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Great pics Gert

Great tank and great Cat's Gert.

Riny

beautiful pictures, i have a similar styled tank and have found that one of the best and easily controled plants for above the water line are any of the Anubais species, particulary barteri, a great little plant, you could also stick in java fern, java moss and Riccia above the water on the emerged wood, plus none of these plants will need a lot of light to grow well

I've got also a few smal Anubias above water, but because of the warmth of the GU10 bulbs I had before the Anubias was not doing well. Now the Anubias and the Echinodorus leaves that grow above water are doing well because I've changed the lights to 2x 5W LED construction bulbs.

The Sturisoma's had laid their eggs and I have a few small Sturisoma fry left in this tank. Next to this I have eggs from my Copella arnoldi.
Yesterday evening the Copella's starting to attempt to lay their eggs. I've had a change to film this:


Today the Copella's finally laid their eggs and I think their are about 60 eggs.

love it.

Update: I introduced four Mesonauta egregius and 17 Nannostomus unifasciatus to the tank.

Impression of my biotope:

Update from my side:

photo update:

the tank and fish selection are beautiful, some of your photos should be in a book, well done, very impressed

Thanks, here's a new photo of the tank:

as usual stunninig thanks for sharing cheers jk

Update: The four Mesonauta egregius are now swimming in a 2m tank together with some Pterophyllum sp.
The reason why I remove the four Mesonauta egregius is because of the five Symphysodon sp. that will be swimming soon in this tank.

Here's a new photo of the tank:

Update from this tank:

31 Nannobrycon unifasciatus
7 Corydoras aeneus
5 Poecilocharax weitzmani
5 Hypoptopoma sp.
2 Sturisoma festivum or aureum
1m 1f Dicrossus maculatus
1m 1f Taeniacara candidi
1m 2f Apistogramma trifasciata
3m 5f Poecilia wingei

Gertbl wrote:

What species is this? I bought several of these on a whim one time, but they were unidentified. Sadly I only have one left and wouldn't mind getting more.

I bought that one as Sturisoma festivum.

Here is a new total picture and a picture of my new Panaque:

New pictures:

very nice

Gert,
I finally got the tank to do my West African version of your set up. What is the material you used on the backbround and sides of your tank?
-Shane

jay_leask wrote:very nice

Thanks.

Shane wrote:Gert,
I finally got the tank to do my West African version of your set up. What is the material you used on the backbround and sides of your tank?
-Shane

The material what I used for the back and side grounds are:
Styrofoam
Elastopur and colour pigments

I used a torch to slightly create a texture in the Styrofoam.
After that I made a mixture with the Elastopur and colour pigment. This will result in a thick pasta looking substance and then brush it out thick over the styrofoam. Right after that, I took sand and cover the hole plates under sand.









Hope that this give a good look of what I did and what I used.

Elastopur and colour pigments

I did some research and this is apparently a Dutch product. I'll have to see if there is something similar in the US. How did you attach the styrofoam panels and keep them from floating up?
-Shane

I think you can use Epoxy instead of Elastopur. But here's a example of Elastopur and how to use it:
http://www.dutch-rana.nl/v2/index.php?o ... 99&lang=en

The back- and sidegrounds are being hold on place by using Aquarium glue. I'm not sure if this is the right word in English for it. It's exactly the same material that is keeping the windows of the aquarium together.