@@tropicalfishhub oké thanks man, but I was at a fishstore that sells Peruvian altum for €10,- and Pterophyllum Scalare Rio Nanay for €25,- How is this possible if they are the same fish?
@@robinoskam5204 that's because a lot of the so-called Peruvian altums are just regular striped angelfish and its a trade name given in Asia to any striped angel. True Rio Nanay angels should have red or orange spots on their bodies
My pH is about 8.0, hard water. Frequent water changes would mean a lot of water balancing before replacing the water. Do you think the L46 would be okay in 8.0 water, and would they still breed? Also, what are your recommended foods for them? thanks!
They will live and grow in high pH, but I doubt that they will breed. you can always add RO water when you have pairs and when you are conditioning for breeding them. I used hikari carnivore as staple food, with occasional cooked prawns and raw mussels
Good things bad things. Perfect quiet filter for a 2 foot tank if set up correctly that can go 6 months without having to clean it(have a sponge filter or other filter recommend) Bad things,those four sealing clips. Self priming. Solved by sucking the intake pipe and turning the lever to off in time before a mouth full of water. But still going strong 8yrs later.
First of all, congratulations on your channel, each video is very informative. A question: I have had a blackwater for about a year, everything is fine but over time (years) could the leaves that decompose be a problem? Should I siphon the bottom and remove the mush that is being created? Thanks
Thank you:) I'm glad that you found the videos useful. I probably would not recommend siphoning the decaying leaf litter as it can upset the balance in your system and will also remove a lot of beneficial bacteria dwelling on that mush. In my case, decaying leaf litter eventually gets sucked in my external filter or settles on sponge filter. I also keep corydoras catfish and they constantly stir the leaf litter, so there is never an actual deep accumulation of mush. The underlay of decomposing leaf litter is a perfect infusoria breeding place that supports corydoras and characins fry. I've raised generations of pencilfish just on what's in leaf litter, so I'm always in favour of keeping it intact.
HMA= Heavy Metal Axle. It generally has two sediment blocks and one activated carbon block. One thing to remember...activated carbon is not good for discus..wild or hybrid. It dries up the slime coat leading to hole in the head disease. Damn...your water is very soft...parallel to the water of the different areas in the Amazon basin. Wild discus needs lower Ph high acidic waters in which they thrive in nature as in low Ph ( 4-5 ) bacterial growth is almost dormant which enables the wild to disease free.
I change the water 100% every 3 days... feed them plenty of food... and have not seen a fast growth rate... I use High protein diets... and they still take forever... I maintain a 7.0-7.2 ph at a constant rate... a few grow fast... many seem to be slow and take 1-2 years+ to even get to a reasonable breeding size. I have had a batch take 3 years to mature with constant water changes and plentiful food. The genetics are stretched so thin via inbreeding that many lines are taking longer and longer. You might say some people have the wrong plecos... but that's not true in many cases. L046 are the slowest growing plecos and if you present caves to them before they are full grown... they will take 3+ years to grow.. even with daily water changes... or 100%s like I do. Some say 50% water changes works... but I found that Water changes really on provide a clean environment... and do not help your fish grow faster... it just keeps them healthy. Many plecos will not take certain foods... that others may eat... with further compounds the issue.
I’m glad to see that my Altum are not the only ones that don’t tend to eat out of the water column and go after the food off the bottom of the tank. I have been concerned as I am new to these fish.
Thank you! I have been contacting all local fish shops, but they were either not interested or wanted the fish for free (not even in change for store credit!), so I'm selling them through local Facebook groups
I'm having some issues with plants. When I first add them they boom in growth because of all the available nutrients but then after a couple of months the plants now seem to no longer have sufficient nutrients from the fish water waste they begin to shrink in size again. Should I just accept this cycle- of plant getting large then shrinking then getting large again? Or is there something I'm not doing right.
I also occasionally have ups and downs in riparian plant growth particularly with nutrient hungry plants such as monstera. I think its normal, if you feel that your tank is lacking nutrients you can add some fish-safe pond fertilizer. They worked wonders for me
As long as overcrowding does not lead to stress and failure of fish to feed properly they should continue growing. Problems usually arise when overstocking leads to stress, poor water quality and competition for food
@@tropicalfishhub thank you heaps for your response, I’ll definitely keep that in mind. My Blue Acaras had fry which was unexpected so I split them into 3 Aquarian’s and some are not growing. Hopefully I’m able to reverse that. Thank you again ❤️❤️
i know this video is old 😅 but boiling peat moss gets rid of the loose volume and tannins that make the water murky and dirty. it makes scaping a tank with it a lottt easier 😁
Thanks:) I'm not a proponent of boiling botanicals as it removes tannins/humic acids and therefore undermines the essence of a blackwater setup. My goal in that tank was achieve the highest possible level of tannins as you would find in peat swamps of Borneo
Thank you:) I simply place plants on top of driftwood making sure that their roots envelop it and overtime new root growth will attach themselves to the wood
Great video, I'm at the start of my blackwater journey but in the space of a few minutes you've convinced me not to boil my leaves and also to buy some jackfruit leaves online.
Thank you:) I'm glad this video was useful. I'm indeed not a big fan of boiling botanicals, which I think is only done by RU-vid aquascapers to have that effect of immediately drowning leaf litter;)
Changing 50% of the water every week is a lot of work. Spraying that whole wall of plants every day is an insane amount of work! *It's to be a slave to that terrarium!* You built it wrong, it needs to be under a hood to reduce evaporation and to increase humidity.
It takes me 30 minutes per week to change water and 2-3 minutes per day to spray it. I won't have done if I'd enjoy it obviously or do you believe I'd be torturing myself?! I built it on purpose to allow more space for plants to grow and prevent humidity accumulating as I don't want any mould in my flat. There is no right or wrong in the hobby, you do it the way that works for you. lol
Hey brother, thanks again for this video. I watch it over and over because I learn something new almost every time. My question is what are ideal plecos, and corydoras for blackwater? Another question is what is ideal biotope style tank for wild discus and altum angelfish when you want to keep some plants in the tank, but still look natural?
Thanks for watching it:) I really appreciate. Most panaqulos (flash plecos) are from blackwater. If you want to go 'monster', panaques/Royal plecos and L600 leopard cactus are also from blackwater. Its more challenging with corydoras, I know that H.adolfoi/duplicareus/concolor are from blackwater. Talking about discus/Altums, to be honest they don't live in habitats with aquatic plants in the wild. People keep them in planted tanks with no problems, but if you want to go biotope route then lots of driftwood roots, white sand, leaf litter and floating plants (like salvinia/amazon frogbit) would look awesome
I believe your fern is the Japanese painted fern _Athyrium niponicum_ -99% sure. Hehe. And that’s fine if it’s in the moss, in fact, epiphytic setups are better for a fern, most of the time. The moss of course picks up moisture, and it’s also aerated enough for the roots to not rot. Then the evaporation from the tank water does the rest. Nutrients will be wicked up from the water as well. Soil isn’t really a fern’s “best friend”, though I know most people grow ferns potted in dirt. Whenever I’ve bought ferns I almost always repot them or mount them right away. Soil is just a bit too thick and heavy for most epiphytes unless it’s 75% drainage materials. I often pot ferns in 100% sphagnum. Most average gardeners don’t have the experience or confidence to try epiphytic growing, on moss, or mounted on wood, etc. It looks good for you! 👍🏽
This is very useful information! Many thanks:) I didn't know that ferns can grow as epiphytes. I used to grow them with roots partially submerged in water in my previous paludarium setups, which they seemed to enjoy due to the amount of nutrients from the water.
Didn’t you suppose to have the exit of the first section at the bottom, not at the top? In your case the first section does nothing (except anaerobic deposit)
@@tropicalfishhub thanks, that's very useful to know! Any idea which one is doing the best, if I just wanted to cover a large area on top of damp sphagnum or hygrolon?
@@93kristof In my experience, Christmas moss is a solid all-rounder that will grow under any circumstances. Sphagnum is the hardest to maintain lacking high level of moisture (but without exposure to water)
Hey friend- great to catch up with you and this tank. Funny, I just posted a video of my tank with the most emerged growth but it's Rotalla that is going nuts out of water (as opposed to your Japanese Clover). Anyway, I hope you are having a lovely summer :)
Hi, thank you for watching! Your top shelf tank with its emersed Rotala was an initial inspiration for me to add long stem plants here expecting they will break the water surface, but at the time my local fish store had no Rotala, only Bacopa caroliniana, so I went for it!
@@tropicalfishhub I actually started all this rotala with only emerged stems and just wedged them into moss covered wood. They did the rest. I could try sending you a bunch of “dry” stems though I know it is a long way for them to travel.
@@LushSaltyAquariums Oh, thanks for the offer, but the UK customs won't allow in or out of country any live plants in private mail! Rotala isn't a rare plant here, but my local fish store sometimes runs out of it, so hopefully I'll get it next time:)
Thanks Gil! Both of these plants seem to do well in normal 'living room' conditions. I spray them once per day, but once they get used to emersed growth they don't seem to need any extra moisture
