Apistogramma Bio Tope

[mac]

Hey guys,

Now that I have finished adjusting the garage, cleaning, moving, dumping rubbish ect. Down side is the poor boat of mine has had to suck it up and lose a lot of space, in the shed. So have all my tools.
Anyway thats for another Journal. Right now its the slow and steady pace of filling in the whole section of new space with as much as possible fish tank wise.

Now the break down for the reason this tank is starting. When I first started the 83g up I went in to see my LFS. Anyway ask him whats on his order list ect. Now I think he miss understood and went and ordered some fish. Which is fine everything I asked for was for the 83g. But the one thing that wasn't for the 83g was some Badis Badis.
Anyway right now they are in the 83g and going very well. Eating frozen food quite well, they did touch a small amount of some of the cory pellet. But that was before they got crowed out. So far I have to spend a fair amount of time making sure that the wee things get some tucker.



Now I have some pics for this but there is one issue. What size do the images have to be? For the life of me I can't remember.
The tank is as per the title 15g. At this stage I am stuck for which filter I want to use. Either the fluvial u1-u2. Or a Shark ADV 600.
Lighting though hmm that i have not looked at yet. The tank is got JBL aqua basis plus. I have forgotten the true term for this but, I have bout 1in of clay fert mix for garden pond in there as well.
Hope to finish filling her up tonight. Grab some sort of light in the next day or so. Then hunt around for the odds and ends I want.

Stocking is really basic at this stage. Badis Badis, yes after the tank has cycled. Then possible Celestial pearl Danios of Dario's.

[Slaphppy7]

Maximum pic size is 800 X 800 pixels.

[mac]

Thanks for the reply Slappy,

That Finally worked out how on earth to fiddle with image size.

So yeah back to the main thing, right now I am ordering the first load of plants. Then a trip to the river to see what I can scavenge up rock and wood wise.
Then watch the cycling process work its self out.
15g product.jpg

At this stage I think I will stick to the Shark filter. Runs fine and had a good result with it last time. Will save my Fluvals for other tanks.

15g Badis Badis.jpg

Very basic plan for the tank Left hand side filter flowing into heater. So try to hide everything through a combination of heavy planting thickects ect.
Also their will be a black card back ground on it as well.

[Sandz]

Scarlet Badis are usually hard to keep without live food. Are you able to get them on flake?

[mac]

Scarlet Badis are usually hard to keep without live food. Are you able to get them on flake?

Yes they can be very hard at times. Some times they do not want to change from live food, So far mine won't touch the flake more do they get a chance in the 83g. But they will chance frozen brine shrimp in the filter current. Also they happily take crush up cory pellets as long as i soak them and place them down near the logs that they tend to hang around in.

Guess I have been lucky cause every other time I have kept them they have fed on anything that goes in the tank with them. But in saying that they were bio types only.

Hopefully with the filter media out my main filter this 15g will be up and running for them with in at least 3 weeks. Then feeding isn't a big issue at all.

[angelcraze2]

Very cool. I'm excited to see how your badis do in the 15g when you get it started. I love those fish but anyone I knew (including myself) who has kept them found them very hard to feed. Should be easier to make sure they are getting their share in 15 gallons of water as opposed to 83, but it sounds like they do well in there for you too!

[angelcraze2]

Are badis badis cold water fish? Or can CPDs live in the upper 70s°f?

[Sandz]

they can coexist at 75 without issues.

[mac]

Update time,

Firstly my plants havnt arrived yet. But thats all good. They will be here by tomorrow.
Secondly my Gh KH test kit has arrived. Along with the new Flourish root tabs.

So far these are the readings from the tank cycling.

Ph is testing at 7.4
Nitrate 20
Nitrite 1.0
Ammonia 0
KH 3 drops 53.7
GH 4 drops 71.6

One thing I don't fully under-stand is how the Gh KH is read and made into usable information.
Understand how it works is in for testing and getting the correct colours just what the rest means. Can some one fill me in. Yes I know google will give me the answer, but there isn't anything like the actual answer from a seasoned person.

As for the Badis they are going fine. Feeding okay on frozen brine shrimp and some times a small bit from the cory pellet. Also noticed that they have smashed my snail population which came from who knows were. Not that I will complain about that.
I am expecting by the end of the week to have some Daphanie brine shrimp and micro worms arriving to start growing for live food for all two tank. Plus for the next lot of tanks which are getting set up. But that is another journal.

[angelcraze2]

If this helps, kh stabilizes Ph. Gh does as well, but to a lesser degree. Every fish prefers a gh in a specific range. For acidic water loving fish, the gh doesn't have to be very high, but for stability in pH (especially acidic water), kh plays an important role.