Switching from community to Cacatuoides biotope - which species to keep?

[davidjp1982]

OK so I have decided to switch back to a blackwater amazon biotope after having one previously which slowly transformed to a clear water planted community setup.

This is the setup I used to have:

I have since got rid of the driftwood and will be using oak branches instead with leaf litter and alder cones.

The plants I have available to choose from are amazon swords, dwarf hairgrass, dwarf sag and bacopa monnieri. Current fish are 1x adult male Cacatuoides, 2 x female Cacatuoides juveniles, 5x black skirt tetras, 5 x black neons, 6 x glowlight tetras.

Am aware that all the fish are listed as south american but am curious as to which you think would fit a 'true' Cacatuoides biotope? I'm not interested in breeding any more cacs so not worried about the tetras poaching fry.

Similarly with the plants, all seem to be described as south american but would like to know which, if any, would fit the biotope. I will be ordering some frogbit also.

Any thoughts appreciated

 

[Mol_PMB]

That pic looks lovely!
I could send you some frogbit but cannot promise it is snail-free.
Sorry, that doesn't answer your question. Have you looked at fishbase? That will give you a list of species for your choice of river, or rivers for your choice of species...

 

[davidjp1982]

That pic looks lovely!
I could send you some frogbit but cannot promise it is snail-free.
Sorry, that doesn't answer your question. Have you looked at fishbase? That will give you a list of species for your choice of river, or rivers for your choice of species...

would definitely appreciate some frogbit if you have some going spare - my assassin snails will appreciate any hitch hikers! Will check that site out now thanks

 

[davidjp1982]

No luck opening fishbase on my phone

 

[Mol_PMB]

http://www.fishbase.org/summary/Apistogramma-cacatuoides.html

I can see this on my phone - got there with the species search...

 

[davidjp1982]

OK well after some searching and without an in depth knowledge of the water ways of south america I think I can at least discount keeping the glowlights as their natural habitat of Guyana seems quite seperate from the Paraguay basin habitat of the black neons and black skirt tetras. I can't find any Paraguay reference when searching for Cacatuoides but Peru and Bolivia being north of Paraguay and those being Cacatuoides habitats would suggest a likelihood of these 3 species sharing the same waters maybe?

 

[Mike Wise]

A. cacatuoides is distributed along the Peruvian Amazon between Pucallpa, Peru and Manaus, Brazil. You can keep the Neons. Tom C, Julio Melgar & I collected Neons on the same trek into the woods on the Río Curaray (Quebrada Yanayacu) where we collected a nice blue/yellow morph of cacatuoides. They weren't collected at the same site, but within 15 minutes walk from each other. We collected A. bitaeniata with the Neons, both being blackwater species. A. cacatuoides is more of a white/clearwater species. I doubt that you'll find many wild morphs of cacatuoides commercially so I don't see why you can't just use the fish you like.

 

[davidjp1982]

I am giving the 5 glow lights away this evening and have collected some nice oak branches and leaves and some alder cones from the woods . Also collected some nice stones and gravel from a stream I crossed which I think will look nice mixed with the sand. Will be removing all plants except the hairgrass which I may leave . took one of the lights out so its more subdued now and added a black background

 

[davidjp1982]

Here's the tank after removing all the plants - may still keep the amazon swords and dwarf sag not sure

And this is what turned everyone's head as I walked these home through town

Going to boil the stones and gravel and then work out what to do with the branches - plan on just pouring boiling water over them as I feel all the talk of bleaching etc is overkill and potentially more hazardous ?

 

[davidjp1982]

Nothing's ever simple - some of the stones I can break in half easily - not good I'm guessing!?

 

[davidjp1982]

Job done what do you guys think? I stacked the sand up to the back left corner then made some caves with the larger stones spreading smaller stones towards the middle. Boiled up leaves and alder cones to help them sink and added the water to the tank. Finally picked 3 branches and put them together to try and replicate roots. Any thoughts?

 

[davidjp1982]

I know bamboo shrimps are pushing the limits of an amazon biotope but still

 

[davidjp1982]

 

[Mol_PMB]

Looks great

 

[davidjp1982]

Thanks

 

[Mike Wise]

Only one comment. There are no stones/rocks in the typical Amazon stream, just sand, mud and leaf litter.

 

[davidjp1982]

Only one comment. There are no stones/rocks in the typical Amazon stream, just sand, mud and leaf litter.

yes that's what I thought but still liked the look of it. maybe next time you are collecting in the amazon you could toss a few in for me

 

[davidjp1982]

OK 2 days in fish seem happy but branches have what looks like a thick greenish white cobweb all overthem - am I right in thinking that is normal and temporary? Tested water yesterday and maybe a slight colour change on the ammonia and nitrite tests.

 

[davidjp1982]

Just retested ammonia is 0 but nitrites are between 0.25 and 0.5 :/ just did a 50% water change - just had the thought that I stirred the sand up a lot when I was rescaping maybe I caused a problem?

 

[Dano1311]

Hi did you take the branch off the tree or was it already dead? Im looking into getting some large oak branches but was worried of getting live branches off of the tree.

I currently use oak leaves so know of some good trees i could go hunting at