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Critique my hardscape Start of my indostomus swamp

Oh thats sounds cool! I have always wanted to keep a group of Indostomus but haven't had any luck finding them near me. Your hardscape looks great, the only thing I might do is add a slightly larger rock(or a few) towards the back of the tank to the right to support the visual impact of the wood(as if the wood is growing over a rock in that respect). That would also keep the bottom half and top half of the tank complementing each other, as currently the rocks at the bottom seem very much central, 2D and flat, while the roots above are very 3D and seem to come from the right side of the tank.
 
Looks Good.
This will need to be a dirty mature scape with lots of food for the Indostomus to hunt and prey upon. Would be good to have a an established colony of shrimp for the toothpicks to predate on. They will hunt for shrimplets and will snatch from the females berried load.
If you have access to daphnia, would also be good to setup a colony in a bucket in the garden.
Microworms/Grindle worms also another good shout for feeding them with.
Vinegar eels are also a very very easy food source, i used to add an apple core to the tub of worms every few months to keep it going.
During the summer, you can collect the tiny brown rafts of mosquito eggs from tubs of still water, and they will hatch for the toothpicks to hunt aswell. I used to do this for mine and as a treat for the imbellis' to hunt.
Ive kept both Crocodilus and Paradoxus, and they are a joy to watch flitting about looking for food. jus hard to feed.

Good choice for other fish, either would be a great dither for these fish. Or maybe have a look at the Imbellis betta, great peaceful communal betta, which can be kept in mixed groups.
If you can find some 35mm film canisters Badis and liqourice will spawn in them.

They dont like flow, so a sponge filter would be good, and this would also double as a good grazing area for the shrimp and hunting ground for the toothpicks.
 
Last edited:
Gill said:
Looks Good.
This will need to be a dirty mature scape with lots of food for the Indostomus to hunt and prey upon. Would be good to have a an established colony of shrimp for the toothpicks to predate on. They will hunt for shrimplets and will snatch from the females berried load.
If you have access to daphnia, would also be good to setup a colony in a bucket in the garden.
Microworms/Grindle worms also another good shout for feeding them with.
Vinegar eels are also a very very easy food source, i used to add an apple core to the tub of worms every few months to keep it going.
During the summer, you can collect the tiny brown rafts of mosquito eggs from tubs of still water, and they will hatch for the toothpicks to hunt aswell. I used to do this for mine and as a treat for the imbellis' to hunt.
Ive kept both Crocodilus and Paradoxus, and they are a joy to watch flitting about looking for food. jus hard to feed.

Good choice for other fish, either would be a great dither for these fish. Or maybe have a look at the Imbellis betta, great peaceful communal betta, which can be kept in mixed groups.
If you can find some 35mm film canisters Badis and liqourice will spawn in them.

They dont like flow, so a sponge filter would be good, and this would also double as a good grazing area for the shrimp and hunting ground for the toothpicks.
Click to expand...
I currently keep indostomus paradoxus, parosphromenus ornaticauda and a few badis species. I have live food cultures going to feed them. I have daphnia, seed shrimp, micro worms and white worms. I was planning on increasing my stock of paradoxus and giving them a better tank. That's where this project comes in 👍🏻

Going to add lots of leaf litter too, and will be using an air filter also. I am also considering adding shrimp too, as I also keep various types anyway.

I've also kept various betta, including imbellis, rubra, albimarginata and macrostoma.
 
DioramaDieHard said:
Oh thats sounds cool! I have always wanted to keep a group of Indostomus but haven't had any luck finding them near me. Your hardscape looks great, the only thing I might do is add a slightly larger rock(or a few) towards the back of the tank to the right to support the visual impact of the wood(as if the wood is growing over a rock in that respect). That would also keep the bottom half and top half of the tank complementing each other, as currently the rocks at the bottom seem very much central, 2D and flat, while the roots above are very 3D and seem to come from the right side of the tank.
Click to expand...
This is just the bare skeleton of the scape. The current rocks are just glue up points. Will most likely be adding more rock to it as it develops.
 
Really exciting fish choice! Very keen to see how this goes - will you start a journal? I'm a sucker for swampy tanks anyway, so looking forward t the finished results. Can we see your other tanks too? 🙂
 
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