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Oryzias woworae biotope

Well, I did it @zozo ! Not quite got the colour right yet as only really testing that it works, and only done the lower strip, but if this technical potato can do this anyone could manage it! Just realised how awful the photo is. Never mind, look at the pretty blue! Oh, and I haven't frosted the back yet, but that's pretty obvious...
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Apologies if this link's already been posted..

This isn't the exact location you reference, but it might give you an idea of what high ph limestone water bodies look like below the water line.

Central Sulawesi: Lake Matano and Lake Touti.


Hopefully you can read Japanese.. lol Google translates the page into English.
 
Thank God (or whoever you send thanks to) for Google translate!
The images are interesting as the rock looks little like the ones I've managed to zoom in on in Google Earth.
I've been struggling to replicate the rock I found as it's like a pale brown cross between dragon stone and lava rock! I'll see if I can grab an image on .y phone...
 
If you do a search for "Mata Air Fotuno" on YouTube, some videos come up for a seemingly popular swimming area in the river. In the following vid, you can see the rocks at 1:23. A possible Daisy's ricefish swims past him at 8:43 (play the video at 0.25 speed). There are more at around 12:30, plus some obvious halfbeaks.
 
I think I'm almost happy with this now. Not 100% settled on the rock placement, there's a bit of work still to do on hiding the filter and annoyingly the lights along the top won't go the colour I want and I can't get the right blue, but other than that it's all good! Due to the small size of the tank, I'm trying both vallis and dwarf sag as a potential stand in if the vallis gets ridiculously out of proportion/control.
So here it is at present. Excuse the terrible phone photos and the rock on top of the wood hiding the filter! I'm calling that wood "a representation of a collapsed bathing platform" as there are several stumps from these visible under the water.

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The more I looked at it, the less I liked it and as much as I liked the wood, I just couldn't quite make it fit with the image in my head. Therefore, a rescape was required (again). I'd originally envisioned the overhang of the bank with the amphibious plants creeping toward the water so now I'm much happier with the left side. The tropica substrate was exactly the right colour for the soil too which was a bonus. The fish are much happier now I've upped their number to 10 too.

The frogbit is obviously just a temporary measure to provide cover whilst the vallis grows in. The vallis is actually green so I assume the backlight makes it look that sickly colour. The wood on the right still hasn't stopped trying to float so the random rock will be a feature for some time yet! For some reason, the substrate looks much darker than it is too, which I guess is the problem with trying to take photos with a phone! It's actually WIO Heaven sand.
I also have to thank the guy at my local MA in Basingstoke (whose name I don't know!) who has been asking all his suppliers for info on the area as well as hunting down other useful things!
Anyway, here are some updated photos:
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And finally one without the nasty bits cropped out! Including patch of algae on the glass, dodgy light fixture, water stains and reflections 😱 not the best angle either!
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Just spotted my first baby ricefish 🙂 I don't know how many will survive predation but hopeful that a few make it, especially once it's grown in. I may add a mop occasionally and raise a few separately. I'm slowly swapping out the totally inappropriate frogbit for the somewhat less inappropriate Ceratopteris for any fry to hide in. The vallis is growing in well, too. So well that it grew up inside the sponge on the PAT mini filter 😳 . I've now removed the floating wood and have it in a bucket until the damned thing gives up floating.
Not much change visually, but had to update after seeing the baby! The overhang on the left has proven to be a wise addition as whenever the fish get spooked, they all cluster under there.
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There's been a couple of hiccups over the last few months, not least was the soil slowly leaching through a tiny gap into the water. Unfortunately, this meant that it had to undergo a rescape of sorts, and the "water's edge" had to be rebuilt without soil. Its now just the emersed plants sat on top of rock, but I guess that's what erosion would do eventually!
The vallis has taken hold enough for the temporary frogbit to be removed without freaking out the fish and the ceratopteris is just about holding its own, though it doesn't seem to like the hard water too much.
Algae has been minimal, despite the direct sunlight hitting the front corner most afternoons. That corner gets a small amount of GDA and there's a bit of staghorn on the filter outlet, but that's it.
The fish themselves have been much happier since the last rescape; not sure why, maybe because the vallis has grown in and covered the surface. Not spotted any more fry, but I've had a mop in a few times and have some eggs incubating.
Here's how it's looking now
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And some fishy photos - shame that the colours don't really show well as the dominant male is an almost blue/black in the right light
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I also preferred the water's edge, if I was working with a larger tank I'd redo it with a full bank. Because the tank is pretty small, I don't want to take up any more water volume with hardscape than is necessary so the soil was on the top of the rock overhang. That made it quite difficult to contain without being obvious. I've been toying with moving it into a bigger tank, so if I do, I'll definitely reconstruct the water's edge in a much more planned manner. This one has been pretty haphazard!
I'm hoping the fry are hiding in the mass of roots in the back corner! It's a pretty dense root forest back there!
 
One day I’ll make biotope tank for myself as well.

It just looks so cool!

I really like the fact that only couple of sticks and rocks can create such a nice cut of nature.

Love it.
 
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Love this, great to see more biotopes and biotope themed tanks, but especially enjoying this one 👍
Click to expand...
Thanks, that means a lot to a non-scaper!
At water change yesterday, I managed to pull 2 newly hatched fry before the parents ate them. A couple of weeks ago, I threw a mop in to see if I could get a few eggs that way and managed to pick about 8 or 9, which also hatched yesterday. There are still a couple waiting to pop out, but so far only 1 has died for unknown reasons. They're currenty in a floating tub in the imbellis fry tank as the imbellis are big enough to eat them. They are super easy to breed, as even I can do it!
I managed to get a almost reflection-free shot of the tank in the sunlight, too. Sorry, I forgot to crop out the dog damage! As expected, there's a fast accumulation of GDA in that corner. I'm keeping an eye on the temperature and have added the venturi just in case. As nice as it looks with the sun on it, the fish aren't keen, so the window is now sporting a nice polystyrene sheet! So far it's only 0.2 degrees C above normal, but if (and I suspect I will) I have to move it, I'll take the opportunity to move them to a larger tank. With my accumulation of fry tanks, I can see the dog room becoming a dog/fish room!
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The time has come to start The Big Move. I've had to reduce the number of heated open-topped tanks in my living room as the humidity was getting out of hand. Pity really, as I love emergent plants. Anyhow, 2 tanks are done, including the original 'arium (I'll document that in the relevant journal) leaving this one. I left this until last because I want to really go to town on the hardscape and recreate the muddy/rocky water's edge. Having experience with creating terrarium backgrounds with expanding foam, this is the route I'm planning on. I'm also planning on using an hmf with the "riverbank" in front to reduce dead spots within that area and to hide the heater. Obviously this means that the bank won't be a solid wall as that would just be silly! The plan is to have a kind of cave effect, so that the sponge of the hmf just looks like shadow within the hollow.
I've bought an Aquael Leddy 60 XL for the added height so some low growing plants can still grow at the "water's edge" but as with my other leddy tanks, I'll swap the light for my dimmable nicrew ones, simply because I hate the fact that the leddy day/night start the cycle on the brightest setting with no ramp, scaring the bejesus out of the fish every morning. Plus there's no timer, which for me is a deal-breaker. To cover the expanding foam, I've gone for Tropica substrate; the brown is very similar to the colour of the natural soil around the waters on Muna. I haven't quite finalised the design in my head, but I'm more of a "just start it and go with the flow" kind of person, as opposed to a strict plan and follow it to the letter type! This doesn't always work out well 🙄:lol:
 
The build started this weekend with the construction of the corner HMF. Pipework is still lacking.
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Then came several hours of cutting out random bits of cardboard for templates for the bank.
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I wanted the bank to sit a few inches away from the filter to avoid dead spots, so even though it will look as if the hardscape takes up a lot of space, it actually won't as in reality it will only be an inch or so thick for the majority of the height. I'm hoping that leaving this space will both help with flow and remove and small gaps that livestock might get stuck in. I used correx to construct the framework for the bank:
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This was then covered in expanding foam and carved into shape. I got carried away at this point and stopped taking photos. Once all the shiny bits were carved away (the silicone won't stick to this) and the shape was what I wanted, I started the really messy bit! Marine grade silicone was smeared all over and then crushed tropica substrate was pressed into that. I crushed the substrate in my nutribullet; I knew I'd find a use for it! Once all that had cured, I smeared another coat of silicone over the top to seal it and prevent the substrate from dissolving under water. I then coated it with another layer of crushed substrate, mainly to prevent the copious amounts of dog hair in my house from getting stuck to it! This brings us up to date and whilst the silicone is curing, I'll be clearing up the bomb site that is now my living room as it's covered in bits of expanding foam, chopped up correx and cardboard!
Here it is at the moment, awaiting the addition of roots and detailing. The base and lower third (roughly) will be covered by substrate and rockwork.
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