PlanetCatfish.com

I dont know why but I hate aquariums that dont stick to there natural environments and I especialy hate seeing fish from different continents kept together its a really weird hate but I just cant stand it even in comunity tanks!

i'm the same, i have a south american set up and would'nt dream of putting anything other than sa fish or even plants for that matter in my tank. another one is fluorescent gravel and sunken ship ornaments, ughhhh. each to their own

I don't really mind mixing plants from different continents, but mixing different fish iriitates me (but I'll do it if I find something really rare - then it doesn't bother me so much).

I have, however, grown exceptionaly intolerant of artificial plants. Something about them just makes aquariums look tacky and dirty...

Fish Demon wrote:I don't really mind mixing plants from different continents, but mixing different fish iriitates me (but I'll do it if I find something really rare - then it doesn't bother me so much).

I have, however, grown exceptionaly intolerant of artificial plants. Something about them just makes aquariums look tacky and dirty...

Nat,

I agree. Seems that those who have the most pervasive algae troubles have artificial plants.

I stick to continents - tetras in a tetra tank, barbs in a barb tank, and never the twain shall meet

Dave

I can't stand artificial things in an aquarium. I feel really bad for the fish in those conditions. Some fish get taken from the wild, then put into a tank with bright glow-in-the-dark gravel and plastic plants. I try to keep my tank as realistic as possible. I do have a flower pot in my tank, but it's hidden behind some driftwood and it's made out of clay, much more natural and better looking than plastic. I wouldn't even use the natural gravel from a pet store because it is usually coated with a plastic to protect it. The gravel in my tank came straight from a stream in my woods. The driftwood in my tank came out of my pond. Why use artificial driftwood when you don't really benefit from using it?

Its all just personal taste...sounds like a little elitism to me.

It's a tricky one, but I do agree it's a taste thing rather than "right and wrong". You're never going to get entry level aquarists to set-up a biotope in the first few months of their hobby, you're just lucky to keep them away from Oscars with Neons etc!

I tend to go on ecological niches rather than biotopes becuase you have to be really strict to go with biotopes. For example, Corydoras sterbai would never encounter C. gossei in the wild, but we're happy putting them in with some Angels and Tetras for our "Amazon" tank right?

I'd also pick up on using continents as the dividing factor - I mean there are so many biotopes within continents!

I do really dislike brightly coloured ornaments, skulls, pirate ships and all that, but, for kids, it is part of what makes beginning with the hobby fun.

Look, my first tropical tank had a Morilius shark (called Sharky) in it that lived in half a sunken pirate ship. That tank also had a Chinese Algae Eater, severeal black widow tetras and a nunch of guppies and mollies.

I have improved... I think!

Jools

At the back of my mind is to assemble the ultimate tacky aquarium one day, complete with shipwrecks, Dayglo plants, colored gravel, laser light shows, plastic divers, giant clams that spew bubbles, a mermaid or two, and posibly one of those plane wrecks.

Then there is the question of the appropriate fish to stock it with.

Then there is the question of the appropriate fish to stock it with.

Anything, as long as it's albino!!

Flowerhorns would fit in nicely HH!


or maybe those gruesome Parrotfish, but I think you're too ethical to go for the dyed version; wich is where I draw the line as well, separating the tacky from the animal-unfriendly.

Natefrog wrote:

Its all just personal taste...sounds like a little elitism to me.

that's quite paradoxal, how can personal taste be elitist? you're contracticting yourself in a single sentence, mate; well done

purist? when choosing only from a single biotope and using only natural materials? absolutely.
but elitist? nah, don't think so.

elitist would be if you refuse to keep any fish that has a less than 1000$ pricetag; that kind of stuff. pets only available for the rich aka the elite.

Jools wrote: You're never going to get entry level aquarists to set-up a biotope in the first few months of their hobby, you're just lucky to keep them away from Oscars with Neons etc!
Jools

You sure about that? When I got my first fish (2 comet goldfish) I made my 50 gallon aquarium into a pond biotype by adding pond plants, snails, driftwood, etc. I wanted it to look natural. I didn't know much about aquariums or aquatic termonology so I wouldn't have used the word "biotype" then. But still, I was just beginning the hobby and it was a biotype.

I do not mind mixing fish from different continents so long as the water parameters meet the needs for all fish in the tank. Biotope tanks are cool, but for some species they can be unrealistic. For example, if I set up a small tank for a pair of wild Pelvicachromis I still like to put in a couple small ancistrus to clean up a bit. I also like to use a couple cory cats as dithers. There really are not equivalent tankmates from Camaroon. I fear that Microsynodontis will eat babies, and the african algea-eating catfish are hard to get and more difficult to maintain than ancistrus. I also like to use a couple platies or a few pencilfish as upper column dithers. Most of the available African tetras are large and fry eaters, while the small African tetras and barbs are usually hard to get and are expensive.

I also think that the idea of an 'all continent' tank is a farce if you are trying to make a tank a natural habitat. If you are keeping gold nugget plecos are you only putting Xingu river fish and plants, or will anything from South America due? What the difference between using a catfish from the Rio Negro with a tetra from the Tapajos, and using a catfish from Malaysia with a tetra from Ghana? In both cases the fish would never be together naturally.

sidguppy wrote: Natefrog wrote:

Its all just personal taste...sounds like a little elitism to me.

that's quite paradoxal, how can personal taste be elitist? you're contracticting yourself in a single sentence, mate; well done

Not at all. The dots are there to indicated that there are two main sentences. So no contradiction.
What Natefrog means is:
I think it's all just personal taste (and) What you are talking about sounds like a little elitism to me.

bettinacharlotta wrote:

Jools wrote: You're never going to get entry level aquarists to set-up a biotope in the first few months of their hobby

You sure about that? When I got my first fish (2 comet goldfish) I made my 50 gallon aquarium into a pond biotype by adding pond plants, snails, driftwood, etc.

That's great, I'm sure the fish were really happy and the thing looked naturual but it's not a biotope becuase (a) goldfish in that form aren't found naturally in the wild and (b) it's very unlikely that the snails and plants commonly found at your LFS are from the right biotope.

Let's not confuse a natural looking aquarium with a biotope.

Biotopes are pretty hard to achieve if they are to include rock, plants and inverts, so when I say biotope I really mean the right mix of vertebrates and an approximation of the other elements.

I agree with the poster above who echos my intial comments about fishes fitting the right niche.

Jools

Oh yeah, and on the other subject of Silurus' ultimate tacky fishtank - how about dyed Neblinichthys in there along with some balloon Pangasius and a hybrid Phractocephalus x Syno granulosus! That's a pretty dark thought.

Jools

Don't forget the fake corals....I saw a photo in a catalog as a suggestion for a child's tank. A single Platy in a tank with artificial day-glo coral.

Oh yeah, and on the other subject of Silurus' ultimate tacky fishtank

Make sure there is room for an albino with the planet catfish logo tattoed on the side.

how about dyed Neblinichthys in there along with some balloon Pangasius and a hybrid Phractocephalus x Syno granulosus!

Be careful with this some people might think it is a wish list.

Birger

Not quite tacky enough for what I had in mind, but this might look good in the office...

Biotopes are pretty hard to achieve if they are to include rock, plants and inverts, so when I say biotope I really mean the right mix of vertebrates and an approximation of the other elements.

I guess a lot of it depends on how we define "biotope." In a glass box it is impossible to reproduce any environment to the letter. This is because natural environments are dynamic. Predators eat other fishes, migrating species pass through at certain times of the year. Leaves fall and create leaf litter beds only to be washed away when the rainy season comes. Plants grow, reproduce, and die off as the dry season comes, etc.

I would define a biotope as "snapshot" of a specific environment at a certain time of the year. It could be an Amazonian leaflitter bed in the dry season, a section of Orinoco riverbank, an Andean stream, or whatever. Since most aquarists can not go to these places and collect the actual decor, it can still be a biotope if the aquarist uses materials available to them locally. No Apistogramma ever swam among oak or beech leaves in the Amazon, but I would still consider a carefully set up leaflitter tank with oak leaves a "biotope." Part of what defines a biotope to me is that all the fishes are naturally found together in the same niche in the same river system.

One step away from this is what I would call a "theme" tank. It could be an Andean stream tank with several fast water loricariids. These fish may not be found together in the wild, but they all come from the same niche in different rivers. It could be a lake Malawi set up that recreates the rocky biotope of the lake's shores, but includes fishes from all over the lake that would never meet in nature.

The final set up (before we move on to HH's dream tank) would be a "natural" tank. By "natural," I mean the aquarist is not using plastic plants and glow in the dark gravel. The fish may be Asian, South American, and African and the plants might be African Anubias, Amazon swords, and Java moss. The tank does not represent any specific environment, but it is decorated with natural materials and live plants and includes a mix of fish with similar captive requirements.

In my own fish keeping, I tend to stay closest to biotopes and themed tanks. However, I have the advantage that I collect most of my own fish and decor. I also have several tanks and thus can afford to "specialize" some of them.
-Shane

Here is a tacky tank for you. I set this up for a Halloween promotion that we did at the store I used to run.

55 gallons with black obsidian gravel. Decorations included pearlescent plastic plants, a day-glow yellow skull and a large ceramic 'haunted house'. Fish in the tank included glass catfish, white-skirt tetras, x-ray tetras, a black ghost knife, a pair of albino kribensis (which took over the day glow yellow skull) and some albino cory catfish.

It was very popular...

There is but one thing that can overshadow the Halloween tank, the bubbling clam tank, and the DayGlo tank.

And that is the cartoon tank. Ranging from .25 to a half gallon, you may purchase a Fairly Oddparents OR SpongeBob Squarepants "tank" complete with plastic figurines of said characters.



My mom HATES my 29 gallon cat tank; it used to have a thick leaf litter, alas, the leaves all eventually aged and disentegrated. Only duckweed thrives, despite the high light, and the anubias live. The tank itself is mostly dark under said level of duckweed, but the banjos and plecos are very active. I love the tank.

Here we go: beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Amanda

Shane wrote:One step away from this is what I would call a "theme" tank. It could be an Andean stream tank with several fast water loricariids. These fish may not be found together in the wild, but they all come from the same niche in different rivers. It could be a lake Malawi set up that recreates the rocky biotope of the lake's shores, but includes fishes from all over the lake that would never meet in nature.

That's pretty much the basic "rule" that I tend to follow, because I have a fair number of tanks myself..

My bigger themed tank is a 100g long (72x18x18") w/ gravel (sand soon I hope) bottom that's set up for Ancistrus, Peckoltia, Cochliodons, Metynnis & a few assorted siklids. It's a hodgepodge of local driftwood, a few local rocks, several large plastic plants & a few silk deals. Siklids include Malagasy Ptychochromis and theres a few spiny eels living in the gravel, so it's pretty far from being a biotope of any kind like these others..

I also have a SA themed 60g (48x12x22) w/ a sand bottom that houses mostly corys, ple-cos & tetras, but also contains Microsynodontis, Asian "glass" & spiny eels, a small 5-striped barb and a school of Bedotia. Decor consists of pagoda stone, African mopane wood and java fern/moss.

Then I have a SE Asian tank of the same size thats all Botias, Mystus, Puntius & a pair of snakeskin gouramis (and a wild male Ancistrus). This tank has a natural gravel bottom, local rocks, and a ton of plastic plants interspersed w/ java moss.

Here's the kicker.. All these tanks actually do look great & I do get plenty of compliments on them, but what people seem to like most is my big sloppy 135g (6" taller than the 100) siklid/catfish tank. This brown gravel-bottomed mess is filled with driftwood, rocks, a few large plastic plants and worst of all, flowerpots! Considering how unnatural the last bit is, I added a ceramic brick for my bellyecrawler pike to hide in and several of my favorite small ceramic trinkets (couple cowskulls, some small fake clamshells and a little turtle that's hiding human genitals underneath). The mix of fish here is even more atrocious by biotope standards.. Including a huge common woodcat, several Hypostomus & large Ancistrus, a smaller unidentified Pimelodus, a small congenitally deformed Hyalobagrus (sunken eye, squat body), a huge wild-type oscar, a pair of marakelys (Paratilapia polleni), a beat-looking rescued jack dempsey, a female blue tilapia that looks nearly as beat, several rift lake siklids (pair of A.latifasciata & a 2nd generation hybrid mbuna), a congenitally deformed red Crenicichla (twisted spine), and the bellycrawler pike mentioned above.

Sorry this all got so long, but I guess I had to defend the "regular fishkeeper" that is at least trying to make things appear somewhat natural in most of his tanks. Because for the record, I still loathe anything like colored gravel, tank toys or neon plants!

I have a whole box of that sort of junk, need any of it for your fantasy tank there HH?

Thanks for the defenese in my absence Marc. Your translation of my poor grammar was appreciated.

I agree with the sentiment that it is ideal to keep fish only from the same habitats together, and the longer I keep fish, the closer my tanks get to that snapshot that Shane talked about before. But I still have anomalies that don't fit the picture, (like a lone giant danio in my Amazon community tank).

In my defense, I run ten tanks and don't have the heart to return a fish to the pet store that doesn't fit my idealized tank. My new Lake Victoria tank, which is slowly building, will be the closest thing to a biotope tank to date. Although my apisto/SA tetra/ancistrusor peckolita tanks (5)are at least all continental and pH accurate for each fish.

Next tank? Perhaps a north american river tank, or a Congo stream biotope?, nah, porcellin scuba divers, box filters, dwarf aquatic frogs and a few guppers for me I think. Oh wait, that's my nephews tank I set up for him a couple years ago, (he's 4 now).