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5ft Bookshelf Aquarium - River Scape

Hi again.

Could you answer a quick question about your Kallax stand? Is the board on top glued on and if so, which glue did you use?

Thanks,

P

Gday, the board on top is not glue on, just sits on top of the two kallax stands to provide a flat surface, the weight of the tank holds it in place. Note I did brace the back of the kallax stands with 4mm flat board to prevent sideways movement.
 
Do you keep any ramshorn snails? Now that I have an exploding population of them along with a ton of shrimp I hardly see any BBA. Moreover my plants have taken over, I keep many crypts and I also have a riparium planter.
 
No new photos as I have let maintenance slip and the tank is even more over run with BBA, but good news the loaches have been breeding, I have about 6 or so juvie loaches getting about which is exciting to see!

I had planned on pulling the tank down and rescaping but I think I will give it a few more months to see if the breading continues
 
Do you keep any ramshorn snails? Now that I have an exploding population of them along with a ton of shrimp I hardly see any BBA. Moreover my plants have taken over, I keep many crypts and I also have a riparium planter.

Not sure if they are ramshorn but I do have alot of snails, I dont think they touch the BBA but do clean up green algae.

The style of my tank is a double edge sword, on one hand I want green algae etc for the loaches so run high light, but high light (and bad maintenance) can cause BBA, also with the style I was going for plant mass is fairly low / slow growing
 
Do you have any updated or pics to look over?

Sorry guys I have shut this tank down BBA got out of control, I am in the process of setting this tank up as a blackwater "stream" tank, will create a new journal when its underway
 
Oh I will miss this tank it was really inspiring. Which of the loaches bred? The Sewelias or some others? Have you pinned down the cause of this BBA outbreak? Maybe not enough plant mass?
 
Oh I will miss this tank it was really inspiring. Which of the loaches bred? The Sewelias or some others? Have you pinned down the cause of this BBA outbreak? Maybe not enough plant mass?

It was a great tank while it lasted, the algae i guess was caused by too much light, over feeding when I first got the loaches, low plant mass and bad maintenance from myself.

Was not the sewelias which bred, the sewelias (had 2 of them) actually died after a few months, unsure of the breed of loaches which bred, pretty sure it was the fish labeled Pseudogastromyzon myersi in the local aquarium store
 
This is the fear I have with my "simple 'scape" once it's put into action and leads me to wonder how people with fish only aquariums keep algae at bay?

Keep the light very low and you will be ok, I was blasting my light at near full power for more than 12hrs a day
 
Crikey - I wasn't thinking anything like that for light power or length!
Do you think particular inhabitants helped at all?

As in inhabitants help to reduce algae? The main purpose of this tank was to keep hillstream loaches and they really need tank with abundant green / surface algae / diatoms which helps grow / feed Aufwuchs, the loaches then feed on the aufwuches (microorganisms).

So basically no, the loaches dont really actually eat algae they just graze on the aufwuches which live in the algae, and in the process of trying to grow nice surface / green algae i grew BBA and could not eradicate it, the loaches seem happy enough with the tank covered in BBA and green algae but I cant stand to look at the BBA anymore so decided to pull the scape down.
 
Slightly off topic but it's irony when you try to grow anything apart from BBA, BBA grows. Yet, when one wants to grow BBA in a carpet, everything else will grow. Shows how much we know about algae.

@doylecolmdoyle Great work with this epic tank. Hope to see more from you. I reckon go for an unusual composition with discordant elements. :p
 
Well this tank is a distant memory... but today I received a few copies of Aquarium Hobbyist Magazine with my article published!


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How is your tank on the Kallax doing? I set up a 265 Liter tank on one and have put ither tanks on Kallax (old style, which are thicker).

Yours still on one? If not, how long did you have it on there?
 
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