What size substrate for geo (mirabllis) ?

[MacZ]

True; but it is hard to find the exact habitat and co-enhabitants. I did a search with @Mazan a while ago - they had a list of fishes from the same general area - well a link to a list - but finding exactly what co-exist is very difficult - well difficult for myself.

I use a combination of tools:
Databases:
Seriouslyfish, Wikipedia (mainly for ranges), fishbase (also for ranges), Tom's homepage
for water parameters:

Water values South America (Map pH) - Southamerica fans

To explain the markings on the map The color scale is based on the droplet tests for pH: red: appr. 4 to 5,5 yellow: appr. 6,0 three green: 6,5 7,0 and 7,5 blue appr. 8 to 9,5. Gray points stand for measurements without pH. For measurements where the exact location is known, the GPS data was

www.suedamerikafans.de

for pictures of the habitat: Youtube has a looot of footage. Get the scientific name right, add "in the wild", "habitat" or "in nature" and usually you get some good hits.
and of course good old google maps to find proper locations

My train of thought is
Step 1: What type of habitat do they live in? In this case - P. leopoldi obviously do not occur in the big main river channel but in smaller tributaries. Due to its shape the fish is a sitting duck for the current and predators in the main river, but also likely rather slow moving backwaters, lagoons and morichales, surely flooded forest areas aswell.
Step 2: Cross-checking sources (seriouslyfish, wikipedia, etc) if I got the habitat type right.
Step 3: What is the range? As said above: Of note: There are mostly clear- and blackwater rivers and creeks in that area.
Step 4: Cross-checking the water parameter map in that general area to make sure my info is correct.
Step 5: Getting a list of fish from the general area.
Step 6: Rule out all fish that could prey on my fish of choice, live in the area but other habitat types (cross-referencing with above sources.) and are very likely not available in the trade.
That leaves me with a list of usually 10-15 species that fit the bill. Often such species as N. eques which has an enormous range from Peru to the Atlantic coast are also always an option.

I know the other fishes i selected are very tolerant of clear/white water conditions but not sure if they will bully the smaller a. p.

The catfish should not bother, the Biotodoma also. The P. leopoldi are the only ones I'm not sure about. If those should be breeding at some point every fish that is not a floor-hugging bottomdweller is a fair target.

Seriously fish indicate a ppm of 0 to 108 for the p. l. so i hope 60-80 is a good middle ground. Also in scapeing the front 2 feet middle will be open the later 2 feet quite a bit of drift wood and the the plan is 1 foot in both sides with plants leaving the middle 2 feet square open for the Biotodoma wavrini; my hope is that while the p. l. prefer denser plants they will hang higher than the a.p.

I'd be gathering a lot of dry twigs to hang in the tank from above. You'll need a lot of structure in the upper regions of that tank.

Tom's article on a. p. is here:
Welcome to Toms Homepage -
The one he found were in very hard water; but he kept them in softer but not blackwtaer condition.

Let's face it: Truest to blackwater conditions are hard to recreate in the aquarium. You will need a good RO-unit with a DI-stage, and your only option to add humic substances in sufficiently high amounts for lowering pH without raising conductivity is a peat-cannon (30-50cm long, 10cm wide, PVC pipe densly packed with peat used like a coffee drip filter). Plus adding a good amount of peat and botanicals to the tank/filter directly. Otherwise only the higher ranges of blackwater parameters are feasable.
There are locations where the species occurs in clearwater, and probably also some where they occure in blackwater or a mixed-type. So the species should be able to withstand these conditions.

 

[anewbie]

I use a combination of tools:
Databases:
Seriouslyfish, Wikipedia (mainly for ranges), fishbase (also for ranges), Tom's homepage
for water parameters:

Water values South America (Map pH) - Southamerica fans

To explain the markings on the map The color scale is based on the droplet tests for pH: red: appr. 4 to 5,5 yellow: appr. 6,0 three green: 6,5 7,0 and 7,5 blue appr. 8 to 9,5. Gray points stand for measurements without pH. For measurements where the exact location is known, the GPS data was

www.suedamerikafans.de

for pictures of the habitat: Youtube has a looot of footage. Get the scientific name right, add "in the wild", "habitat" or "in nature" and usually you get some good hits.
and of course good old google maps to find proper locations

My train of thought is
Step 1: What type of habitat do they live in? In this case - P. leopoldi obviously do not occur in the big main river channel but in smaller tributaries. Due to its shape the fish is a sitting duck for the current and predators in the main river, but also likely rather slow moving backwaters, lagoons and morichales, surely flooded forest areas aswell.
Step 2: Cross-checking sources (seriouslyfish, wikipedia, etc) if I got the habitat type right.
Step 3: What is the range? As said above: Of note: There are mostly clear- and blackwater rivers and creeks in that area.
Step 4: Cross-checking the water parameter map in that general area to make sure my info is correct.
Step 5: Getting a list of fish from the general area.
Step 6: Rule out all fish that could prey on my fish of choice, live in the area but other habitat types (cross-referencing with above sources.) and are very likely not available in the trade.
That leaves me with a list of usually 10-15 species that fit the bill. Often such species as N. eques which has an enormous range from Peru to the Atlantic coast are also always an option.

The catfish should not bother, the Biotodoma also. The P. leopoldi are the only ones I'm not sure about. If those should be breeding at some point every fish that is not a floor-hugging bottomdweller is a fair target.

I'd be gathering a lot of dry twigs to hang in the tank from above. You'll need a lot of structure in the upper regions of that tank.

Let's face it: Truest to blackwater conditions are hard to recreate in the aquarium. You will need a good RO-unit with a DI-stage, and your only option to add humic substances in sufficiently high amounts for lowering pH without raising conductivity is a peat-cannon (30-50cm long, 10cm wide, PVC pipe densly packed with peat used like a coffee drip filter). Plus adding a good amount of peat and botanicals to the tank/filter directly. Otherwise only the higher ranges of blackwater parameters are feasable.
There are locations where the species occurs in clearwater, and probably also some where they occure in blackwater or a mixed-type. So the species should be able to withstand these conditions.

While I am doing one of the tank as near blackwater condition (I do have a good ro unit for this project); this one will not be as that is bad for a. p. Anyway thank you for the feedback. If you have further comment on stocking please let me know - for now it will be:
6ish a. pucallpaensis
5 Pterophyllum leopoldi
5 Biotodoma wavrini
4 Hemiloricaria sp. (whiptails)
2 Lasiancistrus sp. (similar to whiptails)
some unknown dither - probably cardinals since i have a few of those left over i need to put somewhere;
Also i might throw in some pygmy cory - they seem to know how to avoid conflict.

 

[MacZ]

While I am doing one of the tank as near blackwater condition (I do have a good ro unit for this project); this one will not be as that is bad for a. p.

It's not bad for Apistogrammoides per se. I'd go for softwater, at least clearwater, conditions, because most of the fish will require that. Maybe like 150µS/cm tops and a pH between 6 and 6.5 to keep the pathogen density low enough so all fish stay healthy.

Also i might throw in some pygmy cory - they seem to know how to avoid conflict.

Rather not. They fit in the mouth of a Biotodoma. It will end bad for both fish if one of them tries eating a cory. You know the rule: If it fits the mouth...

 

[anewbie]

It's not bad for Apistogrammoides per se. I'd go for softwater, at least clearwater, conditions, because most of the fish will require that. Maybe like 150µS/cm tops and a pH between 6 and 6.5 to keep the pathogen density low enough so all fish stay healthy.


Rather not. They fit in the mouth of a Biotodoma. It will end bad for both fish if one of them tries eating a cory. You know the rule: If it fits the mouth...

clearwater is around kh 1 and gh 2 ?
-
this link state clearwater is harder than whitewater:

Amazonian River Types: Blackwater, Whitewater & Clearwater - Rainforest Cruises

Home to the mighty River Amazon and its many tributaries, Amazonia is defined by its extensive network of waterways. But not all of its rivers are the same.

www.rainforestcruises.com

-
So maybe kh 1 gh 4-6 ?

 

[MacZ]

clearwater is around kh 1 and gh 2 ?

Usually both below that:
There's a comparison table in this article:

Clearwater river (river type) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The TDS/EC don't allow for even 1 degree each, except in whitewater.

this link state clearwater is harder than whitewater:

Amazonian River Types: Blackwater, Whitewater & Clearwater - Rainforest Cruises

Home to the mighty River Amazon and its many tributaries, Amazonia is defined by its extensive network of waterways. But not all of its rivers are the same.

www.rainforestcruises.com

-

No offense, this is a website of a river cruise company and they give no sources. Those are often written by writers with no special interest or knowledge of the topic at hand, They research for a week or often only some hours, type a text and be done. How I know? I've translated such texts for SEO companies and found many factual mistakes it was terrifying. Not a source I would tap into for reliable information.

 

[anewbie]

So umsec 14 is 30 tds ?

 

[MacZ]

TDS x 2 = EC or
EC : 2 = TDS
(approx., that's what the cheaper meters use)
So with an EC of 14 you have TDS around 7.

That low is not necessary, but if you have the means to do it, use it.

 

[anewbie]

Do you think the eques cory would be ok in this aquarium. I have some left over and i don't want to put them with the orange laser (same linage); so trying to decide what to do with them when i move.

 

[MacZ]

Yeah, C. eques should work.

 

[Ben Rhau]

TDS x 2 = EC or
EC : 2 = TDS
(approx., that's what the cheaper meters use)
So with an EC of 14 you have TDS around 7.

That low is not necessary, but if you have the means to do it, use it.

For freshwater, I use TDS = EC x 0.64 instead of 0.5. It may not really matter, and 0.5 is easier to do in your head.

 

[MacZ]

For freshwater, I use TDS = EC x 0.64 instead of 0.5. It may not really matter, and 0.5 is easier to do in your head.

It's better than using the factor for saltwater which is 0.8 to my knowledge. The meters for use in freshwater use the factor 0.5.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

It's better than using the factor for saltwater which is 0.8 to my knowledge. The meters for use in freshwater use the factor 0.5.

It is a mess, which is why I always use conductivity, but if you did want to convert to "ppm TDS"?

The conversion factor is 0.64 (100 microS ~ 64 ppm TDS) for freshwater, this is based on the assumption that the predominant ions in freshwater are calcium (Ca++) and bicarbonate (2HCO3-). You should really calibrate the meter with the "442" calibration standard.

...... "442" refers to the combination of salts mixed with deionized water to comprise this standard: 40% sodium sulphate, 40% sodium bicarbonate, 20% sodium chloride.....

For saltwater the factor is 0.5, purely because monovalent ions are less efficient electrical conductors than multivalent ions. Potassium chloride (KCl) is the appropriate standard.

I've tried both calibration options, and it makes very little difference, so I use the 1413 microS. 0.01mol. KCl solution as my calibration standard.

cheers Darrel

 

[MacZ]

Thanks Darrel, had a talk with someone keeping saltwater lately and it confused me a lot. So I don't have to do anything, as I used the 1413µS solution. That's the only one you can get here anyways.

 

[anewbie]

Regardless of hte conversion; this aquarium will be quite a bit richer in mineral content; I'll probably target around 6.8 and tds 60-80 range. If this is not suitable for the p. l. i'll drop them. The tank on the other side of the room will get pure ro water; but this one is going to be a bit clearer (visbility) and richer in plant life. There are a few reason for this - one being that i will need to do more frequent water changes and given the size of the aquarium and volume of water it will be easier to maintain at a higher mineral content. Also some of the other stocking appears to prefer a bit richer wter.