10g West Cameroon Loose Biotope

[Schuyler]

Wow! I would have never even considered writing in to then. They really went in depth on that answer!

On 10/20/2023 at 5:15 AM, TheSwissAquarist said:

Often, the more hardcore aquarium builders will create a stable superstructure from things like expanding foam ... Probably overkill for a small tank,

Haha I almost feel called out by that last paragraph there

[Biotope Biologist]

With biotopes only hardcore people do local plants. There just isn’t much in the way of native plants regularly traded. 
 

I say choose plants that fit with the picture of your biotope or from similar biotopes local to you. 
 

For example I have my sub-alpine creek biotope that stocks fish from sub-tropical India/China in the foothills of the Himalayas. But my plants are all NA natives from Clemson that inhabit stream environments. You might find similar species of plants in the foothills of the Himalayas but finding those exact species to ship would have been an absolute nightmare.

Edited October 20, 2023 by Biotope Biologist

[Schuyler]

On 10/20/2023 at 7:51 AM, Biotope Biologist said:

With biotopes only hardcore people do local plants.

Between you and the magazine people it's staying to sound like this skews more towards the hardcore side rather than a "loose biotope" like the title suggests.

Luckily a lot of native plants are easily available. From pictures the river banks tend to be covered in anubias.

I am going to give one locally native plant a try: Licorice Fern. It's an epiphytic fern that grows on trees, rotting logs, and wet soil. From the pictures there are a lot of ferns like that in Cameroon.

[Biotope Biologist]

On 10/20/2023 at 8:23 AM, Schuyler said:

Between you and the magazine people it's staying to sound like this skews more towards the hardcore side rather than a "loose biotope" like the title suggests.

Luckily a lot of native plants are easily available. From pictures the river banks tend to be covered in anubias.

I am going to give one locally native plant a try: Licorice Fern. It's an epiphytic fern that grows on trees, rotting logs, and wet soil. From the pictures there are a lot of ferns like that in Cameroon.

Sorry I think I might have jumbled words. Let me be clear I would not call myself hardcore biotope. I think if you can loosely get your tank to look like a slice out of the environment than you’re good.

 

My tank plants were easy to source and like my hardiness zone so I have had very good success with them. I have a maidenhair fern that is being a bit temperamental right now but the epiphyte ferns really seem to like having running water through the soil if that seems plausible in your setup

 

I am following because I like your idea! 

[Schuyler]

On 10/20/2023 at 2:29 PM, Biotope Biologist said:

Sorry I think I might have jumbled words. Let me be clear I would not call myself hardcore biotope.

Haha you're fine I think I was doing the pronoun game too much in my comment.

I meant to say that the magazine said building a river bank was hardcore and then you said using local plants was hardcore so maybe my tank isn't as "loose" of a biotope as I thought.

Honestly, I hadn't looked at how other people normally do this. I just assumed that this is how people do it.

[Schuyler]

Looks like Christmas came early! My mom came down to visit the kids and brought the piece with her.

Here it is:

There were a few snags. Turns out I'm not great at measuring and it was a little to big to fit in. I had to cut a piece of the shorter side to get it to fit in.

The other thing I forgot to consider is the silicone. So it wasn't sitting flush against the glass.

I had to use a Dremel to cut the corners so that it fit better.

Then there were some minor adjustments needed for the internal filter area. That's all blocked out and sends like it should work well.

Hopefully tomorrow I can get that attached with silicone, carve out an overflow, and start arranging roots on the lids

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 10/21/2023 at 8:15 AM, Schuyler said:

Looks like Christmas came early! My mom came down to visit the kids and brought the piece with her.

Here it is:

There were a few snags. Turns out I'm not great at measuring and it was a little to big to fit in. I had to cut a piece of the shorter side to get it to fit in.

The other thing I forgot to consider is the silicone. So it wasn't sitting flush against the glass.

I had to use a Dremel to cut the corners so that it fit better.

Then there were some minor adjustments needed for the internal filter area. That's all blocked out and sends like it should work well.

Hopefully tomorrow I can get that attached with silicone, carve out an overflow, and start arranging roots on the lids

Looking good! Now comes the hard bit : plants 🤯! 

[Schuyler]

Ok, not a whole lot has changed. A few minor adjustments:

1) I carved out a notch to work at an overflow if the under gravel filter isn't keeping up

2) Added a ledge for the chemical media tray to sit on. My original plan was to silicon it in place which would not have worked. I've also realized that there isn't a good was to grab the tray so I'll add some kind of handle on the side

3) Rounded the edges more to get a better fit

It doesn't look great but that's the back corner so it's not a huge deal. Honestly, I'm considering cutting most of the back off but that would be tedious

On 10/22/2023 at 7:32 AM, TheSwissAquarist said:

Looking good! Now comes the hard bit : plants 🤯! 

Thanks! Realistically, at the rate things are going, plans probably won't get added until next week. Each silicone step will need 24 hours to cure

[Schuyler]

I have made a few messes while working on aquariums but I have to say, today is pretty high on the list of biggest messes made.

Is looking dirty now:

I was using silicone to put the filter pieces in place when the silicone wasn't coming out like it should. So I pushed really hard and the clog popped out... Along with a bunch of extra silicone. So I figured I'd just go all in and use it to stick on the dirt.

Going to give this a day before shaking it off and giving it a rinse.

[Schuyler]

A few spots were a bit thin and needed more dirt.

I also added an elbow to the uplift tube, got a piece of cork bark to hide cords, and started planning out where roots will go.

I added the plants to get an idea of how things will look:

The truck is going to be getting them to look like they are intertwined while still sitting each piece of the lid to be removed in individually.

It feels like it's actually coming together now

[TheSwissAquarist]

Coming together nicely! I’m liking how the woods orientated in a way that it looks like a streams flowing. 

[gjcarew]

Is that coco coir?

[Schuyler]

On 10/25/2023 at 11:29 AM, gjcarew said:

Is that coco coir?

A coconut has a just around the part we normally think of. Coco coir is that husk finely ground up.

They mainly sell it as a reptile enclosure substrate but I mainly use it for annual killifish spawning.

[Schuyler]

Not much of an update today. Just cleaning things so they are prepped for installing into the tank.

Picture if my yummy stick broth:

 

I am trying to decide where I want to put the stump from my yard. Either more to the right or left:

I think I'm leaning towards the left

[Schuyler]

Getting a little more serious now.

The background is siliconed into place. I wedged random things in there to hold it in place

There was rough looking abrupt edge at the front so I did an extra large bead of silicon and smushed the "dirt" mixture into it to smooth the transition:

Added foam to the corner.

First layer:

After the second layer it needed some carving:

After carving and adding the cork bark:

The foam is going to be added in layers so that I can build out the overhang and get the roots in place.

Here's the start fit the other sections:

[TheSwissAquarist]

Im really digging the rocky look you’re getting with the foam! 

[Schuyler]

I added sand and started blocking out where roots will go

[Schuyler]

Adding foam to stick things in place

Still deciding how I want to cover up the foam...

[Schuyler]

It's so close, I can practically taste it!

I carved the foam a bit so it was more uniform then applied a layer silicone and "dirt" mixture. I wanted it a bit darker so I used more tree fern and crushed fluval bio stratum.

A preview of what it will look like with plants:

Although I am considering other spots for the licorice Fern now that I see it being the anubias. Some potential spots:

I'm also thinking I may just leave the bolbitus out completely. There just doesn't seem like there is a good place to put it.

Now the roadmap is:

Tomorrow:

- Fill in any patches that got missed

- Give the silicone plenty of time to cure (it has a strong vinegar smell which is interesting because most that I've worked with in construction had a very different smell)

Saturday:

- Add soil and plants to the ledge

- Move a bit of gravel, bio media, and sand from established tanks

- Add the heater and connect the air

- Add a big bag of carbon to soak up any residual bad chemicals. Everything is supposed to be aquarium safe but I'm still a bit paranoid. Better safe than sorry.

- Fill the tank with aged aquarium water and sponge grunge (I've read that daphnia don't like dechlorinator. But totally sure if that's true but it's about time to do a water change on my display tank anyway)

- Test that the pump and everything works

- Add micro fauna from cultures (seed shrimp, daphnia, cyclops, etc)

Sunday:

- Do nothing... The plan is to not touch it for at least a week and let it do it's thing. The fluval stratum should leech some ammonia to get the cycle started but with all the established media I don't think it will take long to get established (fingers crossed)

Edited November 3, 2023 by Schuyler

[TheSwissAquarist]

That’s going to look epic with fish in! 

[Schuyler]

Here goes nothing!

Loaded it up with a large chunk of carbon and some seasoned media from my main display:

I did my monthly maintenance on the display tank and took the sponge grunge in aged water and used it to fill the tank:

It was weird to watch because the water came up through the sand.

It looks pretty gross right now but that should help kick start the cycle pretty fast:

I haven't put the plants out dirt in because I'm realizing that they won't really get water. I need to think of a way to wick water up into the dirt.

The other thing is that the uplift is pretty weak. Which is alright except for the fact that I have to basically give it an air pump at full blast to get a little trickle. Maybe I can retrofit one of those new ACO uplifts once they finally become available. I'm the man time, the water will at least be highly oxygenated.

[TheSwissAquarist]

That looks incredible! 
Beware the duckweed: 

[Schuyler]

On 11/5/2023 at 1:21 AM, TheSwissAquarist said:

That looks incredible! 
Beware the duckweed: 

Gah! I had to skim so many little bits of duckweed... Thanks for the heads up

[TheSwissAquarist]

It’s impossible to get it all out, apart from with silver dollars. Tbh I’m surprised this tank isn’t taking pride of place in your living room! 

[Schuyler]

And I'm back. I was just on vacation for the last week and a half. That's part of why the plan was to let the aquarium sit for a while.

Here how it looks now:

A few issues have cropped up:

1) Mold.

Not just the biofilm on the wood, that's expected. There's also mold on the river bank portion.

Serpadesign talks about adding spring tails to fight mold in some of his videos. I may have to look into that.

2) Flow

There is a lot of surface scum which o think is because there isn't enough flow and surface agitation. With the evaluation the water level went below the top overflow so it wasn't getting skimmed off.

Another thing I think is contributing is the design of the waterfall. I suspect that a large portion of the water is just going back under the lid due to capillary force (I think that's what it's called).

I'm thinking I'll need to extend the ledge or slightly and make it a more downward pointed ledge.

3) Water loss

Between splashing from the waterfall and evaporation, the water level dropped quite a bit and that was without a heater.

Two ideas for fixing this. It definitely needs a lid. Cover the uplift tube more so that splashes do go as far.

4) Getting water to the plants on the bank.

This is still a bit of an open question...

But the good news is that there are still quite a few live daphnia and cyclops. That makes me feel like there a good chance that there's nothing too toxic in the water.

I'm still going to move cautiously when adding fish to make sure I don't just kill a bunch of them