Final layout

I added the aerial fake "mangrove leaves".

Today while feeding them bloodworms they spit just on my face! Tomorrow I'll go buy some flies or crickets, and see what happens.

I'm wondering if I'm giving them too less food, ever seen a Toxotes scavenging the bottom?



The final layout, with the "mangrove leaves" hanging from the top.



Looking for the last worm.

Color fades and reappears??!!

One of them has clearly been more shy than the other two, but the interesting thing is the following:
I made the mistake for two consecutive evenings to let the lights go off before feeding, so I had to switch on again, clearly disturbing them, in order to feed. The two of them took only a minute or so to realize that finally food had arrived, but there was no way to have the Shy come out of its hiding place among the roots. When eventually he did, I realized he had almost completely lost its dark bands, compared to the bright and neat black&white of the others. I have read that, if stressed, these fishes tend to darken, but I thought it would happen with time... And the most amazing thing was, that in a matter of minutes, finished the dinner, he was back to full colors!! At first I thought it was a light problem, but the thing repeated the day after.

My impression is that the discoloring is connected actually with the lights being off.

Only the outline of the dark bands is still visible, whereas inside the colour is gone.




The Shy in low-colours, in background, compared to a "normal" companion. 



Shoot 'em down...!

Today one of the archers shot a sequence of five shots to one of the aerial plants. By tomorrow the artificial "forest canopy" should be ready, and soon I'll start some training. :-)

Ceratophyllum is not doing particularly well, stretching to the top for more light, and paling a bit. Six light hours per day now.

First pictures, first performances

First day "at home".
Folks, you won't believe it, I've been witnessing already three little spits! And these are juvenile (about 5-6 cm). Very promising.

I guess I'd better try with the reflex camera, but here you are, as a start:

Fishes!

Yesterday I went to the fish shop to discuss order and delivey of the Glassfish, and here they were, an entire tank with some ten Toxotes clearly Microlepis: just what I needed, once the glassfish had arrived (the idea was to get first the small fishes, so they could grow a bit before the arrival of the more aggressive Archer fishes). Anyway, I couldn't resist, also because it's the first time I see Microlepis here. So I decided to get the planned trio of them.
Choice: one specimen was clearly harassing the whole school, so I asked the guy to remov it from the tank, and kept observing: all other mates looked to get along pretty well, so I just chose more or less randomly.

Once at home, hurried ~80% water change (the tank was still full of NO3), lights off, and acclimatization: plastic bag about 1 hour in the tank, then started adding glasses of water tank into the bag (the water tank is still freshwater, so I assume no more sophisticated technique needed). Fishes appeared very quiet in the darkness. Even fishing them out from the bag resulted surprisingly easy, and didn't seem to scary them too much.

They spent the evening quietly moving around in the tank: two of them schooling together all the time, while the third more on its own. When a certain distance from the "school" was reached, he'd hurrily swim back with the others. I've enjoyed some amazing performance of sinchronized swim, with all of them in parallel sinking or raising vertically. Lovely.

The planted tank

Pictures!

The corner stone covered with C. Demersum. The Java moss almost disappears behind it, so it was probably a waste. Let's see how it will look in the future. Below, view from the top.

On top of the aerial parts of the "mangrove roots" I added a few epiphites, most collected in Brazil (the Tillandsiae), some purchased (the micro-orchids: one - Schoenorchis fragrans - in Thailand, the other one here in the Denmark).

The root environment: given the excess of Java moss I bought, I violated the original plans and mounted some on the roots. Not really something you see on real mangrove roots, but...

The final total view. Comments awaited!

Yesterday evening I added some of the mangrove propagulae I collected in Brazil. They're in bad conditions, I don't even know if they're still alive, so I just threw them in, neglecting the possible osmosis shock (the water is just freshwater). I kept the only two good seedles, the ones potentially most successful, for when the tank will reach final salinity (SG 1.002).

The only missing part now is the playground for the archer fishes, which will be artificial leaves hanging from the top. I chose what looks to be as similar as possible to mangrove leaves, i.e. the artificial ficus branches from Exo Terra.

Plants arrived

Got the plants.

5 patches of Java moss (far too much, I trashed two), with which I covered the fake corner stone, and 3 bunches of Ceratophyllum demersum, each stem of which has been carefully inserted in one of the many holes the stone is covered with. The idea is, since this plant easily rots if buried in the ground or clamped in any way, I let each stem as loose as possible, anchoring it simply by passing the stem through one or more holes, and let friction do the job. In some cases, both ends of the stems are floating upwards, because apparently both may grow. Let's see what happens.

Pictures soon!

Coming back!

All confirmed, with NO2 down to 0-1 mg/l (read 48 hours after injecting ammonia), and NO3 around 100 mg/l.

Soon back to Denmark. Collected about ten mangrove propagulae, only 2 really worthy.

Off to Brazil. Thanks, Bea!

News from the far tank, left in the careful hands of Beatriz, while I'm down in Brazil, hunting for mangrove seedlings: nitrites starting to go down, and, guess what, nitrates in deep plunge. The warning on Tropical Marine instructions, specifying that nitrates reading may be biased in presence of nitrites, proved very right, and more worth following than I did. So, behold, ye Beginner, I give you good tidings of great advice: while cycling, you may as well forget measuring nitrates until your nitrites start decreasing, otherwise you'll simply read bullshit!

Cycle proceeding. pH stable. Owner happy.

More worries...

Status:
in spite of an 85% water change, NO3 spiked back in 24 hours to about 200 mg/l. I believe as long as I use tap water, and add the needed ammonia, there's not much I can do about it.

Solutions:
- using rain or demineralized water: although this would indeed easily solve the problem, both of them will then need to be corrected for pH and hardness, which are indeed perfect in the tap water... What a waste.
- using a biofilter medium able to help, such as Symbiont. The one I have, however, is Eheim Substrat Pro, and is said to be comparable, so for the moment I won't go this way.
- a complex and expensive NO3 filter, with all the extra risks implied. No way.

Also, NO2 appears to remain stable to about 10 mg/l, possibly stuck to this valuebecause of the high nitrates. Will the cycle ever be completed, with this stall?

First worries

Uups, NO3 at 200 mg/l today. No wonder, given that I start with a tap water around 50...

I did a water change of 48 l (about 30%), using unconditioned water: my chlorine readings are about 0 at the tap, so why adding chemicals which woul kill the needed ammonium?  

First evidences

Yesss!
Cycle now started: today I finally record a sudden drop of NH3+NH4, down to 0.5 mg/l. Nitrites recorded yesterday to about 2 mg/l. Cool.

I added about 9 liters of conditioned water, since the level has decreased a lot from the beginning, so hopefully I'm back to about 150 l. Added 8.4 ml of NH4OH, and tomorrow new measurement of all parameters.

Still awaiting the plants: the plan is to have some Ceratophyllum demersum stems emerging from the holes in the corner stone, and cover the flat surface with Java moss. Ceratophyllum won't last long if planted in the substrate, so I'm trying something different here: the stone has lots of holes inside, so I'll have some stems go through two of them, hopefully "fixing" it without strangling the stem itself, and letting both ends go upwards. Let's see what happens (apparently both ends grow). Another option, depending on how much room will be left on the stone, is to fix (not tightly) a single stem horizontally along the stone with nylon line, since apparently it will then develop side stems which will again grow towards the surface.

Perhaps a bit more Java moss will cover some points on the "mangrove" roots. Haven't decided yet.

If this will be enough to host a bunch of Caridina Multidentata, together with the protection offered by the roots, only they can say...

Starting cycle

Started filter and heater. The latter might be oversized, since it's rated at 200 to 300 l, whereas the tank eventually is at 150 l. Let's hope for the best...
Initiated fishless cycling: added 9.4 ml of ammonium hydroxide, after about an hour I measured >3 mg/l of NH3+NH4 (the scale ends at 3...), corresponding roughly to 0.06 mg/l of NH4. Ain't it too low??

Start-up

Here we go. Day 1. Substrate rinsed (enough??) and settled. Just for the picture, I added the polyresin mangrove roots, and the corner stone to be soon covered with Java moss and Ceratophyllum demersum (they should be here in a week or so).

Compared to the tank volume (240 l), the water content adds to 150 l. The plan is to leave an aerial part of some 12 cm, to allow the archer fishes to perform. I'm not sure this clearance will be enough to have them spit, but there's only a way to find out... :-)

Water parameters measured:

GH 14 dH, KH 8 dH, pH 7.4, NO2 0 mg/l, NO3 >20 mg/l

(yeah, that's my tap water; I'm still unsure about the NO3 values, it's impossible to discriminate within that narrow color scale. I'm using Tropic Marin tests (I like all other tests in the box, though).