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Joe's tank

Missed this Joe but there was a reason I didn't post a picture of your Morpho tetras as a friend saw these charming lads in your tanks and took over 20. If I posted the pic then the remaining ones would soon be gone before I could mount a raid to 'liberate' them
 
:lol: i thought you took two dozen already Dave!!, i have set up another heavily planted tank with about 10 or12 morphos in it to grow on, so hopefully i will get them to spawn , then there will be loads more to go around, fingers crossed!
 
just to add to the thread, the wood used in the tank is all native wood, collected locally from my garden, surrounding fields and the stream behind my house, the species are as follows, about 60-70% is ivy including the main piece of wood that breaks the surface of the water with Ricca , Anubais ferns and mosses attached, to the right the piece emerging from the water is Amalanchier, not sure of the common name, snowy messipus, i think!
most of the other pieces in the tank are Alnus glutinosa (common alder) and one piece of bog wood (oak) from a bog not to far from my house
 
Really lovely tank Joe, i wish there were more widely available pictures of great low tech set ups like this, I reakon it would make an awful lot of people reconsider buying expensive lights and co2 set ups.
If i dont get the results i want after my soon to be second attempt , this has inpired me to go back and learnt to walk before running and try something similar.... I do love feeling a bit mad scientist with hi-tech though 🙂
Thanks
 
i would like to try a high tech setup some day, just to see if there is any difference other than growth rates and the ability to grow species of plants that require lots of watts!, but for now this tank is just my speed!
 
just an update on the tank, moved about and removed a couple of plants since last pics, plus added a bit of narrow leaved java fern, fish are mostly the same with only the addition of a young pair of Apistograma benshi inka 1
also added a tunse wave make to help circulate the water as i had some melt on my crypts which i put down to low flow
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not so much the low flow persay but the poor distrubition of co2 and nutrients in the water by the lack of water movement, and i do use the tank like a tv, sitting staring into it for ages, but i have found it does not rot the brain like tv can 🙂
 
Been quiet lately due to my computer having a argument with the floor and losing (my 6 year old son dropped it and the screen broke) but have a few more pictures of Joe's tank that I thought I share 😀
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Think you will be as taken with Joe's Morphos as I am, is certainly a beauty of a tank just ripe for another visit
 
Wow Joe, wonderful tank really enjoyed looking at the photos will keep checking in... Currently in the proccess of trying to do a low tech planted set-up myself 😛
 
here is an update of my planted tank, it is now planted over one year from when it started.
I have to say that i have learned loads from having a go at planting out a tank like this, there was no real plan originally, it just kind of took shape itself.it has not been fed anything for months but has had its regular (almost) daily water changes, the fish stock is much the same, though now there are some young baenchi swimming about and the morphos have almost doubled in numbers with young darting in and out of the plants every now and then, my lone male checkerboard died, so his harem are now only appreciating what a good thing us male really are, now they spend their days chasing apisto or morpho fry and talking about handbags and frocks.
next time i would not add any cardinals, they eat 99% of all fry and eggs in the tank
next fish to be added to this tank will be splash tetras.
on the plant front
it has been really interesting to see the difference in growth between above and below the water of Anubais species and cultivars.
seeing the changes in the moss growth habit and seeing it go into sexual reproductive stage sending up sporophytes, it will be interesting to see if new mosses start to appear here or there in the tank.
likewise the difference in Riccia growth above water.
if i set up a tank like this again i would use sturdier branches and build the framework up from day one before starting to add plants as one of the problems i encountered recently was some of the thinner pieces of wood cracking or bending with the weight of the plant mass as they matured.
The only new plant i added as a trial was an earth star (Cryptanthus sp.) that was sitting neglected on a dark window sill. It seems to have taken a liking to its new location, with the few offsets i broke off and placed on the wood taking hold and throwing out roots, makes me think about looking at some airplant species for the next tank for a bit of variance in plant shape colour and effect.

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Looking awesome Joe, the tank that is, not yourself 😀 Is that the Coffeefolia in the last picture, it has really grown. Must really make the effort to drop by for a decent look armed with a fish net. The Cardinals might get 99% of your fry I'm only after the remaining 1% 😉 Take care
 
no Dave, that's Anubias barteri,the cofeefolia was on a branch sticking out of the water behind the Java fern in the center of the tank but the branch cracked, so most of it is now under water but still in the same position,it might be more visible in another 6 months! i have found the cofeefolia to be probably the slowest growing anubias in the tank
 
Hi all,
Still my favourite tank, I just love these semi-emersed riparium type set ups. Not many people successfully spawn Poecilocharax, so it might be worth writing up how you/they did it.

If you can find them Nidularium and Pitcarnia are Bromeliads that like damper conditions, although they may be a bit big.

cheers Darrel
 
thanks Darrel 😳 (p.s the money is in the post :lol: )
i will sit down and type out the care the morpho tetras have recieved, water parameters and anything i have noticed re their behaviour, hopefully that will be helpful to other keepers.
on another note i see my messing with trying to resize the pictures on my photobucket account has messed up the pictures here?/ %^&* i am not the most gifted with computers, if i can't fix it i will take anothe couple of replacement pictures and post them, there is nothing as annoying as looking at tiny pictures and not being able to click on them to enlarge them. esp with old eyes like mine
 
hers are some notes of my experience with the morpho tetra, a bit rambling, but i think i have most of it i will take a few pics of the fish later today and post them if i can manage any half decent shots

water params ...........temp 24-25C, ph 4.5 KH 1.5-2
the ph is very low, but that is just this tank and is not necessary to keep this species in my experience as i have two morphos in a 4 ft tank that houses a breeding group of C.cutteri params in that tank are temp 21C ph 7.5 and kh 4.5

feeding despite reading that they will only take live food i have only ever fed these fish tetra prima grannuals , in the begining i crumbled them down after reading that they will only take very small food items, but i noticed that they went for the bigger pieces in the water so i started to just drop the full sized crumbs into the tank, which they preferred, their mouth is a lot bigger than you would think. if they are hungry they will take food from the surface, otherwise they will take it in mid water, also if hungry they will try feed from the tank floor, though the females are more successful at this than the males who's very large upturned mouth makes it difficult to feed, they have to turn their whole body sideways to grab the food from the bottom.

tank mates
other fish in the tank are cardinals apistos and checkerboards, none of which i would really recommend and would not keep them together again if i had the option as they prey on the young and eggs.
other fish in the tankthat are fine are Brochis splendens, a couple of types of ottos a few small plec species and some bristlenose cats
size
the females grow to about the size of an adult glowlight tetra, though a little bit slimmer.
the males grow much bigger, equal to or larger than an adult female checkerboard cichlid, though slimmer.
breeding
these tetras are unusual in that they are a cave spawning species with the male caring for the eggs until they hatch. The first time i noticed that they were spawning it was taking place in a large clump of java fern and moss which was intertwined and growing through a pile of branches and twigs in the left handside of the tank, later i added some 3-4 inch lengths of one inch pipe to offer more 'caves' for the fish to sellect from as spawning sites, the males took up residence in some of these and only came out to feed or court a female.
The actual spawning is quite a secerative affair, taking place deep in the planting, only occasionally have i been able to see what i thought were eggs or the actual spawning when it occured in one of the pipes i put in the tank,the eggs were quite large not hugh numbers of them, maybe about 30 and laid on the roof or side of the pipes, these seem to hatch within 2-3 days and the fry were huddled on the bottom of the pipe with the male still in attendance the next stage seems to be the problem once the fry can move they tended to fall out of the tube and to the tank floor where they were quickly eaten by other fish, it is a regular sight to see a shoal of cardinals or checkerboards cruising through the java fern making darting movements, i presume that this is them picking off any exposed recently hatched fry, some survive and at a little over a quater of an inch long can be spotted darting out o the clump of plants about 2-3 inches and then back in again, once they reach a half inch they are more confident and easier to see and come out at feeding time when the adults feed. they grow fast and look exactly like a young female but much thinner.
the tank setup is not really conducive to producing a large number of offspring due to the other inhabitants and i would be nervous of moving some of the adults to another tank in case they did not take the move well, so all i have done recently is move some of the lengths of pip so that they are slightly tilted to the back and tilted into a dence clump of java fern, hopefully this will increase the number of surviving young.
photos of the fish to follow . if i can get a couple of half decent ones!
 
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