A black-white water tank ;-)

[peterK]

Just want to show you my 100L tank> It's empty, but waiting for some Peruvian beauties

 

[Mike Wise]

It reminds me of some small streams where we collected apistos in Peru; excellent work!

 

[peterK]

It reminds me of some small streams where we collected apistos in Peru; excellent work!

Thanks Mike, this is because I got that amazing pieces of wood from Ruki (Lukasz)

 

[dw1305]

plant

Hi all,
Lovely tank, is the floating plant "Nile Cabbage" Pistia?
cheers Darrel

 

[peterK]

Thanks Darrel,
and yes, that's Pistia.

 

[jose_vogel]

Really, very, very nice.

 

[peterK]

Since yesterday, the tank is house of 2 pairs of A. pantalone. As expected, they became very aggressive, to be exact - one of females has taken 4/5 of the aquarium. But she is not destroying rest of the group. However, as I see one of the males is more often visible in her territory
Dominant female:


Subdominant female


One of the males (bigger of them two, they are more shy than females):

 

[peterK]

New pics :wink::
Dominant female:



Subdominant female:

Bigger male (actually, smaller than alfa female :wink: ):

Small male:


And dominant female once more :

:grin:

 

[blueblue]

What a natural tank environment, great work done, my friend!

 

[peterK]

Thanks much! I'm going to let this tank for only a pair, but bonding process is quite long in this species...

 

[blueblue]

Thanks much! I'm going to let this tank for only a pair, but bonding process is quite long in this species...

hm.. i did manage to spawn this species. The trick is: always put the stronger fish in "jail" (floating tank) whenever there's big fight. After several rounds, they could get on well...

 

[peterK]

hm.. i did manage to spawn this species. The trick is: always put the stronger fish in "jail" (floating tank) whenever there's big fight. After several rounds, they could get on well...

Wow, thank you, I'll try it. It helped with Crenicichla regani, so I think it's good idea for them (dominant female is a bit too aggressive...)

 

[blueblue]

Wow, thank you, I'll try it. It helped with Crenicichla regani, so I think it's good idea for them (dominant female is a bit too aggressive...)

That's good, yes, dominant female (even in human) is aggessive, too.

 

[peterK]

Haha, you're right:biggrin:

 

[kkaaii]

leaves

Hi,

Great Tank!!!!

With so many leaves at the bottom,, i am curious how do you clean the sand? or do you clean it at all? could you please share your water maintenance?

thank you

kai

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
I'm not sure about Peter, but I don't syphon my sand at all as such, in fact I do very little tank maintenance other than changing some water every day, and my suspicion would be that most keepers follow a similar routine.

Eventually the leaves skeletonize, and you can remove the skeletons and leaf fragments, but oak or beech leaves are quite stable and take a long time to break down (especially at with low nutrients and low pH).
cheers Darrel

 

[Ruki]

In my tanks I clean sand and remove layer of leaves only when I'm restarting tank. Mess on the Apistogramma bottom is the best. :biggrin: Peter probably thinks and does the same as me. :wink:
P.S.
In one of polish forum about Dwarfs we've "Mess Band". :biggrin: Me and Peter are "members". :biggrin:

 

[peterK]

Yeah mess rulezzz:biggrin:

BtW, the tank changed main inhabitants: now a pair of:...

 

[Tom C]

Beautiful tank, peterK!

This is one of the habitats where we collected the A. sp. "Alto Tapiche" in 2009. Beneath the surface it looked very much like your tank!

With those new inhabitants, I expect you'll soon see something like this:

(as you see, I, and my fish, like mess too.....)

After 8 weeks they'll look like this:

Good luck!

 

[peterK]

Thanks much for the reply Tom
I have to say male is very ready to spawn, but female seems to have no willingness, despite she's fat and her genital papilla is shown.
Here a newest pic of the tank:

And a pair: