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!