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Asian Jungle

ourmanflint

Member
Joined
8 Mar 2009
Messages
258
Location
London
Yes it's another blackwater Asian Cube!!

This is the tank I snuck into the back room when my girlfriend was away on holiday. My intention was to set up a softwater Junglist looking tank. So I wanted a big sort of tree in it, that would sort of look like one of those big buttressed figs you get in the tropics. Eventually found a way too big piece of redmoor and cut it down to fit snugly.
It was intended to house my growing group of Licorice gouramis, and it may yet do, but for now I found a group of Burmese Chocolate Gouramis (Parasphaerichthys ocellatus), which are even tinier than regular Choccos, about half the size I would say. They had been in the shop a month with no takers so I bought them.
Plants wise I want to have a decent chance of growing some rare Cryptocoryne species, so softish water around pH 6.
So far I have only found Cryptocoryne cordata "blassii", a couple of nice C. pontderifolia "Binjai" and "jambi", so still plenty of space. I also bought a tissue tub of Cryptocoryne "flamingo", but it melted within a couple of days and have not yet seen any shoots coming up. Also have some lovely hygrophila pinnatifida growing from the tree.

So here is where I am now...

_1RP1811_800_zps8abd121e.jpg


Excuse the ugly pipe from my bottom pump to spraybar, and the temporary cork blocking top pump outlet, hopefully plants will soon cover them up.
Lighting is one 24W Optoled light from eBay hung about 40cm above water level. I get great glitter lines from surface ripples, and plants seem to be OK.

_1RP1812_800_zps4c392723.jpg


There are eight Burmese Chocalate gouramis, and they have been in there for 3 weeks now, and I have barely seen them. At one point I thought I must have lost half of them, but no all eight are still there amazingly.
 
Looks great. How are you liking the light? I'm thinking of getting the next size down for my shrimp tank...

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The light is great Lindy. I was worried it might be too bright and it is very bright, but at about 40cm above my tank it covers everything pretty evenly. I have lots of Salvinia natans floating so that also tends to cut out a lot of light when it gets overgrown. I managed to make a little movie of my Chocolates yesterday, they are super shy though.

 
Lovely wee fish. I did consider them as Colin Dunlop had some when I was picking up the liquorice gouramis but decided to hold out for stripey ones.
 
Yes the larger ones are definitely more colourful. And at least you will get to see them when they are in your tank! I have to sit still for 10 minutes before they show themselves
 
Cheers Ed. It's a 40cm cube. Wish I could go bigger but I have to limit myself with this for a while.
 
Nice video...Intelligent little fish. Interesting stalking/predatory behavior, reminds me of the Sparkling gouramis I brought thinking they'd be OK with shrimp. They'd stalk an individual as a group, in a similar manor to yours, and then when it was worn out systematically dismember it. Needless, to say they went back to my LFS pretty sharpish.
 
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