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Congo Swamp Monster (750l biotope)

I’ve just added 4 Phenacogrammus aurantiacus, 4 that were sold as Phenacogrammus sp ‘red’ and seem to be the same as ‘red makoua’ and 3 Microctenopoma ansorgii. I’d like to get more of all of these over time.

The ansorgii immediately hid and haven’t yet emerged. They did evict 3 of the Microsynodotis in the process, including the largest one that I haven’t seen since he was introduced 2 weeks ago. He had a nice round belly so is clearly eating the Hikari sinking pellets that go in each night. The Phenacogrammus seem to be settling OK. They have formed a mixed species shoal in the middle of the open area and the aurantiacus have immediately coloured up quite well. I suspect it will take a while for the ‘red makoua’ to get back their colour.

My memory may be failing me, but I think these might be the first tetras I’ve had since the mid 90s!!!
 
I have considered them. Probably not going to go for them for exactly the reasons Edvet mentions. I’ll still tempted by Pantodon.. I’m hoping that when I’ve got the surface covered with lily pads, Pistia and other floating plants then I can persuade a pair of them to stay in the tank...

Perhaps the hardest stocking decision I have to make is whether to ‘stay small’ and have the Phenacogrammus be the largest fish and stick with Congochromis and other dwarf cichlids or to ‘go large’ and get a pair/trio of Hemichromis or Pelmatochromis and forgo any smaller fish (plus possibly have to remove the Microctenopoma). The go large route would allow some fish with proper pet personality and presence, the smaller would open up lampeyes, Neolebias and the small barbs like hulstaerti. I do like the idea of a shoal of 30 lampeyes under a cover of lily pads, but they are really small and easily consumed...

Pantodon would for me fit well as surface dwellers in the large fish option, if I could get convince them not to launch themselves across the room... they are common enough that I might just risk it one day!
 
I have 4 butterfly fish in my 345 liters tank. They love to stay under lily pads, but wherever the surface is not covered they might jump. When food is appearing they won't even think before jumping, maybe with enough cover they won't find a place to jump out...
Nice thing about them is they keep to themselves, they never fight with other species, only among their own. They're true surface dwellers, they rarely swim anywhere else. Even killifish aren't so permanent surface dwellers.
 
I would advise against hemichromis if you want a community. My pair dug like no tomorrow, were highly aggressive and were actively predatory. I busted the 3" female happily eating adult guppies. The X. nigri on the other hand were peaceful, quite active, kept them with fish as small as Trigonostigma heteromorpha never lost a fish to them.
 
Same for me, i always disliked large fish sp. cramped in to small tanks. My personal rule of thumb i handle is make sure the fish can swim 20x it's owm maximum lenght. So for a 60cm tank i don't keep fish getting bigger than about 3cm.. Double the size of the tank makes it 6 cm and so on.. For me personaly this gives aestheticaly a most natural scaling able to adchieve in living space and size of the fish relative to the size of the group. Anything larger always make sme think of a jail cell.. I live myself in a less than 30m² living room and i have to get out once in a while when it feels like the ceiling is falling on my head.. Luckily i can. The fish don't, they are stuck in my choises.. 🙂

That's by the way what Vivarium stands for, Living Space. We should respect that from the inside out.
 
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Thank you all for your interest and advice. Digging almost makes me as nervous about Hemichromis as their aggression.

zozo said:
my personal rule of thumb i handle is make sure the fish can swim 20x it's owm maximum lenght.
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I could have 6” fish and still be working within your 20x rule! I think staying on the smaller end of things will work better, though..

Does anyone have experience with either Distichodus teugelsi or D. decemmaculatus? I know the larger species are highly herbivorous and far from a good resident in planted tanks, but keen to understand how far that extends to these smaller species.

Specifically, does anyone have access to the original description of D. teugelsi? Keen to see if they describe stomach contents.
 
gltjc said:
I could have 6” fish and still be working within your 20x rule! I think staying on the smaller end of things will work better, though..
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Yes you probably could.. 🙂 It's not a standard size tank you made there, i guess your concern in choosing the correct fish and keep it in a balanced proportion is it's 45cm height.
 
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Latest as of earlier today after removing the Pteris cretica and a lot of dead emerged leaves from the Anubias barteri glabra. Have started to get a bit of green hair algae in places despite not having bright lighting at the moment and the Pistia are going a bit yellow. I suspect a lack of NPK as I’ve only been dosing micronutrients and there are few fish in 80% RO water. Does that sound right? If so will start dosing macrofertiliser too. Most of the plants are doing OK and the right hand group of Nymphaea have started hitting the surface. I’m a bit concerned about the front right Juncus, although the one behind seems to be doing well.
 
Kezzab said:
hi, tank is looking fab. What are the lights you have? They look like kessil a80, but I'm not sure.
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Thank you.

They are A80s.

Equipment so far is:

5x Kessil A80 Tuna Sun w Kessil Spectral Controller
2x 300w Hydor in-line heaters
1x Oase Biomaster 600 thermofilter
1x Eheim 3e 700 filter
1x Inkbird itc306 temperature controller

Next purchases will be an automatic top-off as there is a lot of evaporation and a replacement for the Eheim, which is slowly leaking and ~6 years old.

The Oase is really well designed but massively noisier than the more powerful Eheim and so may also get swapped at some point.
 
That's indeed a gorgious tank.. :thumbup: Can't wait to see this grown in..

gltjc said:
Next purchases will be an automatic top-off as there is a lot of evaporation and a replacement for the Eheim, which is slowly leaking and ~6 years old.

The Oase is really well designed but massively noisier than the more powerful Eheim and so may also get swapped at some point.
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Maybe a sump filter is a good option for this tank. With a sump the tanks water level stays always the same, evaporation will drain the sump instead. An auto top off can easily be installed and hidden away in the sump as well.
 
zozo said:
Maybe a sump filter is a good option for this tank.
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Yes, a sump would probably have been a better option, but I was too lazy when planning this to think about how to design the overflow with the very limited space I have behind. Plus I already had the big Eheim. I also need to keep a bunch of space under the stand for my kids’ stuff! Maybe once I get it running and established I’ll think about changing to a sump.
 
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