is not a good camera under less than optimal conditions. Even with a decent quality camera photographing small fish can be a challenge. Present day phones are "a Jack of all trades and a master of none". Even audio clarity of phone calls is reported to be sub-par to the early cell phones from the 'old' days when they were only used for phone calls.

As for your A. lineata, they are an iniridae-group species. If anything like A. iniridae they are very selective about breeding partners.

Well i can't comment about how selective they are as the two i had in the 20 spawned; but i'm just surprise by the lack of violence between them and that the female does not turn yellow like other species. She is very comfortable with the male around her while she has frys though he does not do anything to actually care for the frys; and he does not chase her when she is not breeding (they did for the first week).

When you say they are selective is that saying the have a weak pair bond once she accepts him as a partner ?

Also do you have recommendation on camera; or these days are they all pretty much equal. I've been looking at sony, fuji and olympus as there are trade off with full frame and 4/3 frame for lens size and speed as well as optical quality after all it is easier to make a small sharp lens with little optical abberation than a large lens of similar quality.

 

[Ben Rhau]

For your use case, I would recommend a DSLR body and a macro lens between 50 - 100mm focal length. If the camera body has an APS-C style sensor as opposed to full frame, it effectively lengthens the focal length by 1.5x, and is also cheaper. You can get used equipment for pretty cheap, and even rent them to try out and see if you like. I would get a higher quality camera rather than higher megapixels. Lower resolution cameras are often more sensitive in low light, because the collecting pixels are larger.

Reliable brands are Canon (most common), Nikon (often slightly higher quality but also more expensive). There are also good cameras from other brands (including the 3 you mentioned) but you'll have the widest selection with the two big ones.

If you value having a smaller camera, you can accomplish the same thing with a 4/3 mirrorless that has interchangeable lenses, but it will be more expensive. I like the Fujifilm cameras in this space, but Sony and Olympus are also great.

Finally, understanding how to process the photo to correct for color, contrast, etc. makes a huge difference in the outcome. I recommend Lightroom as a relatively easy way to do this, as opposed to Photoshop which is unreasonably difficult to use.

 

[Mike Wise]

As for cameras, any of the present manufacturers have very good quality cameras. I use a 12 year old Pentax mainly because I have had a Pentax since the 1960s and unlike other camera brands Pentax considers "backwards compatibility" an asset. I can still use my old lens from the 60s (and even those from the early 50s! if I had any) on their most recent full-frame and aps-c cameras. Other brands can't do this. This really isn't important to new owners but it is useful to me. I suggest you look at what best fits you ergonomically and your budget.

As for your A. lineata, I can't say anything since I've not kept them. From your description of their behavior I would say that they behave much like the A. iniridae that I reproduced back in the late 70s before it was scientifically described. In that case I had 3 males and only 1 female. She only would accept one male for a breeding partner and produced multiple clutches with him. Once he died she would not accept any of the other males as partners. In this case the original pair were highly monogamous.

 

[anewbie]

Thanks - i will presume then they are pair forming for life. The nice thing about their behavior is i don't have to worry about them harming each other which is always a concern with me with many other species.

 

[Ben Rhau]

Pentax cameras are great. In the vast majority of cases, lenses can be interchanged, even between brands. If they don't fit directly, there is usually an adapter. That said, in some edge cases you will lose autofocus.

If you already have a camera body or lenses, check the compatibility chart before pulling the trigger on the other. I've taken most of my fish photos (for example my avatar pic) with a 20-year old camera body that's worth less than $100 today. The lens in its current state would run about $130.

I've thought about getting another old camera body to shoot video with my nicer lenses.

 

[anewbie]

A couple of pictures from the 4ftx30 aquarium - it was stocked with 8 a. bitaeniata a year ago; i know at least 5 of them are alive - and i suspect all 8. they frequently dart under leaves and hard scape so it is rare to see more than 4 at one time. Anyway it also has a bunch of hatchet fishes (different species) and one surprise was emerald rasbora which form a tight school and stay near the top:

 

[anewbie]

It has been just short of a year; I think most of the a. bitaeniata are doing well - at least 5 of the 8 and i'm pretty sure 3 males. The one horrible thing about this setup is if there is any breeding activity it is not visible which means no opportunity to feed fry bbs. Even if there were only two of them in there the tank is just too large and complex.
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The surface plants have thinned out or a bit of dying - so i added just a touch of fertilizer with today water change. Not sure if it is a fertilizer issue or old syndrom issue of some sort - though the ec has dropped to 20-25 range.

In terms of fishes there doesn't seem to be much dying - maybe a hatchet fish here and there as they are kind of hard to count. I did add a small group of cherry chocolate gourami a couple of weeks ago (Sphaerichthys selatanensis); and the apisto seem to totally ignore them - not sure if because they are so much smaller or different or both. I think over time as the hatchet fishes grow old i'll add some more of them. Not sure if there is any potential major harm in the future from the mixture.