PlanetCatfish.com

Hi

I have bought a 900 L tank that should be a Rio Orinoco basin tank. I have also bought 9 Hemiancistrus sp.128.

The hole tank will looks like the habitat where the hemi comes from.

Is there anyone that know how rio orinoco looks like??
Is it stone or sand in the bottom

Andreas

Check out this thread it may interest you,there is at least one other recent one that is similar.
http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... highlight=

Hmm mr.Haavard has a nice tank setup ther.

Is there anyone been in rio orinoco and know exactly how it look's?

Andreas

Look at this post:
http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... 039#119039

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Mats

I remember googling 'Puerto Ayacucho' and sifting through and finding a couple of shots of the part of the Orinoco these guys come from. Sorry couldn't find it just now but they shots of huge smooth boulders .

Remember that the Rio Orinoco is one of the ten or so largest rivers in the world, and as such it covers both a large area and a long distance. It's not all the same - some is fast with currents and even "whitewater" (as in rafting - not whitewater as in full of sediment), whilst other parts are flowing relatively slowly. Some parts are fairly narrow, other parts are wide.

Some places will have driftwood snags or plants, whilst others are sandy bottom or big boulders.

--
Mats

The Rio Orinoco at about 2500kms is huge but still wouldn't be in the top[ 6 longest river in Sth America and might be lucky to make it into the top 25 in the world- gives you an idea of the massive size of that whole Amazon region. Here are some shots around Puerto Ayacucho I refound. I seem to remember seeing a shot of the Berlin zoo tank that had big falt rocks as well.

How big are your L128's AndreasB?





[IMG:318:500]http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u3/f ... rinoco.jpg[/img]

So I'm using large flat schist rock stacked up and making cracks and crevis's
Fish are 2 1/2 years so hoping to move to a bigger tank in the next year, but still theat will only be 600ltr

[IMG:572:380]http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u3/f ... C_0072.jpg[/img]

Ok, so it's not in the top ten or so, but it's still a very long river with many different habitats - which was my point.

For those interested in the longest rivers, here's what Wikipedia thinks are the longest rivers in the world, and Rio Orinoco ends up at 58th place with 2101 km (1300miles) in length. The lengh of rivers is often a depated matter, as it often depends on where a smaller river is determined to become a larger one. So depending on where you look, rivers can be of different length.

--
Mats

Thanks for answer. As i can se there is a lot of stone and mud i this river the way i see it.



More pics here In the middle of the site:)

The biggest one is 143 mm total lenght.

The smallest one is 100 mm +.

I will try to breed this beautiful Loricariidae. I have heard abuot one guy. He has breed the hemi L-200
in a 375 L if I remmember right.

And in a public 5000 L aquarium in Berlin, No one has confirm anything.

So I will say that is possible to do this, even if it takes me 1 year or 2 years i will do this. In my 900 L tank:D

Someone has a comment to this?

This is the reason that i will have theyr habitat i my aquarium.

Andreas

Hi again.

I'm almost finished with the tank. I added fish, sand and some wood. I will add some more wood in the tank when the pet store have som usable wood. It's like emty without more wood. I have also added som caves for the Hemiancistrus sp.128. As you can see, the tank i very dark, the light is only 2 x 80W T5.

I have 2 Fluval FX5 and 2 AquaClear 110 powerhead.
that i about 14200 L/H circulation, is that enough








As I said before i will try to breed this fish

Andreas

It´s looking good Andreas

Looking forward to seeing it in real life.

Nice setup more pics will be great

Thanks Haavard

jopbgon: more picture coming soon. I just have to get
some more light and more wood in the tank. As you can see it's very dark at both end of the tank, and thats why i need some more light.

Andreas

900L, Oh, My...
Can't wait 2 c more pictures.

More pictures here it come

I'm finished at last. I am very pleased with the result.



Andreas

it's beautiful! ((clapping))

Looking great Andreas.

Seems to be a good place to be a Hemiancistrus.

A really nice looking tank Andreas. I am sure the Hemis will thrive and breed there

Maybe you should post a picture of the driftwood holding aluminium? Might be of interest to other tank builders.

Do the sand move much around with the powerfull currents?

Maybe you should post a picture of the driftwood holding aluminium

Yes, first thing I thought of was how is he holding the wood vertical, so a picture would be nice

Great tank!!!

Wow!!!!!!!!!!! your tank looks fantastic!
I would also like to see how you have held the wood in place.
You have managed to get plenty of wood in there, but still kept lots of open floor space. I would like to try to redo one of my tanks this way.

Thanks everyone

Here is a picture of the wood setup. I have used aluminium is attach to the wood, this method is quite good because i can move the wood, without darin off water. Just take them up and place the wood where ever i want. Quite practical. The aluminium is placed on top of some small expanded polyester pieces.



Andreas

Nice solution.

However, Aluminia + water will react, resulting in harmfull, but in water slightly dissolvable, compunds.

If I may do a suggestion, cover de aluminium with resin in order to protect the metal from the water, and thus your fishes against the results

The aluminium i about 3 cm above the water line, so the water is not get in touch with the aluminium.

But thanks for the tip anyway

Andreas

Nice keep pics coming

Haavard Stoere wrote: Do the sand move much around with the powerfull currents?

No the sand does not move much, in the right side of the tank there is a little movement, not much
When i feed the fish i turn off both powerheds. When i turn the on after 2 houers, there is like a big explosion and the food is all over the tank.

One question: How long does it take before the algae comes.? The tank has been i use for 7 weeks.

Andreas

Andrea,
You have done well in representing the habitats where Altum Angels are found in most of the Rio Orinoco. White sand, rocks are good. Some wood be also be desireable.
Very few aquatic plants do well in the biotope except some of the floating plants. .com.You have simulated Puerto Ayacucho well. Much more info can be found on http://www.finarama.com
The moderator is a Venezuelan with many years and extensive familiarity with the habitats and descriptions are found in many of the discussions. He is also a planetcatfish member and is working with L200 and L128.
His screen name on finarama is PuertoAycucho. Few people can match Ed's first hand knowledge of the region.

Thanks for the link and boasting :D:D

I just love Altum, and i think that fish is much more exclusive than discus. If im not wrong altum is quite expensive as well.

Andreas

Hi Larry, Andreas and guys... I think Andreas tank is as good as it needs to be to make these fish feel at home. Though some people advise that wood is not necessary, my fish (L128, L200, L137) went through a good amount of bark and wood for several months producing large amounts of "wood byproduct" (hard black pooh that is!)... so even if they are not technically panaquelike as to their tooth structure, they do eat wood when provided. Now, it's not that I'm a specialist on these loricarids and I'm just talking of my observations in my tank.

As to their natural habitat/diet, L128 is found mostly clinging to the boulders and slabs in areas of swift water movement near the banks of the Orinoco mainstream and in many tributaries near Puerto Ayacucho and at least to Caicara, in the tributaries that come down from the Guyana highlands. They mostly eat whatever life form adheres to the rock surfaces and sand they graze on, including forms of insect larvae, worms, crustacea and algae/plant matter.

The pics on the first page of this thread (posted by Firenzenz), very beautiful BTW, are near the Atures Rapids. Actually it is L128 that you will find in the area. It is precisely in this rocky area in the pics that L128 has its habitat. L200 is from further uptream, into the Rio Ventuari, Orinoco's largest Guyana highland tributary.

These pics were taken during the dry season (probably between late December and Early April). This same area gets pretty rough in the rainy season. The image showing some canoes in a "remanso" (rest area formed by large boulders and slabs) would be the right place to find large adult P. altum and M. insignis when looking in the Orinoco maintream, but you may also encounter some pirahna.
The dominant substrate under and around the boulders and slabs is a medium coarse white sand of limestone origin, but it is very worn out chemically speaking due to its geological age (it comes from the Guyana shield)and exposure to the strong acid environment upstream.

One more thing... if it's true that Orinoco isn't the longest river in the world, you might be interested in knowing that it ranks third among the largest rivers in the world by volume of water transported. Only the Amazon and the Congo provide more freshwater to the world's oceans than the Orinoco despite the fact that the drainage areas of the first two are much, much larger than that of the Orinoco. This has a biological significance in that the Orinoco is a much faster system and hence, a general higher D.O. range which affects all living beings that have evolved in its waters. As a rule, many Orinoco fish species are less tolerant of low d.o than Amazon basin species (even if we find many species/subspecies in common).

I'm sure Shane could give a lot of his insight here.

Ed

For some reading:

http://mk.geog.uu.nl/homepages/Paul/Orinoco_rap_9.PDF

Very interesting, thanks for the information

I agree, great tank ....and how DID you get that driftwood to stand up so nicely??