10g West Cameroon Loose Biotope

[Schuyler]

A bit late but but I found some awesome websites for getting information.

This is a database of plants in Central Africa (they lump Cameroon into that):

http://www.centralafricanplants.senckenberg.de/

Then there is this guy who connects killifish, records the location, notes information about the water/environment, takes pictures/video, and shares all that information on his website complete with a Google maps list showing where each of the collection locations are.

Drum roll please....

I present to you pictures and info on the exact collection location for Fundulopanchax Gresensi Takwai:

https://www.stofmania.com/index.php?n=Cameroon2013.ADL-13-32

Talk about striking gold! Can't get much better Biotope information than the exact collection location of the fish you have!

Edited October 6, 2023 by Schuyler

[Schuyler]

I went to Portland this weekend for a fish convention. I ended up getting two more Anubias heterophylla for this setup. That should be more than enough.

Also, we took the kids to the zoo and guess what I found:

A big Anubias growing in their tropical bird enclosure

Edited October 2, 2023 by Schuyler
Their/there

[Schuyler]

I had some time to work on the tank today. I raised the walls slightly and added geotextile fabric to give a better idea of what the wall will look like:

Most likely I'll put the fabric on back so that the expanding foam can still grip the egg crate while not expanding too much into the back area.

Here it is with leaf litter to help give some better definition between the wall and the ground:

Still figuring out the ledge... my plan is to go forward with the wall and wait on a final design for the ledge

[TheSwissAquarist]

Maybe try suspending it from the top? 

[Schuyler]

On 10/4/2023 at 1:48 AM, TheSwissAquarist said:

Maybe try suspending it from the top? 

That could work potentially but I would want some way to make it look natural. Like a long root or a fallen branch.

I had a nice find today. It's a root ball from an azalea bush that died last year. I pressure washed it to remove the dirt and any bits of the fertilizer that was in it. Unfortunately that also took off a lot of the fine little pieces. This is the same stuff that "spider wood" is made of.

I'm thinking it will work best in the back

[Schuyler]

Blocking out the back filtration system. It's a bit of a trickle filter with a little basket on top for potential chemical filtration. I used a piece of thin scrap glass for the front piece.

I'm not sure how well this will work but it will be much easier to do it before everything is built out.

[Schuyler]

Potential change of plan. I talked to my dad about this and he's going to coming up with a design to 3d print for the riverbank.

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 10/9/2023 at 5:44 AM, Schuyler said:

Potential change of plan. I talked to my dad about this and he's going to coming up with a design to 3d print for the riverbank.

That would be so cool! Integrated filtration? 

[Schuyler]

On 10/9/2023 at 11:40 PM, TheSwissAquarist said:

That would be so cool! Integrated filtration? 

That's the plan. I'm not sure if that part will be 3d printed or not. Here is the design I sent him:

 

Here is a picture of his first draft:

My plan is to make it have a removable lid. I'll use spray foam to build out the overhang and attach the roots. That way it looks like the roots are growing out of the soil along the surface and that will also allow me to carve out a little spot where the rivulet feeds into the bigger river (the filter outflow).

[Schuyler]

Another draft with removable lids and overflow holes:

I asked him to make the overflow holes smaller and higher up and to remove the pointed end.

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 10/11/2023 at 4:31 PM, Schuyler said:

Another draft with removable lids and overflow holes:

I asked him to make the overflow holes smaller and higher up and to remove the pointed end.

Maybe try a small lattice, or something to hold some filter floss for the intake. 

[Schuyler]

On 10/11/2023 at 7:51 AM, TheSwissAquarist said:

Maybe try a small lattice, or something to hold some filter floss for the intake. 

That's a good idea!

The plan is to have a slot behind for a sponge to keep fry from getting sucked in.

A lattice may be better but I'm not sure how feasible that is to print. I'll see.

[nabokovfan87]

On 10/11/2023 at 9:49 AM, Schuyler said:

A lattice may be better but I'm not sure how feasible that is to print. I'll see.

Grids should be easy to print as it does provide a structure for the print to support itself. Holes and slots work too because they also support themselves.

In terms of the overall structure, I would keep in mind a few things. Internal vs. External cavities. Some of your design has very thin sections, but your filtration is likely best kept rectangular with known dimensions. Say, 0.5-1" minimum gaps.  Anything smaller you'd want to just fill in and treat as visual and not intended for your filtration. That gives you an idea of what the lids need to cover (or where the rim on the lids need to meet) as well as if your filtration has a good setup for flow. Small holes can be added for flow but keep in mind your ability to clean those holes. Especially running botanicals and things that would have chunky particles.

[Schuyler]

On 10/11/2023 at 10:14 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

Small holes can be added for flow but keep in mind your ability to clean those holes. Especially running botanicals and things that would have chunky particles

Oh that's a good point... I'll probably stick with larger holes and leave it up to the sponge to keep fish out. That's easier to clean.

 

On 10/11/2023 at 10:14 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

your filtration is likely best kept rectangular with known dimensions. Say, 0.5-1" minimum gaps.  Anything smaller you'd want to just fill in and treat as visual and not intended for your filtration.

Any built-in filtration will be in that middle section of the line side. It would be cool to have a wet/dry filter setup with bio media and space for chemical. That's the stretch goal. The more likely fall back is a slot for corse sponge.

Another stretch idea for the empty space (mainly the back two) is that it could act as a refugium of sorts. A space for small invertebrates to propagate and then some get sucked up occasionally by the uplift.

[TheSwissAquarist]

I had an interesting idea for your set up during History of Art yesterday (one wonders why …😏) I was thinking that the 3D printed bank could also function sort of like a raised bed for Anubias and Amazon swords. Like a sort of flat Hydroponic set up, where the top would be sunken in below the intake. A sponge pad at the intake would clean the water, and like that you can hit two birds with one stone by having Amazon swords and Anubias in between in the intake and the outtake, which would give it a natural look. 
Sorry if it’s a bit hard to understand! I’ll try & do a sketch later. 

[Schuyler]

On 10/11/2023 at 10:49 PM, TheSwissAquarist said:

Sorry if it’s a bit hard to understand!

I've been thinking about this too. Making the lid a lattice in the middle so that roots can hang down into the water.

I'm definitely planning on putting anubias along the top to recreate some of those jungle pictures (at least to the extent I can)

[TheSwissAquarist]

Come to think of it, I think that @Zenzo did a fun sort of island/rock pool idea with his mudskippers. 

[Schuyler]

Alright, I think we're settled on a design. Here's the lid (where the majority of the last changes were made).

The final changes:

- Now it has holes in the bottom to allow plants to reach water and maybe I'll add something to wick water into the soil.

- Each lid has a ledge to hold in soil when it's taken off (the front will have foam and roots add later)

- The corner now has a cut out to allow wires and airline in

- The hole is big enough for the uplift tube to fit through (initially it wasn't to scale)

That's the structure, now it's time to block out an idea of the design...

[TheSwissAquarist]

Great idea with the open side idea. Can’t wait to see how it turns out! 

[Schuyler]

On 10/13/2023 at 12:07 AM, TheSwissAquarist said:

Great idea with the open side idea. Can’t wait to see how it turns out! 

Thanks! I was considering doing a facade of a tree to hide them going up but I think it would be too close to the water to pull off without it looking weird.

Any suggestions for what to do as a background?

I'm considering just printing off some jungle pictures from my research. At least for the above water area. But I'm not sure I could pull off the scale/perspective without it looking weird...

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 10/13/2023 at 5:20 PM, Schuyler said:

Any suggestions for what to do as a backgrou

Maybe some of those tree bark sheets they sell in reptile stores? 

[Schuyler]

It's printing!

Here's the final design, minus some rendering bugs.

 

My dad said it is 60 hours of print time but he has three printers going (I guess he has some friends get printers and decide it's not for them)

[TheSwissAquarist]

It’s gonna be really fun to see the end product 😅

[Schuyler]

Are least 3/4 finished printing...

We're having a family get together Saturday so that's when I'll be getting the finished print. 

From there the plan is:

1) Build in the filter section

2) Connect some roots to the wall

3) Apply the "dirt" mixture to the wall and silicone it into the tank

4) Arrange the roots for the lid/overhang and attach them with hot glue or super glue so that the foam doesn't move them too much 

5) Build out the overhang around the roots using foam

6) Apply "dirt" mixture to the foam

7) Add soil and plants to the lids

😎Add sand and gravel to bottom

9) Add water

10) Add leaves/botanicals

11) Seed with microfauna from other tanks

12) Cycle with a large amount of carbon to soak up any residues in the water from the setup. And to make sure the water doesn't get too dark from tannins

13) Add fish and water lettuce 

Here are some fish pictures...

[TheSwissAquarist]

Nice killi strain! 
I sent an email to Practical Fishkeeping Magazines question column a while back about your build, and they came back with this (hope it pastes alright):

Your first step is to find out the fish that are native to Cameroon, and then sort through those to see which of them are traded. A website called Fishbase is the starting point, and on its home page you can choose to only show the fish from chosen countries and habitats. In this case, searching for fish from Cameroon that live in freshwater habitats will do the trick nicely, and reward us with a list of 565 different species. While a lot of those species will fish you’ll never see in the trade, being too big, too rare, or too plain to be attractive to fish collectors and wholesalers, there are quite a few fish that familiar and readily available. You can also sort your results by Family, which is a good way to zoom in on the Alestidae (tetras), Cyprinidae (barbs), Nothobranchiidae (killifish), and Procatopodidae (lampeyes). All of these families contains species that might be of interest to anyone building a relatively small community tank with a West African theme. 

 

Starting with the tetras, most from Cameroon seem to be a bit big and boisterous to be useful in the sort of tank you’re planning; Bryconalestes longipinnis, the African Longfin tetra for example. There are a few genuinely small species native to the area, such as Bathyaethiops baka and Micralestes acutidens, but these aren’t traded much, if at all. I’ve only ever seen Micralestes acutidens on sale once or twice. There are some Phenacogrammus species that come from Cameroon, but unfortunately, none are traded as often as the Congo tetra, Phenacogrammus interruptus. Still, one Cameroonian species is occasionally seen, Phenacogrammus taeniatus, though with a length of around 5 cm, this tetra is probably a bit too big for your tank. Phenacogrammus are active fish, and I think need a tank at least 100-120 cm so they can swim about freely.

 

On the other hand, another tetra species you might consider is Nannaethiops unitaeniatus, sometimes called the African Glowlight tetra. This is a lovely fish, reasonably widely traded, if overlooked, I think, because it’s quite placid and unassuming compared with the more showy South American tetras. It’s a silvery-green fish with one black stripe running from nose to tail, and an iridescent, slightly golden stripe above that. Some specimens also have reddish patches on the base of the tail fin and on the top of the dorsal fin, but I don’t remember my specimens having such markings, so this might be a feature of certain populations. In any case, at around 5 cm long, these fish are quite chunky, but being rather inactive, they’re good picks for community tanks with other peaceful species of similar size.

 

One last option is an old favourite, Neolebias ansorgii. This seems to be another variable species, usually reddish with an extensive green patch on each flank, but on some specimens the patch is more of a line, while the base colour of the body can vary from silvery-green through to more of a reddy-brown. Males are more colourful than females, and when they’re in breeding condition, the colouration on the males becomes even more intense, the body becoming much more red. On the other hand, the youngsters seen in aquarium shops can end to look very washed out and plain. Hold your nerve though! Once settled into a shady, well-planted tank they colour up nicely. At a little over 3 cm long, these fish are little gems, and in groups can look amazing. They do need at least somewhat soft water to do well, which is something that holds true for most West African fish: aim for around pH 6.5 to 7, 2-12˚dH.

 

If tetras aren’t an option, what about barbs? We don’t usually think of barbs, or even cyprinids generally, as African fish, associating them more with Europe and especially Asia. But there are a fair few cyprinids from Africa, even if they aren’t as often seen in the aquarium shops as the ones from India and Southeast Asia. Barboides gracilis, for example, ticks lots of boxes. It’s reasonably widely traded as the Dwarf Amber barb, and in a shady, soft water aquarium does well, schooling nicely and completely ignoring its tankmates. As its common name suggests, this fish is quite small (1.5 cm is typical) and easily bullied by larger fish, but is ideal for use alongside small, surface-swimming killifish. Both sexes are transparent with a distinct black spot at the base of the tail fin, but males turn yellow or amber when mature. Keep them in a large group as they are quite shy: not less than 10, but the more, the better.

 

Then there’s Enteromius jae, often referred to as Barbus jae in older books. Even if not widely kept, it’s often seen in aquarium books because of its lovely colours: steel blue blotches on a semi-transparent body, with bright red markings on the flanks and fins. Juveniles are a bit nondescript, which I think limits their appeal somewhat, but once settled in, the males colour up amazingly. Adults are around 2.5 cm long, and again, you want to keep a large group of them because they’re quite shy. They do best in tanks with plenty of plants and shade as they tend to avoid open areas. The species is notoriously variable, and it seems that there are lots of geographical variants found across West Africa, supposedly including some that turn all-over red!

 

These include a number of Aphyosemion species, including Aphyosemion australe and Aphyosemion bivittatum. Among the other killifish species from Cameroon that you stand a good chance of obtaining are Epiplatys sexfasciatus, and Fundulopanchax gardneri, and Fundulopanchax sjostedti. Of these, Aphyosemion australe is one of the best choices for mixed-species set-ups, being undemanding and easy to keep. It’s also widely sold, usually inexpensively, as it’s one of the very few killifish routinely bred on a commercial basis. Like all killifish, it’s a jumper though, so one thing to ensure is that the tank is covered.

 

This brings us to the biotope angle. Relatively few African plants are regularly traded, with various Anubias species being the most common. Other species you might see periodically include the reliably hardy Crinum calamistratum, the fern Bolbitis heudelotii, the bushy stem plant Ammannia crassicaulis, and of course any number of Nymphaea water lilies. But do bear in mind, though, that these species don’t necessarily inhabit the same sorts of places. For example, while we often plonk Anubias in deeper, darker corners of the tank because they can do very well in such spots, the wild plants are more often found in liminal areas between the land and water, such as riverbanks or in the marshes around the edges of streams. Their rhizomes are adapted to creeping along rocks and driftwood, rather than growing into mud or sand, and as many aquarists have discovered to their dismay, these plants will eventually sicken and die if their rhizome is planted underground. Furthermore, some wold Anubias are rarely found permanently submerged, though Anubias barteri, at least, is one of the species that does well submerged, making it one of the best choices for the aquarium.

 

Anubias are robust plants well adapted to flowing water, as are Bolbitis and Crinum, the situation is very different with Nymphaea water lilies. While the bushy leaves at the bottom of the plant don’t mind a gentle current, the long stems that connect the corm to the floating lily-pads are easily twisted and tangled. These are plants of ponds and ditches, or in other words, exactly the sorts of habitats you’d find killifish! In fact, Nymphaea are among the most useful plants for the right sort of biotope, creating plenty of shade at the surface, while leaving plenty of open space below the leaves for your fishes. The only problem is getting the balance right between filtration and water movement. Air-powered filters are probably the ideal, since the current they produce is minimal and tends to be spread out gently around the tank. What you need to avoid is anything that sends out a jet of water that’ll catch the floating lily-pads and drag them towards each other, where they’ll quickly become tangled.

 

So far as substrate goes, it’ll really depend on the plants and fish in question. Anubias and Bolbitis are adapted to growing on solid surfaces, so you’ll want plenty of rocks or bogwood for them. Crinum look a lot like onions, with a bulb that does well only partly pushed into a rich substrate, such as gravel mixed with laterite or some other aquarium soil. They are adaptable and undemanding though, and will grow in plain sand or even gravel if given fertiliser pellets now and again. All three genera appreciate water current, so they’d be good picks for a rocky or gravelly stream biotope. There’s nothing to stop you using sand or even leaf litter in such a tank if you wanted to, but none of these plants will be happy if their rhizomes or corms are buried, so bear that in mind. Since Anubias and Bolbitis especially are plants of the riverbank, attaching them to rocks or bogwood pieces pushed into a sloping bank of rock and gravel (or sand) could look brilliant. Surprisingly, perhaps, it’s the smaller Anubias species, like Anubias barteri var nana that are usually found submerged all year around, while the bigger species with the longer stems and larger leaves, like Anubias hastifolia, that tend to be found around the margins or even above the waterline. So, while it’s tempting to put the taller species in the deeper part of the tank, that’d actually be the wrong way around!

 

Nymphaea, on the other hand, are more for biotope tanks based around a pond or ditch, so a muddy substrate, lots of leaf litter, plus some twigs and choice pieces of bogwood is just what you’d want here. Such a tank doesn’t need to be cluttered, and rocks wouldn’t really belong in such a tank.

 

When building riverbanks, it’s a good idea to use a gravel tidy above a layer of sand or gravel first. This creates a buffer zone between any rocks you later use and the glass floor of the tank. If there’s any slippage, the rocks will press onto the gravel tidy rather than the glass, making it much less likely they’ll crack the glass. You can now use rocks of different sizes to shore up the sand or gravel used for the river bank. Alternatively, you can pile rocks into the appropriate shape on top of the gravel tidy, and then fill the gaps with sand and gravel. The problem with riverbanks or sandbanks in aquaria is that, over time, they tend to subside and level out. Plant roots are useful for securing them (and to some extent, plants help to make riverbanks stable in the wild too, slowing down weathering and erosion). Slates are useful when placed more or less upright, as they naturally form little shelves, but I don’t think they look good mixed with waterworn boulders, so if you go the slate route, you may well need to restrict yourself to slates and slate chippings for the rest of the rockwork.

 

Often, the more hardcore aquarium builders will create a stable superstructure from things like expanding foam and lava rock, using silicone sealant to hold everything in place. This is a massive (and expensive) job of work, but the results can be stunning! Probably overkill for a small tank, though, and if the goal was killifish, a more open tank, with some Nymphaea, bogwood roots, and a substrate of sand and leaf litter would probably do the trick nicely.

 

Hope this helps!