# Breeding Otocinclus - First Order from Tannin Aquatics Plus 60 min of Youtube Updates



## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Feb - May:










Details April 23 2016. WE HAVE FRY. REPEAT. WE HAVE FRY.










Did a big water infill in the sump, and this evening we have two sizes of eggs! Details on last post for Feb 28, 2016



















Edit: We've come a long way! Here's a preview of where things are sitting right now with the 90:










Back to the beginning...

I've been fascinated by otos for about a year now, and I've steadily narrowed my interests down to the point where I want to concentrate on them. As such, I recently decided to focus on setting up a tank specifically tailored to the happy (if slightly nervous) little critters.

Though I've had otos in community tanks quite successfully, I started out my species only efforts with a 10 gallon at work. I thought it would a good choice there, since feeding them daily wouldn't be required. Though the tank prospered, it was tough to keep the temperature below 78-80 this summer, which seemed too high for the otos. Likewise, a well meaning effort at pond snail control (a single Assasin snail) inevitably ended up being a pregnant female, and there were soon Assasin eggs laid liberally around the tank; I figured they'd make short work of any Oto eggs after hatching. As such, the 7 otos came home after three months, and the betta went to work to bask in new found isolation and freedom.










Right now, I have about 15 or so otos of various varieties in a soil substrate 20 gallon long at home. They're a mix of rescues from other tanks and others I've bought specifically to try to breed them, and they hang out with a school of 8 cardinal tetras. They get supplemental feelings of veggies, and seem generally happy.


























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Though they seem to be relatively healthy, there are a few problems right now:

1) our water is HARD and ~8.3 pH. Though I haven't had any losses in months, I now know they aren't likely to breed or hatch eggs at this pH, and so I have an RO unit on the way to dilute our liquid mountain range. Once it's set up, I'll transition them over to a more neutral pH over the course of a few weeks, leaving a mix of tap water in place to promote plant growth.
2) they're with the cardinals. I'm sure cardinals would eat eggs or fry, and they like a slightly higher temp than the otos. Everybody's okay at 76 right now though.
3) I think they need a bit more water movement. There's an Aquaclear 50 in there right now, but about 60% of them are usually to be found in the sword plant under the filter. Likewise, they're much more active and display more schooling behavior right after a 25% water change, which I've started doing weekly rather than every 2. I never get anything on the ammonia or nitrite tests in this tank, and nitrates are very low (~5ppm), but the otos seem to like more frequent changes.

Video after water change:
http://youtu.be/9-rMCZ3eVeI

As such, I've decided on a moderate flow River manifold tank in a new 20 long, which I'll set up shortly and leave to mature for a few months. That will be their species only tank. If the manifold doesn't work out, I can keep them in the current one and just move the cardinals out.

The manifold design is my engineer's attempt at getting more diffuse flow than the classic setup here River-Tank Manifold Design ? Loaches Online. I had been percolating some far more complicated ideas around when I found that, and instead decided on just adapting the concept instead.

My design has essentially a spray bar attached to the inlet and outlet, and is designed for much lower flow than something like the loaches would need.




























Talking to someone who had been in one of the areas that otos are collected in the wild, he suggested starting with about a 10 turnover per hour flow rate. A maxi jet 900 at 230 GPH seemed about right figuring on fitting losses, and had the advantage of being locally available. A prototype seemed to validate the concept as workable.

Prototype:
https://youtu.be/uf_V7uXarkQ

It will be a soil substrate tank like all my others with a mix of sand and gravel depending on what the flow attempt to carve away. I think I may try to create a little sheltered section in the middle with rocks or obstructions, in order to create a place to add food. Rock for algae, wood and plants that can handle a bit of current are in the plan. Going to play with flow once it's set up and the glue has set.

Some other ideas I plan to play with are to add anti vibration material (from my car stereo days) to the bottom of the tank, to try to isolate it from the floor and stand a bit. The otos seem more reactive to people walking by the they are to the sight of folks, since if you approach with soft steps they don't fly off the handle as much. They are catfish after all, so it makes sense for them to be sensitive to vibration.

So, that's the plan. Right now that glue is setting, and I have a tub of rocks out growing algae on them. I'll update this as I go.

One request if anyone knowledgeable has time...can you name these otos for me? These are the two varieties that seem most common:



















I have my suspicions, but choosing species names seems a little "up for debate" at the moment.

I have a couple of very pale fellows who I though at first were sick, but a few months later (healthy and fat) I'm guessing are actually just another variety. Much more skittish than the others, but I'll try to photograph them as well if they'll ever stay still.

Also, if anyone has any plant suggestions, I'm all ears. I have a bunch of suggestions from other breeding threads, but any other ideas are more than welcome.

Thanks!
Adam


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

So, the project has hit its first snag - that powerhead does NOT like any back pressure whatsoever. While the prototype had more total drilled outfall area than the diameter of the input pipe, the one I tested had slightly less. As soon as it was hooked up, it started cavitating like crazy. If I hooked up the inlet piping it was fine after the air was sucked out of the piping, but with any back pressure from the outlet spraybar I got quite a bit of noise from cavitation.

I wasn't wild about the resonance provided by mounting it to the tank bottom either. This is going in the family room, and it needs to be more-or-less silent. Some of it would be dampened by dirt, rocks and such on the tank bottom, but not enough would be my guess.

Going to go to plan B, which is closer to my original concept. I'll silicone some bulkheads into the tank on each end about an inch from the end, with removable plates with a series of holes drilled into them. I'll pressurize one from a fitting on top, and draw water from the other. I can keep the pump outside the tank that way, lose all the internal plumbing, dampen the heck out of the pump mount, and avoid the parasitic heat loss to the water to boot. I can even mount the pump over top of the tank in a hood, so any leaks don't end up on the floor (no room for a cabinet with a sump below).

Stay tuned I guess...back to the drawing board.


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## Tron (Jul 18, 2015)

I applaud you sir, I love what you are trying to do here. DIY and innovation are why I love this hobby. Keep us posted!


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## benealing (Jan 9, 2015)

Very interesting. I will be following this closely as I also am very fond of my little otos.


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## billb (May 29, 2009)

Hi Adam, I am an Oto fan too and currently have a species tank set up - just CRS and Otos. Like you, I am certain that the batch of otos I bought is composed of two species. I cant guess at what they are but they seem similar to the two fish you posted. One has a "blob" right where the lateral stripe meets the tail the other species just has the line (no blob).

The later, Otocinclus sp "blobless" has only three fish, two males and a female. They are far more active than the other species and have now spawned twice, once on july 4th and again just recently, as I just noticed three new wrigglers. The first batch did not survive and I am trying to figure out how to feed the little guys. There is a detailed account of oto breeding success on Planet catfish search for the thread titled "Otocinclus breeding" by james 0816. He was successful and shares some good info. Good luck and I look forward to following your thread.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Thanks folks! Been a fun little project so far, with enough challenges to keep it interesting. Time for a couple of updates.

First of all, I picked up an Aqueon Quietflow 800 to try to get around the cavitation issues from the Maxiflow. Seems to have done the trick, but this pump doesn't have any way to accept an inlet pipe due to its adjustable inlet gate:
http://www.aqueonproducts.com/products/utility-pumps.htm

This is what I've come up with as the new inlet concept:









This is with the tank sitting on its end, bottom of the tank to the top of the screen.

The pump is soft mounted to a piece of plexi which in turn is siliconed to a block of foam. It will run water to the pipe connector you can see under the little L, which will lead through the bulkhead to the outflow spraybar on the other side of the tank. 

The big bulkhead which is the width of the tank will be drilled above the level of the horizontal divider, and water will fill the top section. The heater will be in this walled off section, so the Otos don't suck on it and bake themselves (can happen with Otos, I'm told).

I'll fill the gap between the horizontal divider and the L with filter foam, place some biomax behind it, and have a built in inlet and tank filter! Then I can then eliminate the HOB filter.

The holes in the bulkhead will only be 1/16, but even if fry get through that, they won't get past the filter foam and can be retrieved when they're seen.

I hope this works!

On my in progress 20L, I've started transitioning them to a lower pH after receiving my little 3 stage RO unit. First 25% water change used 25% (ie 25% RO in the 5 gallon change) RO water, next will use 50% RO water, then I'll stick with 75% RO water going forward until the whole volume is 75% RO. The RO water is pH 6.4, and my tank water right now is 8.3, so I don't want to switch too quickly.

I also added a little Hydor 100 GPH pump into that tank, and it was a big hit. The otos and cardinals alike both spend a lot of time in the outflow current, so it was a great proof of concept.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

billb said:


> Hi Adam, I am an Oto fan too and currently have a species tank set up - just CRS and Otos. Like you, I am certain that the batch of otos I bought is composed of two species. I cant guess at what they are but they seem similar to the two fish you posted. One has a "blob" right where the lateral stripe meets the tail the other species just has the line (no blob).
> 
> The later, Otocinclus sp "blobless" has only three fish, two males and a female. They are far more active than the other species and have now spawned twice, once on july 4th and again just recently, as I just noticed three new wrigglers. The first batch did not survive and I am trying to figure out how to feed the little guys. There is a detailed account of oto breeding success on Planet catfish search for the thread titled "Otocinclus breeding" by james 0816. He was successful and shares some good info. Good luck and I look forward to following your thread.


Congrats on your spawns! I suspect that your blob ones will be vittatus/vestitus. No blob could be affinis if "sparkly", maybe mura. I have lots that have a blob with a little white dot in that blob which I think are huaorani. Pretty sure I also have vittatus and affinis.

I've read James' threads here and elsewhere many time over, and they were actually what inspired me to get going. I had a lot of my own suspicions confirmed when I found this thread: http://forums.tfhmagazine.com/viewtopic.php?f=83&t=13374
...along with a 2008 TFH article by the same fellow called "Oto Pilot". Might help with your fry? My biggest issue is getting the pH down. Gary commented that pH above 7.5 or so is basically a no go for fry.


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## yellabelly (Mar 24, 2014)

I was gifted with about 14 oto fry in a 10gal simple setup. I do know that they enjoyed laying eggs on the under side of leaves. I found quite a few sacks under my sunset hygro leaves. I was using an hob and a fugeray with eco complete. Tank wasn't overly planted at the time either. There were 5-6 adult otos a few nerites and a young Raphael Cat. Atleast 10 of them survived to adulthood. I really believe its the fact they thought they were alone in the tank more than anything. The Raphael Cat rarely wondered. Good luck with your endeavor!


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## NeonFlux (Apr 10, 2008)

Pretty cool DIY ottocinclus catifsh breeding project you got going, Adam. Can't wait to see more progress. Keep up the good work, mate!


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Great looking DIY Adam! Very creative.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

More progress, if a little bit of a two step forward, one back variety.

Tada:









What this doesn't show is how I got everything lined up, bonded the divider in place, and then left it to cure. Coming back, I was somewhat horrified to find it WAY off centre (must have crept), so I madly tore the wall out before it was in place for good. Big mess, lots of smears to clean up, but should be easy enough to recover with a wool polishing bit in my trusty Dremel. Oh well, this is just a small proof of concept tank, so some messing about is to be expected.

After giving up on bonding the wall today, I cut and rough fit the piping. Should work a treat! Looking forward to getting that in place, then I can start making up some false bottoms and antislip fences to create a couple of river bottom features.

Few more gratuitous oto pictures as well. I came across some VERY large adults at a store, and they were ready to join the main tank a few days ago. I'm used to seeing 0.75-1" juviniles, but these were obviously adults. Should hopefully be closer to breeding age, though I'm told that's not very old in most otos.










Did another RO change, using %50 RO added water. So far, so good, though I haven't checked if it's altered the total pH yet.

No room at the inn:









They're becoming little piggies too:
http://youtu.be/xslW_3lByTk

It used to take a day before they would attack,,but now a zuc gets molested 15 mins after being added. Zucs get mowed from the outside in (skin first), cucumbers flesh only and a ring of rind is left over.

One thing I'll have to change is light levels. Plants grow well enough, but their favourite sword doesn't do too much. Lots of plant mulm to vacuum up every few days too, which I suspect isn't a good sign. Only using one 24w T5. Was getting green spot algae on the tank walls using two, and the otos are apparently too good to deal with that now lol

Pale little guy still recovering from heat stroke from the work tank, but shows the mulm that I vacuum up all the time. No more white sand ever, I tell you.










Parting shot of one of the big adults:


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## fishboy199413 (Jan 20, 2010)

This is an awesome project man, I can't wait to see the success! One thing that may help with the pH, is indian almond leaves if you can get a hold of some or maybe alder cones. Plus both give food and shelter to the fish and their fry


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

fishboy199413 said:


> This is an awesome project man, I can't wait to see the success! One thing that may help with the pH, is indian almond leaves if you can get a hold of some or maybe alder cones. Plus both give food and shelter to the fish and their fry


Thanks, and good thought. I'm going for a clearwater stream habitat rather than a blackwater one, however, so I'm going to just try the RO route for now. From what I've learned so far, that's a bit closer to where these otos come from.

Little more work tonight:









To explain a bit of what I'm going for in these shots, I want to create a few undulations in the terrain without getting deeper areas of substrate (to avoid anaerobic dirt pockets etc). On the slopes I'm going to build antislip silt fences out of the plastic grid material, and especially when the plant roots fill in a bit that should allow the substrate to stay more or less in place. 

Not sure what to do with the floating middle piece right now. It was supposed to create an eddy that I could put food behind, but I'm not sure I like it. We will see.


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## fishboy199413 (Jan 20, 2010)

Oh I know but, if you just use a bit of leaves, it would not affect the water clarity. Alder cones work better and don't really affect the water clarity but in very large amounts


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

fishboy199413 said:


> Oh I know but, if you just use a bit of leaves, it would not affect the water clarity. Alder cones work better and don't really affect the water clarity but in very large amounts


I'm certainly not adverse to trying if my methods don't work out. The internal filter chamber is prime real estate for adding filter materials, so it wouldn't even be difficult. Another person who's bred otos repeatedly also suggested peat moss, primarily as a means of lowering pH. My biggest issue with all of these is just consistency and maintenance...not sure how much it will affect things, and for how long. The buffering capacity of our unfiltered water is immense too, so without RO it would be an uphill battle.


Anyhoo, more progress.

Got a good start on the erosion fences, with most of the work done. I just want to add some perpendicular braces to the ones on the angle that aren't secured to the wall, then they should be done.






























Also finished up the spray bar with final lengths, and did the internal bonding. I'm planning on leaving it removable at the vertical 90 degree in case it needs cleaning and/or replacing, and I bonded the under gravel pipe in place.

After the glue cues, I'll rough up, acetone, and then spray the spray bar with Plasti-Dip.

I'm also planning on spraying the outside of the tank below the level of the substrate. This tank will likely see sunlight, and it bugs me to see the algae growing below surface level. No idea if it's dangerous, but it's not pretty.


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## AquaAurora (Jul 10, 2013)

As long as your substrate is not aerobic from compacting (more common with sand than gravel substrates I think) its not dangerous, but agree the algae under gravel is unsightly. Look forward to seeing the completed tank! I'd love it if my otos would breed but the tank they are in now the eggs would get eaten instantly.. Wouldn't mind an oto only tank but I have too many tanks already, don't need another!


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Good stuff, thanks AquaAurora. At any rate, hopefully hiding the soil edge from the light should help.

I decided to use Plast-Dip spray to coat the spray bar and tank outsides, and it worked well enough. The spray bar was straightforward, and took 4-5 coats to get all the nooks and crannies.

The tank masks were a little more challenging, but not hard. The tricky part was having to go back after spraying with a new exacto blade and to follow along the edge of the tape and trim. If you don't do this, you'll just pull the dip film off the glass when you remove the tape.

I waffled on blacking out the end of the tank, not wanting to deal with algae growing in the filter section. In the end I decided I wanted to leave it clear for ease of maintenance and cleaning.

Now just to wait a few days until everything finishes curing, and I can do a final submerged test.



















Also discovered the otos will eat basil and spinach happily. They go through a zuc slice in under two days, but I wanted to offer a bit more variety to avoid nutritional deficiencies.


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## Tron (Jul 18, 2015)

Very cool man! Looks like it is really coming together. Quality workmanship.

Sent from my USCC-E6762 using Tapatalk


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Welcome to fail segment #3, lol, where math becomes my worst enemy once again.

So, I had a chance to fire up the system over the weekend, and had some somewhat disappointing results.

First off, and of relatively minor importance, was some initial weir loss over the input plate:









That was solved by completely swiss-cheesing the input plate:










The biggest issue is that the flow direction is quite randomized, and the current is meagre. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0g2AiXu3eY

The current looks good on the surface, but my tickler didn't show much submerged current. It also seems to be backflowing significantly on the bottom of the tank. Not exactly linear flow lol! 

Additionally, I really should have done the math to realize how little current would result when 200GPH is spread over a large area, because beyond about a inch from each jet and right on the surface, there's little detectable current. 

For fish that seem to like playing right in the output of a small powerhead, this isn't going to cut the mustard. It would barely be enough to promote a little extra gas exchange on the surface.

Lastly, my hollow structures all seemed to leak...boo. I tore them out and plan to replace them with foam blocks. I was worried about anerobic conditions developing underneath them.

So, I'm a bit stuck at the moment. I'm not sure whether to just buy a bigger pump, or to take another look at things. 

Someone mentioned having set up a tank with an island in the middle and powerheads establishing circular flow around the perimeter of the tank. While I initially rejected the thought, it's not seeming like a bad idea right now!

Going to go back to the drawing board and see what I can come up with.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Okay, new plan (if at first you don't succeed...) Going to go with the circular flow option.

First, I'll pick up a couple of Hydor Pico 100's, and mount them behind the weir plate with their pickups protected from gunk. The one I have in the main tank right now gets gunked up on a fairly regular basis, especially because of duckweed.

I'll set them with with their jets pointing into the tank. I'll angle one towards the surface to get a bit more gas exchange/oxygenation going on (the otos love on in the existing 20 setup like this), and the other Pico jetting down the length of the tank (enough off the bottom to avoid blowing the sand away).

I'll then replace the existing full-width spray bar with a single vertical standpipe with only a couple of holes in it, angled back towards the weir plate. That should concentrate the flow a bit more, and at least increase the area of local influence.

Next up on the lunch buffet are these tasty morsels:




























It's taken quite a few weeks to culture them under a grow light, but since I've started adding the high TDS waste water from my RO unit to the tub, they've really taken off (previously was just tap water + fertilizer). They seem to be about ready to add to the main tank. Have to see if they're tasty now!

I also have a few moderate sized pieces of driftwood which haven't worked out in other tanks, but would be perfect to culture algae on.

Since the main 20L was getting even more scraggly then I can take, I took the chance to do an extensive prune and replant. The plants had started to compete for light quite a bit, and a lot of stems were bare for 10-15" with only a crown of leaves at the end. I clipped a lot of the bare stem and replanted the tops on those, and topped and replanted others which had started to lean over at the surface. Looks quite a bit better, and I think I'll do more of that now. The otos supposedly like a messy, crowded tank, but some of the plants were looking quite sad. My anubias has started to flower though, and the sword with red patches on its leaves has really started to take off after about 6 months, so overall things seem good on that front.

Last fun project was to make a rain plate, which is a simple drip tray with a grid of 100 holes drilled in it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlFNhNZd6go

By running cold RO water through it, I might be able to induce these folks to spawn.

I've been eyeing up a desk at work that nobody seems to want to take home, so I think I'll be the one to finally get rid of it. If I set it up in the corner away from the window it'll get less light, but also substantially less cat traffic. Though the cats like watching fish TV, the otos are substantially less thrilled about the whole concept. More to the point I'm also going to need a place to set up a grow out tank later on too (must think positive).


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## AquaAurora (Jul 10, 2013)

Mmmmm nom rocks, hope they like em ^^ Like the DIY Rain Maker! I've read of betta breeders doing a water change and using a watering pail to gently rain water back in when its raining/about to rain outside (pressure change) to encourage breeding behavior. Your method lets you walk away from the setup and give them some privacy though, very nice ^^


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

The algae rocks are a success! I placed one in the tank last night before going to bed, and came back this morning to a completely clean rock with two otos sitting on top of it, and if you listened really hard you could hear the little "URP! ....'scuse me...".

I had let the rocks sit for quite a while because they didn't look "ready" yet, but when I came back in the morning for a couple more I was amazed at the impression they'd left on the tub bottom. See if you can guess where I'd removed rocks from:










We're going camping today, so placed a couple more in. I doubt they'll last long though! These and algae logs will be perfect fry food! Going to have to leave clear spots in the new tank where there isn't quite as much current, since dislodging the algae is pretty easy to do.










Bump: Not long at all! In the time it took to write the above post, this happened.

"...what? I did nothing...."


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

We have "success enough"!

Finally happy with a setup that will be good enough to start getting this tank ready to plant. Ended up going with the circular flow arrangement, and it seems to be a reasonably steady gentle current. The outlet to the 200GPH pump has been reduced to 2 nozzles, and it will be joined by 2 100GPH Hydor pumps.











 General Flow Pattern - YouTube

This will be great because the suction end of all the pumps are protected behind this plate. It annoys me that the plate looks like it ticked off a caffeinated rabid squirrel brandishing a drill (ie, the grid doesn't line up properly), but I had to keep adding holes until the plate let in enough water to feed all the pumps. Once the plate was in there the first time, it was all freehand.

The upper section will house the heater and likely a filter bag of peat, and I'll add some bio material behind the filter mesh. Will be interesting to see how effective this is as a filter.










Sadly it came too late for two fish from the main tank...one Oto who got his head lodged in a Hydor, and a cardinal who got stuck behind the intake prefilter of the AquaClear 50. Very annoyed with that, especially since I only noticed the Oto after draining 5 gals for a water change, which means he may have been alive before then 

On the up side, I scored a ton of this really cool black and white marble type rock. It seems pretty inert...didn't react to vinegar, and soaked in RO water overnight yielded water about pH 7.

I'd LOVE some help designing a hard scape for the tank. It needs to be a centre island arrangement, but not as symmetrical as my engineering brain wants to make it out to be! Can't wait to see this covered in Anubias, and should provide lots of little sheltered caves for the otos.

First guess:



















Other options:










Love this rock!


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## AquaAurora (Jul 10, 2013)

Ooo ooo! If you have any of those rocks left over after final scaping please sell them too me!! I tried buying black and white rock batch before (I think called zebra rock).. it was mostly I think magnesium and calcium? It shot my GH and KH off the charts! Not use-able for the shrimp tank I'd bought it for. 
I can't offer quick scaping tips.. I took a few hours messing with the river rocks I got for my tanks constantly switching out rocks, changing position in tank or rotating... I took a lot of photos as I did it so if I liked a scape but did something else after it I could re-create it.
Sorry for your losses but good job getting the flow of the tank all settled out!


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

WHEEL....OF...OTOS!










Update time again. First of all, I replaced the bio media in one of the two AquaClear 50's that I'm running on the main 20L with two bags of peat. Did a 50% RO water change on that tank, and for the first time ever we're down to a pH of about 7. Woot! Progress. Otos seems to appreciate it, in that they were less skittish and weren't all huddled together in the sword under the main Aq50 this morning.

Next up, with have new tank fill!










Got a good price on 3 lots of Anubias, four lots of compacta swords, and three lots of some other unlabelled taller sword. Should be positively choked with sword when done, but the otos like them. When I had both aq50s set up the same on the main tank, the otos stayed on the sword under one filter and shunned the Anubias under the other for the most part. The Anubias are basically for algae to grow on and because I like them.

Ran out of time, but I'm also going to get quite a bit of Val in here. Would love to do cabomba as well, but I think it'll get blown away. 

There's more flow in there than I thought! I accidentally filled dirt and peat above the level of the lowest holes on the weir plate, and when I turned on the pump I got a whole cloud of debris. Not a big deal, but watching it swirl around was informative!

Before I really start the pumps, I'm going to let the plants root a bit. I could start with established media, but I think I might let it fishless cycle and give some more time for root systems to take hold. We'll see how patient I am lol

Going to paint the tubes when I'm happy with flow patterns.










AquaAurora, let me see how these rocks work out before I make any promises. Don't want to send any grubblies or rocks that won't work out. I'm up in Canada remember too, so shipping wouldn't be cheap.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

So I have it for records, substrate is 70% soil, 30% castings, 1" deep. Next 1/2" of sphagnum peat, then 1/2" soil.


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## AquaAurora (Jul 10, 2013)

Psst You doubled up on some photos in your last post. Tank looks good though! Its hard to tell with the cloudiness but the anubias do not have their rhizomes buried correct? T Hey look buried in the photo.

Btw love the oto wheels! Also got that on camera once (though not as many .. other otos in the tank were busy munching algaes on some anubias).. You can see the betta Arist'oto' in the photo.. he thought he was an oto too! Ate oto food with them and hung out by them a lot (non aggressive behavior)


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## C10H12N2O (Nov 13, 2014)

Looks like a pretty spoiled bunch of otos you have there! Can't wait to see them in the new tank, looks like it's going to amazing.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Whoops, messed up on the photos, thanks for the catch! I removed the duplicates. Love your wheel too...they're amusing critters, aren't they?

Some of my Anubias do have buried rhizomes, intentially. Before I knew any better I did that with all my plants, and they've all been fine. 

This Anubias has been here about a year, and it recently started flowering...now I'm doing it with the next batch as an experiment (excuse the terrible photo, light is on the other side as I'm dripping a water change)










Sadly, though the rocks are pretty, they're killing my chemistry.










I measured the pH yesterday, and it was 7.6+, TDS 250. This was a week after filling with pure RO, and with a ton of peat in the tank. As a test I added a half tsp of Acid Buffer, which drove the pH down to 6.6 or so. Came back this morning and the pH was back up to 7.6+. KH is 8 and GH the same...acid buffer didn't make a dent in either.

So, sad day, but the rocks and going and I'm boiling up some driftwood instead. They'll make a super pretty cichlid tank someday, but not a soft water Amazon tank.

On the other hand, the main tank is hovering at TDS 60, KH 3 and GH 3. pH was still 7.6+, so I've added a 1/4 tsp of Acid Buffer to the RO change water this time around to see what that does to the pH.

The sword under the main filter has a few sad looking leaves, so I took pity and added a bit of Equilibrium. All the other plants seem fine, including the other sword, but the GH is a little on the low side.










On the bright side the filter system seems to be working well. I have to vacuum the weir plate once in a while otherwise the holes plug up with debris, but once that's out of suspension it should be pretty low maintenance.

Video of it in action, with some gratuitous Oto footage glued to the end:
https://youtu.be/Lr7Vb7MZ3gM

So, next week I'll be adding a bunch of vals and swapping out the rocks for driftwood. Probably have to swap out a good amount of the water to get the TDS down, which I don't want to do while its cycling, but I'd rather do things right before there are fish in there.

On the up side, all the otos still remain happy and healthy. There are some little guys in there that aren't nearly half the size of the others, and I keep looking suspiciously at them as if they might have been sneaky offspring of someone in there. I figure it's wishful thinking, but you never know. Can't wait to get these guys away from the cardinals.










The algae breeding project is going exceptionally well. I routinely have to take gallons of algae off the surface to make sure light gets to the rocks...










...but even then I get nice furry rocks like this. These are stripped bare within hours, and the cycle continues.










Also, on a random note, I found some wild hornwort. Not sure what I'll do with it, but I'm going to see if I can grow it out. Interesting to see the creepy crawlies that came home with it.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

New hardscape installed and a complete water change done:



















Sort of miss the rocks, but the wood doesn't look too bad as well. Got a bunch of vals as well, of giant, spiral and twisted varieties respectively. They were in quite sad shape, and a &[email protected] to root appropriately with almost no roots on some plants. As a result I cut the flow down to a single pump just for circulation, and started the fish less cycle again. The giant vals might be funny in a little tank like this, but should be good for surface cover later on.

Also spent a patience-testing two hours gently chasing my 6 cardinals into a fish trap to get them out of the main tank. Now it's only the otos in there, just on the off chance they had been trying to breed and the cardinals had been eating the eggs.

Tracked down some Repashy Solient Green to add to their food mix as well. Going to try feeding them all over the tank instead of in the same place, to encourage them to explore a bit more.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Well, I've started stocking the new tank, with less than complete success.










Tank parameters seemed good, so I took advantage of a 2 for 1 sale at an lfs to pick up some new otos (didn't want to risk the established ones right off). They didn't look great, since the store tank stocked angels and otos together, and the Angels had decimated the fins on the otos.

Ended up getting 5 females and 1 male, since the store couldn't really isolate genders properly. By next morning 3 females had died, leaving me with the 2 remaining females and 1 male (good mix). I actually didn't realize they were as injured as they were until I got home, but at least they got to have a bit of peace.

Really hope I can get these breeding, since I can't stand these sorts of handling losses. Really wish stores would take care of them better. You can see the shredded fins and wound on the side of the little female here:










On the up side, they all seemed to really like the current. The remaining ones often cling onto the vals waving in the current, and certainly don't seem to avoid the current. I turned down the aux pumps since the remaining otos are healing up, but left the filter pump going.

https://youtu.be/dhxNV0YkSMY


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Got a different batch of ottos from a place that had just got them in, and they seem to love the tank. Talking to the lady at the store (who was amazingly educated and helpful), the shipment had been in only a day and arrived with 99% live otos.

They did this for hours: http://youtu.be/39GuSsiCpRE

On the upside, apparently the store can also get cocamas if I'm ever feeling rich, as well as a paraotocinclus of some type. Might be fun later on.


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## AquaAurora (Jul 10, 2013)

I hate the survival rate of otos. My first batch had the best %, only 1 died in a batch of 6 (still have the original 5).. since then its 50% survival or worse (2 of 5, 1 of 4 surviving first week). I bought cocamas (zebras) from a seller who is better at keeping them than lfs but the fish had to be shipped (over night) and I still had less than 50% survival :c
If they survived better (or ideally i could buy tank bred (hint put me on the waiting list for your first for sale spawn success)) I'd love to get more but I feel bad that they're usually starved to death by the time they get to the stores.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

AquaAurora said:


> I hate the survival rate of otos. My first batch had the best %, only 1 died in a batch of 6 (still have the original 5).. since then its 50% survival or worse (2 of 5, 1 of 4 surviving first week).


I have to admit I got a little cocky. After a couple of dozen added to tanks without loss, it seems I've lost 4 out of the original 6 from Saturday. I went back to ask about a guarantee, but decided against bothering when I saw the look of the others. At the minimum, they'd moved the angels, so that was at least a positive.

I was very happy to find another survivor of the tail chewed batch, and she seems okay. The one with the wound now has an angry red patch on her left side and a white scar on her right, though both seem to be healing. Looks sore, poor girl, and she's understandably subdued; generally hangs out on the cucumber slice or on the driftwood.



















On the other hand, the ones from the second store are amazing. I went back for a second batch of 5 because I couldn't resist, which brings us to 12 at the moment. They're all huaorani too, which is nice for simplicity's sake. 

As this video shows, the healthy ones are VERY happy:

https://youtu.be/3krhUG7dv0M

We'll see how they last, but they're far more energetic than any others I've ever owned. I'm curious to see whether the trend lasts, or if they mellow out over time. Right now they're behaving like corys at feeding time, which is fun :tongue: Interestingly they rest when the lights are off and perk up when the lights come on, which is the opposite of the other tank.

When the hurt girl heals up I'm thinking of moving some of the huge otos from the still tank to see if they perk up too. Right now they're VERY laid back...to the point of being the only tank inhabitants that don't run from motion or vibration.



AquaAurora said:


> I bought cocamas (zebras) from a seller who is better at keeping them than lfs but the fish had to be shipped (over night) and I still had less than 50% survival :c


Ouch, that's too bad. Tough to lose them for their lives alone, but even harder at the cost of zebras. At $20 a fish or so they're out of my reach this year.



AquaAurora said:


> If they survived better (or ideally i could buy tank bred (hint put me on the waiting list for your first for sale spawn success)) I'd love to get more but I feel bad that they're usually starved to death by the time they get to the stores.


Would be happy to, though might be tough getting across the border.


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## AlbertoniO (Apr 22, 2014)

great tank. Super impressed by your methodical approach and the finish. Keep it up!


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

AlbertoniO said:


> great tank. Super impressed by your methodical approach and the finish. Keep it up!


Thanks, much obliged!

Okay, the saga continues. Short version - no fry. Long version below.

First off, I experimented with Seachem Acid Buffer to bring the pH down. Sadly, with little point, since it turns out that even adding straight RO water I end up with a KH of about 5, which keeps the pH over 7.6.

Long version: http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/1...etting-up-low-ph-tank-~6-0-a.html#post8452522

Conclusion:
Okay, tests are in, and I confess I got a few surprises.










Had the following setups, all starting with 12 cups of RO water, and all but the control and black water tank RO got 1/8 tsp of Seachem Acid Buffer. Only measuring on the low pH test range I have, and KH in drops because I only care about relative values.

1) control, just RO
2) 1" soil layer + acid
3) 1" soil layer, 1/2" sand + acid
4) 1/2" sand + acid
5) RO + acid
6) RO plus 3/8 tsp backwater extra from boiled peat
7) tank water from one 20L oto tank

Did these up Friday, checked today. Results are:

1) TDS 3, KH 0 drops, didn't bother checking pH
2) TDS 220, KH 2 drops, pH 7.6+
3) TDS 181, KH 3 drops, pH 7.6+
4) TDS 180, KH 2 drops, pH 6.8
5) TDS 620(!), KH 0, pH <6
6) TDS 10, KH 0, pH 6.4
7) TDS 210, KH 5, pH 7.6+

So, in a nutshell, it's not the sand making this difficult, it might be the soil. Since I need soil to grow the plants the way I like, I have to decide whether to go high tech, or I'm not getting my pH down.

Useful, though somewhat annoying. I suspect I'd rather go CO2 than lose the dirt if this doesn't pay out leaving things as is.

Bump:

Bump:


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

In terms of the tanks and otos, everyone is happy and healthy. Though they're not always as active as in the videos I posted last time, the high flow tank sure seems to be a hit.

The only downside is that the little 1/16" holes plug up over time (duh), and are very tough to clean. The head loss got high enough that I had to shut down the upper return pump since its intake was in danger of drawing air.

As a fix, I drained half the tank, very carefully protected the tank water as much as I could, and used my handy Dremel to carve out a 5x3" hole in the weir plate which I plugged with a piece of Aquaclear 110 foam. Still had to chase down some plastic bits, but I think I got them all. That worked very well...










...and inspired version whatever is next:










It takes a full sized Aq110 foam insert, and the pumps are MUCH easier to service.










Though I can get to the pump in the blue tank, it's a real pain. Cleaning the filter foam requires removing the two small return pumps, the heater, and that plastic slide tray. It's a job. Not so on the new one, and the otos will have a whole foam chunk to graze happily on.
I even thought ahead to cleaning and made up some little slides to allow a cover plate to be temporarily added during filter cleaning, to avoid curious otos going where they shouldn't.










This tank will replace the green tank, so I'm slowly transferring otos to the blue one. Can only run two at a time due to space conflicts. Picked up some really nice swords and vals, and a good chunk of subwassertang at a club auction today, so once the new tank cycles I should be good to move everyone over.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

...and as usual new additions get everyone riled up. Sorry for the lousy video with the lights off, but it was too fun not to at least get a little clip. They'll do this for a couple of hours until they get tired, the everyone goes over to the high flow side of the tank, finds a Val to cling to, and chills out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX-uc7Pgqr8

This is the new setup, btw, in case the tank in the background looks funny. Would love to eventually replace the two with one weirdo square tank.


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## plantetra (May 17, 2014)

Being an engineer myself, IMO(just an opinion only) I think you are not getting enough flow because you cannot displace something in circle. Forgot the name of the theory. So if you want get a good flow, have a surge in between like a small tank above which is open to air. Then pump it back into the aquarium from the other side and you will have a really good flow. But you will need 2 pumps if you place them on top and you will need many sensors to maintain the water level and avoid leaks. but it is worth a try.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

plantetra said:


> Being an engineer myself, IMO(just an opinion only) I think you are not getting enough flow because you cannot displace something in circle. Forgot the name of the theory. So if you want get a good flow, have a surge in between like a small tank above which is open to air. Then pump it back into the aquarium from the other side and you will have a really good flow. But you will need 2 pumps if you place them on top and you will need many sensors to maintain the water level and avoid leaks. but it is worth a try.


I'd thought about something like that, funnily enough, but it's too complicated and makes plant trimming etc a PIA. If something leaked I'd be in real trouble too, since my wife is tolerant but not to extremes lol. I'd love to setup a proper sump one day too, but right now this is as good as I can do.

The current system works well enough, though, so no big deal. I get good flow on the long sides, and the water on the surface circulates. There are all sorts of eddies etc below the current, but the otos actually play in them (the one I keep videoing in the front left corner is a favorite).


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## randym (Sep 20, 2015)

Fascinating project. I'm an engineer, too, but a pretty lazy one. I'd rather watch other people's projects, so thanks for this journal. ;-)

Do you think maybe those nice rocks you had were okay, and it was the soil raising the pH, not the rocks?


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## plantetra (May 17, 2014)

AdamTill said:


> I'd thought about something like that, funnily enough, but it's too complicated and makes plant trimming etc a PIA. If something leaked I'd be in real trouble too, since my wife is tolerant but not to extremes lol. I'd love to setup a proper sump one day too, but right now this is as good as I can do.
> 
> The current system works well enough, though, so no big deal. I get good flow on the long sides, and the water on the surface circulates. There are all sorts of eddies etc below the current, but the otos actually play in them (the one I keep videoing in the front left corner is a favorite).


It is an amazing project. Here is an idea if you are willing to drill your aquarium or maybe you dont have to. Route the PVC to the backside to an HOB filter type set up with no motor or anything, just the HOB tank and then pump it back to the other side. So if there is an issue, the water in the HOB will flow back into the aquarium and not outside.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

plantetra said:


> It is an amazing project. Here is an idea if you are willing to drill your aquarium or maybe you dont have to. Route the PVC to the backside to an HOB filter type set up with no motor or anything, just the HOB tank and then pump it back to the other side. So if there is an issue, the water in the HOB will flow back into the aquarium and not outside.


I'm a little terrified about leaks, that's all. I've dreamed up all sorts of things I could do drilling tanks, but thus far all I see is an angry wife and a flooded basement ceiling lol. I do have permission to build an entirely new stand arrangement that would allow me to run a sump, so I think I'll start there over the winter.

At any rate, this weekend I took the plunge with the new tank. Firstly, I decided not to add the auxillary flow pumps in the back half of the tank to return flow, and just use the main one that flows from the dual outflow to the foam pad. In addition to being substantially less mechanically complex, that would create an area of lower flow at the back of the tank, and I'm curious to see if the otos hang out there or prefer the higher flow areas.

The other thing I decided to do was use a peat substrate and PPS Pro drops for the plants (peat having little nutritive value). I've had a few people say this will rot the roots off my plants due to low pH, and others say it'll work great due to high CEC. We shall see. I kept the kH buffered tank water and added that back on fill, and as I change the water (and the carbonates react with the peat extract), it should gradually acclimate the otos. Used a 2" layer of sphagnum peat which I'd boiled and drained twice on the stove:









I also decided to start dosing the existing flow tank with PPS drops since the plants are having trouble fighting off what's mainly hair algae. I suspect they're not thriving with the minimal soil substrate (it got stirred up a bit), and hopefully this should help.

Filling the temporary QT/census taking tank:









Otos, assasin, and cucumber in their temp tank. Kept the heater going until the main tank and QT tank were at the same temp, then turned it off and let them both cool to room tank. Avoided having to acclimate the otos.


















Amazingly, by the time I had finished chasing the last oto into a tiny pool of water in the corner of the green tank, I had found 26 otos. That would explain why veggies dissapeared so quickly in that tank! I don't think I can credit breeding activities though, since I can't actually remember how many were added. They were all healthy and well fed though, and it was nice to take a census.

For the record, (first flow tank) blue tank: 14 acclimated + (6 mariae + 6 vittatus just out of QT, I added them the night before so I could pinch their tank)
green tank: 26 assorted

Also found about a dozen assasin snails, and moved them to my work tank. Don't want to clean out the old tank yet until I can't find any more assassins, since it seems a bit mean to abandom them. No trumpet snails that I can see, though you never know obviously unless you go through all the gravel, and I'm not sure I'm that patient.

Since the otos tend to hang out in front of the dual outflow moreso than anything else, and the outfall was on the inside edge of the blue tank, I had to move it to the other stand. That required draining, heaving, and refilling it. Here's a FTS before moving:









Sorting vals before pulling them up, always fun. Anytime I get lazy and don't do this, I end up tearing half the leaves and damaging or wrecking the affected leaves. Messy and wet, but not hard:









The roots on all the plants were very healthy, though due to the extreme planting density and lack of pruning a lot of the plants had gone stemmy (rotala and cabomba especially). Since I got a TON of val at auction, I decided to leave some of those stemmy-type tanks out of this new one and stick with mainly south american type species (with a few extras). 









Speaking of which, for those who were worried about rotting out the rhizome of anubias planted in the substrate, here's one plant that's been under the gravel for over a year:









So, usual mess and 12 hours of fun later, I had a new tank. Happy otos, madly swimming about and eating strongly (polished off a cucumber slice in a single day!). They did come up with yet ANOTHER entertaining way to try to die, however. I swear I like these fish because they remind me of horses so much; happy vegitarians born looking for a creative way to kill themselves. This time it was a curious oto who swam into the OUTLET of the main pump, got his dorsal fin wedged under a tiny lip in the drilled cap, and couldn't get out. Luckily my wife pointed him out madly flailing about, and after acertaining that he was well and truely stuck I was able to break down the piping in time to let him swim out the other end. Let this be a lesson to anyone who tries to duplicate this...don't weld your tubes together! So, needless to say, a little bit of foam got wedged in the outlet pipe. For those that are keeping track of the oto Darwin List, that means we have:
1) stuck in operting pump inlet; RIP - solution, foam over inlet
2) stuck in operating pump oulet; survived - solution, foam inside outlet
2) stuck in shut down pump oulet; RIP - solution, block outlet when not in use
3) stuck in HOB inlet; survived with injury - solution, prefilter
4) stuck between glass and anubias leaf; RIP - solution, move anubias away from glass
5) stuck between glass and vertical standpipe of pump outlet; survived - solution, move standpipe away from glass
6) somehow end up on floor during maintenace; survived - solution, no idea how he got there
7) stuck in net by nasal filaments (3 times); all survived - solution, coarser net, or underwater corral

I'm sure there are others, I just can't remember them right now.










The otos reacted to their new tank the same way the previous batch did. Immediately they became more confident, and basically stopped caring whether we came up to the tank and looked at them (they would instantly flee in the old tank at the slightest movement). The loved the high flow area, and only a few stayed to the low current section or investigated the new driftwood I'd boiled up that day. Most spent literally hours swimming upstream like their tails were on fire, drifting back, then doing it again. They clearly knew how to avoid the current if they wanted (ducking down next to the substrate, nipping behind the outflows etc), but didn't seem to care. I was waiting for an oto heart to explode from exertion (see list above), but it never did.


















Bit of java left over I didn't have the heart to get rid of:









Shot of the back of the tank between tanks, hence the weird angle:









FTS:









I left the old HOB filter in place for now that had the biomax in it, and added a ton of new biomax type rings behind the filter plate in tank. I'll leave it there more or less permanently I think, in case I need a QT tank filter, and certainly until the new media populates.

Came back this morning to dose drops, and everyone was still alive. They didn't seem to appreciate me turning on the light to check on them and went a lot went pale, so assuming that they're coloured up again this evening I think the next major purchase might be a rampable/dimmable light.

I've also started planning out my new stand, and think I'll stick with the separated 20's so I can test things (as tempting as upsizing is, obviously). I'll add 20 gal sumps to both for the volume (and since I have them), and am tempted to plumb in a semi-automatic water change system. I'd add a source tank of prepared water in addition to the sump, drip the change water into the sumps, and have an overflow to a drain tank I'd dispose of every day (or whatever). If I ever get fry I'm told changing 10% of the tank water every day really helps survival rates, and since I can't add municipal water to these tanks and daily water changes sound like a PIA, this is about the next best thing.

Last thing I did was pick up a dissolved 02 test kit. I want to check to see whether there's any correlation between behaviour and O2 levels, beyond the obvious.

As always, stay tuned.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

A little video compilation, from fill to happy:
https://youtu.be/V4s5c0df6wA


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## sohankpatel (Jul 10, 2015)

If you get them to breed, are you going to RAOK them? or sell them? I have 4 in a 55g and this is very interesting to see if they can be bred easily.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Not a clue, depends on how things work out. I do know I want to get a very large school going at home first, since the higher the numbers the more active and entertaining they seem to be. 

I can assure you right now that they're not EASY to breed though lol. Wading through the few breeding reports out there there's very little commonality between them. The people that end up being successful seem to be few and far between, and their results aren't always repeatable. I'm hoping I can help distill them down to a tank/environment procedure later on, but right now I'm just busy proving all the things that don't work


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## ESK07 (Mar 16, 2009)

Good luck with your breeding project! I was lucky to accidentally breed them once in a 5g that was only setup for about a week. Wish I measured parameters back then but I was just getting started with planted tanks and didn't think to record.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Love it! Thanks for posting those


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## theatermusic87 (Jun 22, 2014)

I'm very surprised yours like high flow... Mine all hang out in the low flow part of my tank, granted I have pretty high turn over i have 200gph in a 25g tank through a spray bar. Tetra's love it, oto's avoid the main current. That being said they love the diatoms I introduced to the tank.. no idea if you can find them, or if they'll last long enough for you to culture to feed them, however if you're looking for some I found mine on the bottom of a lake. I just took a scoop of sediment in a peanut butter jar, and let it grow out a bit. My otos's keep it pretty well in check, but as long as there is a bunch in the tank I know I don't need supplemental feedings. they look like small little fuzzy balls ~1/8 inch or so in diameter, also cherry shrimp will annihilate them.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Diatoms are tough to get to occur intentionally in aquariums from what I can tell, and our lakes are all frozen/freezing right now. Good thought though! I do culture green algae on rocks which I add frequently.

As a little update, I'm very happy with the way the PPS Pro dosing and peat substrate combo is working. Apart from a little transplant shock to some of the vals where they lost a leaf or two, the plants have all dug in and started growing well (the swords are looking better than ever). So yay to peat. I even picked up some gypsum/calcium sulphate to allow for no calcium in my source water (per: https://sites.google.com/site/aquaticplantfertilizer/home/ro-reverse-osmosis)










I brought some crypts home from my work tank where they had been somewhat stunted due to lack of light (that one's a jungle too), and I'll see how it does now. I've never had great luck with these, for whatever reason.










I finally came up with something to do with the subwassertang I picked up at auction, and started a wall. Hopefully it should fill in soon.









On the not immediately successful front, I picked up some cardamine lyatra (watercress). Other breeders have had good success with this, will otos liking it as spawning places. Mine so far love it, but as a snack lol. Have to see if it survives and puts out new (oto resistant) shoots.









Lastly, I've started on a project where I'll be linking three of these tanks in a cascading, tiered arrangement. That will allow me to automate water changes, vastly increase system volume with an added sump system, and separate future populations. I'm tempted to add a colony of pygmy cories as a possible hormonal spawning trigger, but I'd rather keep them in a separate tank (with a shared water volume). Any disease would affect the entire system, but I can live with that.

To create the tiered overflow, I'm going to remove the stock top rim and replace it with a 2" wide border of acrylic. I can router a low section into that to create the waterfall area.










The bottom of three 20's will then have a beananimal-type overflow into a sump, and the sump will return to the top tank. Other schemes include a separate 20G source tank in the sump area which I can fill and drip into sump, and a separate beananimal overflow on the sump into a drain. It's a bit complicated, but should be easy enough to set up. I can then prepare the water once a week in advance in the source tank (can't use mains water for reasons this thread has gone into).


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## AquaAurora (Jul 10, 2013)

How are you attaching the acrylic? From what I recall in my past research silicone used to adhere glass won't adhere acrylic to glass, and vise versa.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Was going to just use GE1. The border will be bonded to itself with acrylic cement or pinned to itself as the structural element. The border should hopefully just help prevent a "de-rimming" type failure, though I've read people have derimmed 20L's without any reinforcement. As such, the GE1 only really has to be waterproof, and it's working well enough to bond my acrylic dividers in place.

I just needed a means to controlling where the tank overflowed when it's overfilled. Can't be any weaker than the bond that holds the stock tank in place, really. Probably should have (any may still go) glass though, just couldn't machine that myself.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Change of plans, but in a good way. I found a 75 (billed as a 60) gal tank and stand and lights for sale for $75, and couldn't resist. Not sure what the lights are yet (she forgot about them, going back tomorrow), but the tank is in good shape. The stand is in reasonable condition, but built a touch lightly for my tastes. Nothing that a couple of dollars worth of 2x4s and a new stain coat won't fix, happily, and a lot less effort than a new stand and tank arrangement.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Not the best update in the world, but progress of a sort.

Quick summary - be very careful with outlet filters.

I had noticed that the flow from my outlets had decreased, so I checked on the filter pads. They were very clogged. When I turned on the green tank pump and cleared that one there was no big issue, but with the blue tank CLOUDS of crap came out. 

After a minor panic attack, I did an emergency water change of 5 gallons, and another one in the evening. Though the water tests okay in both tanks, I've lost three otos in the blue tank. Dang. One mariae and two vittatus so far. These are sensitive little critters.

To ensure this doesn't happen again, I made new spraybars with holes big enough not to clog but HOPEFULLY not large enough to snag otos.










I say hopefully, because the Darwin lists gets longer (and stupider). I just had to free an oto that got its nose stuck under a seam of silicone. It was a good seam, and it was almost impossible to jab a bamboo stick hard enough to get under the silicone, but not pry the little guy's nose off. 

I'm starting to not be surprised by this.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

randym said:


> Fascinating project. I'm an engineer, too, but a pretty lazy one. I'd rather watch other people's projects, so thanks for this journal. ;-)
> 
> Do you think maybe those nice rocks you had were okay, and it was the soil raising the pH, not the rocks?


Thanks for this comment, I'm testing it as we speak. A few days in and TDS and KH are almost unaffected, so it's looking good so far. I have lots more scaping options with the 75, and I'd love to be able to use them.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Well, tommorrow I get to pick up my amazing growing tank. I bought it as a 60, thought it was a 75, and the tank builder who's installing my overflow delicately corrected me that it's a 90. Yikes. Going with a BeanAnimal 3 pipe style on a coast to coast overflow.

Still, go big or go home I say.

Anyhow, been slowly purchasing things for the new tank, and they've been slowly arriving.

The Mag7 sump pump I ordered that was perfect for the "75" should still be okay for the 90, but we'll see.

Glad I didn't pull the trigger on lights, because they wouldn't have been correct. Probably going with an additional 48" Sunblaster T5, adding the two 24s I currently use.

Also ordered all the bits for an Arduino system. I've loved reading those threads, and enjoy meaningless and excessive info  Planning temp monitoring, heater oversight, and power management for now. Eventually, TDS, ph, and maybe auto dosing.

Lastly, I added four Farlowella vittatus to the mix, of which three are still with me. The theory is that the hormones they add to the water may help the otos get with the program, and the fry should be similar in requirements. The twigs are nice in that they're not quite as nervous too.


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## noseprint (Jun 29, 2015)

I have a twig catfish in my tank and my otos love hanging out with him. they usually rest where he attaches himself onto the wood. 

Really awesome project and tank!


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## NomNomPony (May 18, 2014)

AdamTill said:


> They did come up with yet ANOTHER entertaining way to try to die, however. I swear I like these fish because they remind me of horses so much; happy vegitarians born looking for a creative way to kill themselves.


Hello, fellow planted tank horse person (or so I presume)!  You are definitely on to something with the horses/otos comparison, lol.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

NomNomPony said:


> Hello, fellow planted tank horse person (or so I presume)!  You are definitely on to something with the horses/otos comparison, lol.


Good catch! Yep, I try to ride every other day at least, sometimes more. This is my guy on his first day in his two-rein outfit (they grow up so fast!):










He's sporting a saddle I made too. It's technically one I made for my wife, but she's letting me use it until I have a chance to make one for myself. She's really a dressage rider at heart, so it doesn't appear to be a big hardship lol

Speaking of projects, the tank came back today, and it looks great. Silicone could be cleaned up a bit, but they did the holes and a coast to coast overflow in smoked glass for $75, so I'm not complaining.


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## bluesand (Nov 3, 2014)

ESK07 said:


> Good luck with your breeding project! I was lucky to accidentally breed them once in a 5g that was only setup for about a week. Wish I measured parameters back then but I was just getting started with planted tanks and didn't think to record.


sorry to invade your post, but whats the name of that grassy-like plant on the front left?


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

bluesand said:


> sorry to invade your post, but whats the name of that grassy-like plant on the front left?


Not my photos, but looks like dwarf sag.

Little update time, well on the way to making the new tank a reality.

The biggest challenges thus far have been a combination of looking for plumbing items (hose, pvc parts etc) out of season, and a slow death by 1000 cuts to my budget. This is my first bigger tank, and I'm amazed at how the costs add up. Still, I'm having fun.

First out of the gate has been to let my tanks go wild kingdom by not trimming etc. Normally I cut things back a bit to keep them more in line with a 20, but now I'm getting ready for a bigger tank and so letting things get large.

The PPS Pro dosing has been great, and particularly the Amazon sword has been taking off. I've also picked up a couple of tissue culture tubs of hair grass, dwarf sag, and echinodorus tennelus, and they're just hanging out in the PPS tank.

I have my Aquascaping plans more or less finalized, and I'm going with a jungle style layout centred around a few big swords (have a uraguayan sword on order). Was inspired by the Green Machine in particular, with some elements pinched from other areas. Going to try some tiers set with corroplast formers, and might even be able to keep the vals corralled to the back of the tank that way lol

Not sure if I have all my hardscape elements, but the rocks seem like an option. After a few weeks of soaking they only tweaked the RO water to TDS to 50 or so, with no change in KH. Going to try to stick with driftwood only, but a few rocks may make it into the scape.










Got the tank plumbing together, and dry fitted everything after going to at least a half dozen stores to find everything and ordering online.










Big project for today was to teardown the stand to reinforce and modify it. Wasn't feeling the love for the all staple construction and overall strength, and so added a bunch of countersunk screws. Tweaked things to be a touch more square, then dabbed filler into the holes. 

I also sawed some front boards off to allow the doors to be the full width of the stand, rather than just across the center half or so. I'm going to start with a 20 as a sump, but wanted to be able to swap out a 55 later relatively easily.

Overall, not my favourite stand, but it'll do until I get crazy enough to build a new one from scratch. Should be ready for stain after another weekend of work or so.










On the light front, I decided to go with T5s for now. I want to add a cheap LED strip in to fade on in the morning and off in the evening to avoid photoshock, but couldn't wrap my head around the cost of full LED right now.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Just a journal note to remind myself when I brought some pygmaeus cories home (8). Msjinkzd was nice enough to pass along some notes to me, and she's another one who noted that her otos (cocamas) spawned after cories did.


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## Freemananana (Jan 2, 2015)

Just to reassure you, I use a moonlight LED fixture with my CFLs to avoid the light shock. It works fine. I couldn't wrap my head around the cost of a full LED light and the possibility of needing two at my depth/width.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Freemananana said:


> Just to reassure you, I use a moonlight LED fixture with my CFLs to avoid the light shock. It works fine. I couldn't wrap my head around the cost of a full LED light and the possibility of needing two at my depth/width.


Good to know, thanks for the note. How does the moonlight work in your setup? Which one did you choose?

Thanks!


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## squatingdog (Jan 26, 2014)

bluesand said:


> sorry to invade your post, but whats the name of that grassy-like plant on the front left?


i think its blyxa japonica


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## Freemananana (Jan 2, 2015)

I actually got one for free haha. It was a RAOK from a member here. I have two timers, about $5 for a pack at Walmart. I set the moonlight to come on 30 minutes before the lights come on or go off. It turns off 30 minutes after the lights come on and about a hour after the lights go off. So there is a lot of overlap, but I like the blue moonlight in the evenings. You can easily set the times the same, have the moonlights come on at the same time and stay on 30 minutes longer (the smallest interval on my mechanical timer) and then fast forward the 'current time' 15 minutes. That way they come on 15 minutes early and only for 30 minutes total; same for the evening. 

If I were to buy a moonlight, I'd go with this:

Amazon.com: Vinus® 16.4ft RGBW Waterproof 300-LED Strip Light Kit, Multi-color Changing Flexible Lighting with 40 Key IR Remote Controller and 12V 5A Power Adapter, LED Christmas Lights White Roll Tape: Musical Instruments

It is just a basic 'waterproof' RGB LED strip. You can route it around the rim, in your canopy, etc. You could even make enclosures and hang them over the tank like pendants. You can dial in a color and intensity for $20, which is neat. If you are techy, a knock-off arduino board plus some minor pieces can make it into a true sunrise and sunset feature, follow the tutorial for the SAT+ here:

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/2...sed-led-controller-current-satellite-led.html

The code would have to be modified for these IR codes, but that is documented in the process and isn't that difficult. At this point, you're probably in the $40+ range and it may not be cost effective for your setup. I know I'll be doing this on my next, larger, project tank.

A much cheaper option is one of the cheap mechanical timers hooked up to a small, dim, LED light such as a partial strip if you have some lying around. Preferably in the warmer color temperature range.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Awesome, thanks tons, I'll look into those tonight. I have all the bits of an Arduino setup showing up slowly, and once the new tank is set up that's the new project.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Ugh, bad update in afraid.

When feeding the otos tonight I noticed one with a bad case of Ich. Testing the water, I found all parameters clear except for nitrates reading a hair over 20ppm (normally almost negligible). I did a 25% water change, which took almost nothing off the nitrate reading, but dropped my TDS from 103 to 80. Risking shock, I decided to leave another change until tomorrow, but to prune back dead plant growth and vacuum up as much dead plant matter as possible.

Sadly, I found 5 dead otos and a dead farlowella. I also found no sign of the other 2 farlowellas. I think they must have died, decomposed, and that's where the nitrates are coming from. Might also explain the Ich, with the nitrate stress (or more likely, ammonia from before) getting to the otos. Boo, one of the downsides of a heavily planted tank.

So, tomorrow I try to find some Ich attack and do another water change.

The other otos seem very healthy, so I hope they're okay.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Well, treatment of the Ich infected tank is going well, so yay. Going out of town after the water change today for a day, then when we get back tomorrow one more treatment and all should hopefully be well again (used Hikari Ich-X).

Did some more work on the new tank today, mainly in terms of plumbing. Cut and glued a bunch of 2" spacer pieces, and got the majority of the overflow drains made. They mainly need intake 90's, the syphon conversion line, and some support brackets, then they should be ready to mount. Would have liked to spray them black, but again, it's winter here.

Full shot including the spray bar, which is a 1" pipe with 64 holes drilled in it (same area as the pipe opening). The lower leg on the spray bar needs a hole drilled in the stand. Flexible hose will link the nipple to the sump pump. Needs little clear brackets made up and bonded to the inside of the tank.









Sump side, elbows just need evening up.










Need some supports here:









Finished all the structural changes to the stand, but declined to stain and varathane it (though found the matching stain colour). Just too stinky to do inside, so that'll have to wait until spring unfortunately. The next challenge is to get RO water from a unit under the sink there to the stand, and waste water to the sink. Going to put brave pants on and pull up the baseboards, then run pipes behind them. It'll require a pump to drain, so I won't automate it, but at least it'll be bucket free.










My ideas for Aquascaping are coming along nicely too. Picked up a bunch of small wood lengths that I plan to make into retaining walls, separating areas that can function as tiers. Then I can keep my dwarf sag separate from my hairgrass separate from the rotala etc, without constantly pruning and picking out runners. The vals will be confined to a dropped section along the back so they don't take over the place, but can provide a dense backdrop. That's the next step, then I should be close to ready to come up with a final planting plan.










Bump:


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## AquaAurora (Jul 10, 2013)

If you have an unfinished basement or utility room you can cut up a cardboard box and spray paint the pipes in there. My husband helped me with krylon fusion painting some acrylic sheets last winter this way (would recommend opening a window/door/venting or using a simply mask to keep fro inhaling fumes when spraying). Took a few days to get the layers done but turned out well.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Fully finished basement, so not a go there.


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## theatermusic87 (Jun 22, 2014)

Quick question and a quick warning

How did you do the coast to coast overflow? Any pictures or the like? Id like to do one if I ever get a big tank...

As a warning, TEST your return line spray bar, I made one, used the area of the return line as a wide to how many holes to drill, and found it WAY TO FEW... I was spraying water a good 5 get across the room, and that was only with a 150gph pump


Edit: you might be able to find a local wood working co-op or something similar that you could rent time at to do your painting and staining


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

I didn't I'm afraid, so no pictures. An aquarium fab shop in town drilled the holes and installed the overflow (smoked glass) for $75. I can't even buy a glass bit locally for less than $50, so it was a no brainer for me.

Good warning on the spraybar, but rest assured, it'll be tested beforehand. My other tanks all have spray bars in them, and proportionally have more flow, so I think it should be fine. That said, those connections aren't fixed yet, so I can customize with no issues.

Good thought on the shop, but I can live with things for now. It's mainly a cosmetic thing.


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## chillwill007 (Dec 28, 2015)

Great job with what you're doing. Yes I had a planted filterless 75g before plans look great with all the added hight you get with the bigger tanks and that being a 90 you have some great head way for plants.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Well, spent the last six or seven hours playing with hardscape and layout, but it was worth it. Photos are terrible due to low light, but I thought I'd take a few for records.

The tank took the better part of an entire cubic foot bale of peat, boiled one 5 gallon pot at a time. I like to do that once before adding to remove a little bit of the inital tannin, or the water gets REALLY dark.

To start at the end, this is what it turned out like. The substrate is 2" on the lower levels, and about 6" at the highest tier. To prevent things from tumbling flat, I used an idea borrowed from the Green Machine and used corroplast substrate supports. There's an entire channel across the back that will contain the vals I plan to use, and a bunch of smaller ones cut into sections to support the wood or slopes.










To start out, I added an even 2" layer of peat. Then each tier was built up using the wood sections as retaining walls. I added a tall strip of corroplast set a few inches away from the back of the tank, and played with sections and filled slopes.



















Next, I marked an appropriate curve on the sheet and pulled it out. After cutting to contour, I added it back, and back filled the slopes.



















Lastly, and I'm not sure how they'll show in the photos, but I finished by adding a bunch of slope supports. I first added sections parallel to the retaining walls. Next, I added small sections perpendicular to the main supports. Lastly, I added thin but tall supports on the steeper slopes, avoiding the areas where I'm planning on planting the deep rooting swords.


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## AquaAurora (Jul 10, 2013)

AdamTill said:


> To ensure this doesn't happen again, I made new spraybars with holes big enough not to clog but HOPEFULLY not large enough to snag otos.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I'm sorry if I missed it but what size are the holes for this outlet? was it successful in NOT snagging oto snouts?


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Yep, worked a treat. 1/8 holes, 1/16" clogged too easily.


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## AquaAurora (Jul 10, 2013)

AdamTill said:


> Yep, worked a treat. 1/8 holes, 1/16" clogged too easily.


Thank you for the info ^^


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

AquaAurora said:


> Thank you for the info ^^


Sure thing, not a problem. Using the same size holes on the new spray bar, just lots more of them.

Speaking of which, I finished machining out the spray bar supports, and siliconed them to the tank wall. Not sure how I'm going to angle the bar yet, but it's not set until I plant and have water in the tank. I've also put a union on the line so I can service it a lot more easily than the ones on the 20s.

One more weekend of work and I should be able to think about planting and filling.

All the bits of the Arduino system are finally in too, so looking forward to getting that going as well.


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## AquaAurora (Jul 10, 2013)

So what did you do with the rocks that jacked your already hard water into higher levels of hardness?


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

They're sitting in tubs of RO water waiting for me to test again. Been so busy I've forgotten to do that. Probably this weekend.

Finished drilling the stand side for the spray bar connection to the sump, made up the intake 90's for inside the tank overflow, and marked out a piece of wood for the overflow pipe braces last night. Should be done with the tank plumbing this weekend, and then all that's left before filling is to sort out my drain and fill lines.


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## AquaAurora (Jul 10, 2013)

If you decide you can't use them will you sell the rock?


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

I'm not opposed to it, but between the "Food, Plant and Animal Inspection" fees at the border and shipping from Canada it might not be worth it. I've not had great success with shipping things over the border, not going to lie.

Have to see if it's worth adding to a tank in the first place, anyway. Depends what it does to the water.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Sorry, reading the last post made me realize I still haven't checked the rocks. Sorry!

At any rate, been a busy beaver, and time for a little update.

On the fauna side, I've been very much enjoying a little school of 9 pygmaeus corys that got added to the blue tank. They've happily settled in, and have made the otos a little more sociable (especially since I had to pinch all their driftwood to start the 90's hardscape).

One fun discovery has been that the otos love the Vitalis catfish pellets even more than the corys do...they go absolutely nuts for them. Makes me believe that there may be a case for a bit more protein in the oto's diets.

In addition to the cory juvies, I found some fat and sassy adult pygmaeus at one of the lfs today. I had meant to pick up a dozen more juvies, but they had brought in full adults this time around. I ended up picking up a half dozen, and even hanging out alone in my quarantine tank they're huge compared to the others. Hope they all make it.

Picked up a bit of local driftwood from a gent who finds and preps wood locally, and I look forward to tweaking it. It's just placed roughly in the photo, but with a little imagination it should make for a very nice riparium space over the overflow. I also found a wonderful little local plant store, and picked up a quintet of tillys: (Tillandsia ianantha,T. Circinata ,T. Bulbosa and T. Xerographica). Going to have fun with those! Probably will do like a member did here and install a few artificial pivot joints to get the flow I want.










Also finished off the sump for the 90, and it's just finishing up curing. Was waffling between a 20 tall and 20 long, and went with the long in the end for ease of maintenance. The flow will come in the narrow section, pass through primary mechanical filtration (cut to accept Aquaclear 110 foam), go into the big chamber which will house a bunch of scrubbies, pass from the bottom up though a grid cloth that will hold a bunch of the biomedia rings, and then into the return pump chamber. Nice and simple, and made with scrap I had around the shop. Forgive the messy silicone work, but I went for fast and effective rather than elegant.




























Almost done with plumbing the RO water feed and sump drain into the house plumbing, and assuming that tests out I should be ready to plant shortly thereafter. Picked up a few last minute root tabs, but other than that, it's getting close to planting time!


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## Freemananana (Jan 2, 2015)

New tank won't have the river manifold that you used before? I really liked it and wanted to get your opinion on the setup. I was going to make one for a tank housing loaches.


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## randym (Sep 20, 2015)

Otos do love protein. They will happily eat bloodworm, sinking pellets, even other fishes' eggs. 

But...it's probably not good for them. Otos caught in the wild and dissected have only vegetation in their digestive tracts. And some hobbyists have reported that too much high fat/high protein food can kill otos, because they can't properly metabolize it.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Freemananana said:


> New tank won't have the river manifold that you used before? I really liked it and wanted to get your opinion on the setup. I was going to make one for a tank housing loaches.


Not as with the smaller ones, sorry. Same concept using the spray bar, but oriented horizontally sweeping the front glass rather than along the length. Doubt the fish will care one way or the other, and this way my vals won't look so skewed over.

If you don't have val type plants they look fine, and even then the issue is simply cosmetic (the vals don't care).

As some warnings, make sure that your pumps and spray bar are easily removable for cleaning. Within a few months you'll get algae build up that will require removal, and the fish can't do it that close to the spraybar openings. Easy enough, but my second version is much easier to clean than the first.

Bump:


randym said:


> Otos do love protein. They will happily eat bloodworm, sinking pellets, even other fishes' eggs.
> 
> But...it's probably not good for them. Otos caught in the wild and dissected have only vegetation in their digestive tracts. And some hobbyists have reported that too much high fat/high protein food can kill otos, because they can't properly metabolize it.


I've never heard of them eating eggs or fry, but I'm sure it's possible if they're hungry enough.

Though I'm probably responsible for the quote about no animal protein in their stomachs as much as anyone, there is this page (flip to page 292, upside down, sadly): 
https://books.google.ca/books?id=iAiNaVY3fkkC&pg=PA924&lpg=PA924&dq=loricariidae+292+otocinclus&source=bl&ots=Os8-z7ihum&sig=fsI53YNk4-KIwdtglhfWEOHlQ7g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjSzeTOgrbKAhVCLmMKHTh4By8Q6AEIHjAA#v=onepage&q=loricariidae%20292%20otocinclus&f=false

It says PRIMARILY, with small animal matter from aufwuchs grazing as well.

For mine, they still devour their veggies at the same rate as before, so hopefully all will be well.


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## Freemananana (Jan 2, 2015)

AdamTill said:


> Not as with the smaller ones, sorry. Same concept using the spray bar, but oriented horizontally sweeping the front glass rather than along the length. Doubt the fish will care one way or the other, and this way my vals won't look so skewed over.
> 
> If you don't have val type plants they look fine, and even then the issue is simply cosmetic (the vals don't care).
> 
> As some warnings, make sure that your pumps and spray bar are easily removable for cleaning. Within a few months you'll get algae build up that will require removal, and the fish can't do it that close to the spraybar openings. Easy enough, but my second version is much easier to clean than the first.


I was going to have a couple of power heads mounted with the under substrate piping to the other side of the tank where there would be a sponge filter intake. The power heads/sponge will be removable. 

I do plan on having a couple val type plants, but nothing like swords. My swords looked AWFUL with any amount of flow past them. 

Thanks for the tips. I know of a couple people using a setup just like yours. I think Vanish (iirc) has his spraybar pointed straight down so the flow goes to the bottom of the tank, up the back and into the overflow. It makes a U of flow.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Freemananana said:


> I was going to have a couple of power heads mounted with the under substrate piping to the other side of the tank where there would be a sponge filter intake. The power heads/sponge will be removable.
> 
> I do plan on having a couple val type plants, but nothing like swords. My swords looked AWFUL with any amount of flow past them.
> 
> Thanks for the tips. I know of a couple people using a setup just like yours. I think Vanish (iirc) has his spraybar pointed straight down so the flow goes to the bottom of the tank, up the back and into the overflow. It makes a U of flow.


That's the plan on mine too, up and into the coast to coast.

The only maintenance issue you might want to watch for is algae buildup in the submerged pipe. If you go back and see where I experimented with a sponge over the outflow pipe to prevent the otos from getting stuck in it (again), algae quickly backed up in the flow pipe. When I cleared it and opened the flow again, a gush of brown algae came out. You'll at least have the foam on the intake rather than outlet side, so you might be fine. I also doubt the sewellias will be quite as Darwinish as the otos and try to climb up into the powerhead lol

In a nutshell, if it's possible to drain snake the pipe once in a while, it might be a good idea. It's why I'm moving away from pipes under the substrate that are hard to get at.


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## Freemananana (Jan 2, 2015)

AdamTill said:


> That's the plan on mine too, up and into the coast to coast.
> 
> The only maintenance issue you might want to watch for is algae buildup in the submerged pipe. If you go back and see where I experimented with a sponge over the outflow pipe to prevent the otos from getting stuck in it (again), algae quickly backed up in the flow pipe. When I cleared it and opened the flow again, a gush of brown algae came out. You'll at least have the foam on the intake rather than outlet side, so you might be fine. I also doubt the sewellias will be quite as Darwinish as the otos and try to climb up into the powerhead lol
> 
> In a nutshell, if it's possible to drain snake the pipe once in a while, it might be a good idea. It's why I'm moving away from pipes under the substrate that are hard to get at.


I'm hoping to prevent that with open power heads with the filter on the intake. It will be near impossible to snake anything through it though since there will be more pipes down the length of it than power heads. 

Thanks for the advice thus far. I can't wait to see it. I will say I'll miss the river tank manifold. I may rethink my use based on your results.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Freemananana said:


> I'm hoping to prevent that with open power heads with the filter on the intake. It will be near impossible to snake anything through it though since there will be more pipes down the length of it than power heads.
> 
> Thanks for the advice thus far. I can't wait to see it. I will say I'll miss the river tank manifold. I may rethink my use based on your results.


Yep, the lack of access is just something to keep in mind.

I'm going to teardown the flow tanks to move the occupants over, but I'm not going to junk them. Once I get the 90 going and finish my Arduino project, the flow tanks may make a reappearance for either fry rearing (thinking positive), or as proper loach tanks.

Ever since seeing the video with the hillstream climbing a series of wet emergent rocks, I've put that on the list of things to do at least once!


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## Freemananana (Jan 2, 2015)

I love the hillstream loach, which is usually what people think when they imagine a loach tank. But I just want a good environment for clown loaches and another fish species. They both like current and the river manifold looked like an awesome project.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Well, big progress, to the point where I might be able to plant next weekend (finally). Got the water change system 99% done!

Though my wife is extremely understanding, she very much hates "fish water all over the place". I do my best, but every so often (always when she's home), a fill line will fall out of a tank, a bucket will spill, etc etc. I don't always make the best decisions, let's just say.

As such, when asked for the okay to build a concealed water change system, amazingly I got the okay. What I ended up doing is pulling all the baseboards between my tank and the nearest sink, and tying into the water and drain lines there. Though I'd have loved to have run a gravity drain to the basement, it would just have taken too much demolition to do so (fully developed basement, and my wife doesn't really want any tanks downstairs since it's all carpet).

There are a bunch of complicated runs of pipeline, and it's cost me a small fortune in plumbing fittings, but despite the old guy at Home Depot saying it was impossible, I tested everything out fine last night. Very much a sense of satisfaction!


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Now pictures, starting from source to tank.

The first thing I needed to was replace half the plumbing under the sink. The garburator drain was the obvious tie in location, and I also had to preserve the dishwasher tie in.

So, this is the result. The white 1/2 plumbing are the main additions, and they're just waiting for me to add some piping supports. I had to tie the RO waste water and tank waste water lines in here, and I put them both behind shutoff valves (liberally sprinkling unions in to make cleaning easy).










In order to protect the tank in case of drain blockage, I added a check valve with unions for cleanout]. I don't have a means of protecting the RO output, but I suspect it would be hard to back up along that 1/4 RO tubing all the way to the unit.










Here are the connections that disappear behind the wall. I was silly enough to drill them side by side (not realizing that the runs needed to be horizontal), so there's an oops hole.










If I need a bucket of water for cleaning filters etc, the unions make that easy.










System is currently activated manually, with this Tee put into the cold water line. Eventually I'd love a solenoid valve connected to my arduino, but this works at the moment.










So all that's left is to mount the unit on the wall, and all will be well.

Next the lines run down and behind the baseboards. Will require only a minimum of work to get them secure, and with the baseboards fitted back they'll be easily concealed. Will run this way for a couple of weeks just to make sure nothing leaks, but all seems well so far. One line for tank fill, the other for drain.










Bump:

Bump:


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

On the tank side, here are the lines coming out of the wall. Top is the RO feed, bottom is the drain. It was tough to get them both high up enough to clear the sump while reaching up behind the drywall, but the low position and 90 actually works very well for tying into the drain pump.










Sump shot next. Here you can see the Mag7 sump return pump which leads to the tank, and the two lines from the wall connections. I'll need to add a drain pump as well, which will be something along the lines of a Mag7. The little Aqueon pumps in the 20s are way too small, and I'm just waiting to see if the Mag7 works flow-wise in the main tank. Otherwise, it tested GREAT for a drain pump.

Haven't set the levels of the Beananimal drains, want to see where the sump water level ends up.










Also finished off the overflow drains, other than the last legs to the sump.










Looking okay so far. Next I finish the hardscape, and then I'm ready to plant 










Soon, no more of this!










The little Pygmy cories are doing great in quarantine, and I'll probably leave them there for now. I'll use this as a holding tank as I clean the 20s out, adding plants to the 90 and storing fish here. Can't wait until next weekend!


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## WaterGuy82 (Jan 24, 2016)

Diggin' it man..


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## jlfkona (Jan 1, 2013)

Looking forward to seeing what you put together next weekend!


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Thanks folks!


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## Jeroen (Jan 12, 2016)

Subscribed!
Great thread


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Quick in progress shot. More to come once done with planting:


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Success! Now sleep...so much sleep needed.

http://youtu.be/eZqHGfSExkQ


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## jlfkona (Jan 1, 2013)

Looks Awesome!!


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## danarl (May 13, 2015)

Great tank! 
Whats the fauna? 

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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

danarl said:


> Great tank!
> Whats the fauna?
> 
> Sent from my LG-H815 using Tapatalk


Thanks folks!

Census was 38 otos and 9 pygmy corys. That means I lost quite a few during the farlowella die off, sadly. Live and learn I guess.

Will let the bank account recover a bit and then restock.


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## touch of sky (Nov 1, 2011)

Very interesting journal. I read it this morning and it brightened up a winter morning. I hope you are successful breeding your little otos. They are beautiful little creatures. Your tank looks great after your initial planting, and I look forward to seeing its progress.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Okay, from the beginning. Basically, it was a FULL weekend's work, and by that I mean 8am-4am, then 11am-11:30pm. My wife was understanding, if not thrilled.

Started off on Friday evening with a couple of these:









...doing a bunch of water changes and getting big tubs of RO water prepared and aging. I also filled the sump with the piped line, and verified no leaks there.

Finally, I got the okay on the hardscape from my wife, and started assembling all the buckets and such that I'd need for the next day:




























At this point the piping SEEMED done, but the returns were only press fit onto the bulkheads. I did that so I could test the piping for leaks before committing to cementing them to the bulkheads:










So, next morning after my wife came home from the hospital I got up and got to work. The first step was putting down a layer of Home Depot sand, which I really like working with since it doesn't affect water chemistry:










The "trench of vals" looks more defined this way, and I'm super glad I did it. Later on, it became a nice reference point. I may end up hanging a light BEHIND the tank so the vals get enough light, since the overflow was made out of smoked glass. That's nice for a saltwater tank, but I'd request clear glass next time so the light can shine though (I didn't know any better).



















Started in on the 20's, systematically uprooting plants and catching livestock. I was sad to see how many otos had died in the ex-farlowella tank.

The bigger plants got dumped into the cory quarantine tank, and I started another 10 for the otos. I slowly dripped water from the one into the other, then manually filled the top one from the bottom when it got high. That way I started to even out the chemistry. Eventually I had three going this way, since the other 20 had different water (being a soil tank, it was a pH 7+ tank). 
Starting TDS was:
cory tank:23ppm
soil tank:76 ppm
peat tank: 55 ppm









Starting to harvest and separate thin plants. I'm always amazed at how much val comes out:

















20's all cleaned out. Big job to fully clean them down, which I did around 1am while waiting for more RO water to fill the main tank. I thought I had more than enough laid out, but between filling tubs and washing, I ended up shy by 30 gallons or so. 









At any rate, at this point it was 2 in the afternoon:









Next I got lessons in using tissue culture plants. I love them! A few pots go a long way. I had let them "grow out" for a while in the 20, and there was plenty. I had a few pots each of echinodorus tennelus and sagittaria subulata, and three of hairgrass. I'd splurged for a pair of ADA pincettes as well, and was glad I had. The technique of planting took a little bit of practice, but I had plenty of that in store.

Dwarf sag:









Tennelus:









Clock rolls on:









Next the big plants started coming out. I was STUNNED by the size of some of these, especially my anubias. I hadn't really noticed them for a while, but they'd gotten huge. The root systems had dug down into the soil by a foot and a half in some cases, which leads me to further disbelieve the "don't plant" warnings (to each their own).










The red flame sword in the bottom left had been shaded out for months and looked quite sad, but should perk up with way more light.









The big sword was getting to an impressive size, and was planned for the top left. Just realized I forgot to add root clay balls, but I'll do that later. The center is planned for a Uruguayan sword which I have on order:


















Time flies!









Next hairgrass:


















...and vals:









By this point I was realizing that it was getting late, and that the fish weren't going in the tank that night. I combined them into the one 29 gal high ex-quarantine tank because I was getting tired of running over every 20 mins to top up the tank.

Finally it was time to flood:









Despite doing it as slowly as possible, 95% of the hairgrass and 50% of the vals floated. Almost all the anubias did as well, since I'd gotten a little carried away with trimming back roots. I was not impressed, and used a few choice words.

In desperation, I finally remembered the rocks from a few pages back. I finally checked their water (which was almost evaporated), and saw a most a TDS of 100pm (almost nothing). I grabbed a bunch, and headed up to rescue my plants. I was thinking of them as temporary, but my wife liked the look so I suspect they'll end up staying. I have a thought to using them in a hillstream tank later too: 









Now it was getting stupid late, but I was clearly not going to have enough water to fill the tank completely since the quarantine tank was staying up and I'd used a bunch of various things during the day. As such, while waiting for the RO machine, I broke out some string and strung up the light brackets. I like the brackets, but the wood lathe I ended up using is only temporary until my bank account recovers and I figure out how many lights/ where they need to hang:









At that point it was about 3 am, it looked like this:









I might add that I'd moved all the water in buckets at this point, and gravity fed it in from on top of a stool itself on top of the table. I couldn't use the sump feed yet for fear of the spray bar having so much flow it uprooted all the carpet plants. 

I'd had couple of heaters running in the main tank as well in order to get it up to temp. The water was looking good, and TDS was sitting at about 23ppm.

At about 4 am, I gave up and went to bed.

My wife came home at 7 and I slept in with her until 11am, then snuck out to get going again.

That day was the day of a million little details. I tidied up the plumbing, and tested out the spray bar. The return lines were tight, so I glued them to their bulkheads.

On the bright side, I LOVED the flow pattern out of the spray bar. On the downside, the fittings on the vertical run leaked like sieves. Being my first construction a few months ago and not wanting it to be "messy", apparently I had gone a little light on the cement.

I popped out to Lowes to buy more fittings, and came back and built a new standpipe. Clearly getting a little tired by that point, I measured three times and STILL got the thing wrong because I didn't have the spray bar in place. Arg. Back to Lowes in the 5 mins before it closed at 8pm.

Getting home, I added in the emergent driftwood (which inevitably floated). When I tried to get it out of the way of us walking by I pried loose the right side submerged wood and caused an underwater avalanche. Many, many unnice things went through my mind, and the rest of the hiargrass let loose.

Getting back to the return line, I THANKFULLY got that one right, but ended up knocking two of the internal spray bar supports off the tank wall. The bar was still stable, so I'll just have to partially drain the tank sometime and silicone them back on. I want to build a few riparium planters into the overflow, so then will be a good time to do that. The fish should be fine for a day as the silicone cures if I leave an airstone going.

Tuning the overflow was a bit of a PIA, so I clearly have something funny going on. It's supposed to be self priming on the main line, but mine isn't. All the safety drains work great, but it takes a bit of fussing to get the main line to draw. Once it's going it's pretty quiet, but I'll have to check when I'm thinking straight again. When the main isn't draining the secondary sucks a bunch of air into the sump, which is loud and annoying.

The Mag7 pump is pretty loud too. Hopefully it quietens down or it'll be turned into my drain pump. My wife was fine with it, it just bugs me a bit.

In the end, it looked like this:









About 10 pm last night I released the fish from their 29, after spending a couple of hours slowly flushing the tank with RO water. The fish were thrilled it seemed with their new home, and the video I linked above showed the results. 

Everyone seemed okay this morning when I went to fertilize the tank, but I'll look closer later. The overflow was gurgling a bit, so I need to tweak that a little too.


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## thegirlundertherainbow (Aug 12, 2004)

*C.Pygmaeus*



AdamTill said:


> Just a journal note to remind myself when I brought some pygmaeus cories home (8). Msjinkzd was nice enough to pass along some notes to me, and she's another one who noted that her otos (cocamas) spawned after cories did.


Do you keep c.Pygmaeus with otos or alone? I have a 20g long I'm keeping the two together in ( with nerites and rcs)


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

I've done both. They're mixed right now, and they'll shoal together (can be hard to tell apart at a glance). I added them because they generally don't eat eggs or fry, and use more of the water volume than the otos generally do.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Quick update, many details to follow.

Riparium plants!










Planted plants!


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## Boreas (Jan 24, 2016)

What are those riparium plants? I'm looking for a riparium plant that stays low.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Boreas said:


> What are those riparium plants? I'm looking for a riparium plant that stays low.


I can give a good guess at what I bought, but I can't guarantee they'll stay small. There's a thread in the riparium forum that would be a good one to check out. My main focuses were riparium friendly and cat safe, and plan to prune to keep things in check.

So, in no particular order:
Parlour Palm Chamaedorea elegans
Red and white nerve plants (fittonia)
Croton petra
Umbrella plant cyperus alternafolia
Prayer plant maranta leuconeura
Irish moss sangina subulata
Christmas moss (no, not the submerged version) selanginella vareigata
Frosty fern (also a selanginella)
Some palm
Hypoestes phyllostachya
Spider plant
Various tillandsia


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Okay, update time. Though the big part of the weekend was devoted to the riparium planted, the most important part was fixing a guard fence to the overflow. Though I'd hoped that the fish would avoid going over the falls, and indeed I never found a cory anywhere close despite them spending so much time playing near the surface, my original design quickly got names the "otocincerator." 5 dead, 2 rescued over three days...felt terrible.

I tried a few different things over those days, but the real fix was to install a proper fish fence the length of the overflow. I still got good flow, but this was the only system that wasn't noisy and didn't have gaps etc the otos could exploit. Simple craft mesh siliconed to the overflow, and overlapped for strength. Not super noticeable with the emersed plants too, which is nice.




























While I had the tank partially drained I also took the chance to install a couple of frame rails to support a riparium divider. The divider consisted of a clear plate more holes than plate to allow water to pass through, but not clay pellets. The holes were only in the lower half of the plate too, so that no gravel cap escaped. There's also a small sheet of full height craft mesh that gets placed in there between the supports which are siliconed to the wall and the clear plate. The clay pellets keep everything in place.










Lastly, I reinstalled the spray bar supports which had been knocked off before:










Tank sat like this for 24 hours with a circulation pump going (with big foam oto guard in place over the intake):










Next was planting the riparium plants, which was a lot of fun. I didn't use a cap over the clay right away because I didn't have over available, but it worked for a short term solution. Right now the clay rises and falls with the water level, but I'll cap,it when I get some appropriate gravel.

The plants were obtained from a few different local nurseries, and were refreshingly inexpensive compared to aquatic plants. I did as much research as I could in advance, but since they're often labelled "tropical plant" sometimes the exact species etc was a bit of a crap shoot. We'll see how they do. Apparently a lot of what causes root rot in plants is a lack of oxygen in stagnant water at the bottom of pots, and hopefully that isn't the case here.

Planting was a simple case of washing all the dirt and fertilizer off the roots,,separating into stems, and arranging to suit. I tried to keep as much stem above water as possible in all cases, and nothing looked terrible the next day.


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## anfield (Dec 1, 2013)

wow. nice work.
Do you think you will have enough light getting into the tank?


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

On the lighting side, I have two full length Sunblaster T5"HOs" (in parentheses because I'm not sure if they're real HOs) and two half length ones. The full length ones are as close to the water surface as I can get, I have one half lengther above the emersed plants, and another half length sans reflector behind the tank for the vals.










The vals weren't getting much light under the overflow, so I added this auxiliary light. They hadn't been wanting to root, so I'm hoping this helps. I removed the reflector to allow the light to disperse a bit.










The lights are all a bit crude right now since I'm still playing with placement, but I have a good feeling they'll generally work out. I suspect I'd like to replace the emersed light with a full length strip, but I'll see how they go.










Still on the list of remaining tasks is to figure out why my siphon line doesn't love to prime itself, create a mini planter for these ferns above the intake, and come up with a planting plan for the branches. Having them out of water for a few days means we're back to waiting for things to sink again, and then I'll start attaching the tillys and moss to the branches.










Btw, does Java fern pup from its leaves? I confess I've never noticed before if so, but it's always been buried way back on my tanks.










And fin for this evening:










Bump:


anfield said:


> wow. nice work.
> Do you think you will have enough light getting into the tank?


Thanks! You posted while I was writing about the lights, but I think so. If not, it's easy enough to add another T5 strip.

I'm actually enjoying having a longer photo period too, since even the short single lights were really too much over 20Ls

After I know I have the right mix, I'll make a hanging system that's more classy.


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## Freemananana (Jan 2, 2015)

More classy than string? Get out of town!

Looking great so far. I'm a rip fan myself.


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## vanish (Apr 21, 2014)

"Btw, does Java fern pup from its leaves?"

Yes it does.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Freemananana said:


> More classy than string? Get out of town!
> 
> Looking great so far. I'm a rip fan myself.


Um, twisted hemp natural fibre cord please. Jeez 

But thanks, been fun so far. I've never been drawn to them in the past, but Don Boyer's rip really sold me on the concept. 

My wife has already asked for a larger planter off the back too, which I'm happy to oblige in making. Just have to keep it to non-flowering plants for the most part, since she's allergic to most pollens.

Bump:


vanish said:


> "Btw, does Java fern pup from its leaves?"
> 
> Yes it does.


Good to know! I was always thinking it was getting tangled up in itself or something of the sort.


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## AquaAurora (Jul 10, 2013)

My java fern is constantly spitting out plantlets and the mother leaf it grow on dieing (gets annoying cleaning out the decomposed leaves). My narrow leaf, needle leaf, philipine,and threadleaf all don't do much with the baby making.. they just grow.

Riparium set up looks good. The dwarf palm you have may get big pretty fast-mines breaching the 24" mark after 2 years. I've wanted to try the woody stemmed croton but haven't yet. I'm curious to see how it does on your tank.


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## Freemananana (Jan 2, 2015)

I'm torn on the rip concept myself. I like the plants and I think they are a beautiful addition. But the lighting and planters themselves are questionable. I never had the ability to hang stuff, so I ran into issues there.


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## theatermusic87 (Jun 22, 2014)

Looks like it's coming along beautifully! I'm very surprised your otos are so suicidal though, mine never seen ty go anywhere near anything they can get stuck in

As to your drain not priming the siphon, it may be too a lack of sufficient return for for the size pipe your using. You can also try raising your non siphon drain an inch or 2, this will allow a bit more water to collect in your overflow possibly alleviating your problems.


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## vanish (Apr 21, 2014)

AquaAurora said:


> My java fern is constantly spitting out plantlets and the mother leaf it grow on dieing (gets annoying cleaning out the decomposed leaves). My narrow leaf, needle leaf, philipine,and threadleaf all don't do much with the baby making.. they just grow.


Yup, pretty much the same. My regular java fern and windelov are always throwing out babies, whereas the other varieties tend to grow their rhizomes. I have a ton of java ferns in my 150G and get to watch how they are grow differently.



AquaAurora said:


> I've wanted to try the woody stemmed croton but haven't yet. I'm curious to see how it does on your tank.


I have a group of those crotons planted in a pot next to my planter filter and I have always been tempted to put one in. Glad to see you're doing it for us!

The awesome thing about connected planters is you never have to water them!


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## AquaAurora (Jul 10, 2013)

Freemananana said:


> I'm torn on the rip concept myself. I like the plants and I think they are a beautiful addition. But the lighting and planters themselves are questionable. I never had the ability to hang stuff, so I ran into issues there.


You could build an in-tank sump with lexan to hike planters and use a lot of lava rock or clay media (no planted) to fill up the back (with a mesh divider to separate pump/heater from riparium substrate) and put plants onto-massive bio media surface area. Cut slits/small holes in the lexan to let water pass through easily.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Time for an update, given it's a few weeks on.

On the plant side, I can report everything trucking along just fine. I can't keep the prayer plant out of the water for love or money, so I just don't try anymore; it doesn't seem to be suffering for it. The leaves move and rollup and extend as they see fit, and I just go with it.

Everything else seems to be doing great. I don't have an obvious measurement to see heights or anything, but I'm sure it will become apparent in photos. Some leaves are dipping into the water, but the tank sucks up nitrates like crazy anyway so I don't bother cutting them back. I've had to up my fertilizer addition to keep from having 0 nitrates, though I'd like a little less phosphate in the future compare to the mix I'm currently using.

I did cap the clay pellets with heavy black river rock so they don't float, and so things are stable now when I stop and start the circulation pump.




























The underwater plants are doing okay as a whole, though some of the carpeting plants aren't loving their new home. Most of them are fine, but individual stems here and there are turning red/dying off. Others are growing though, so I suspect it's something like transplant shock:










On the success side, one of my anubias flowered:










...and the vals are MUCH happier with the backlight and are starting to grow like vals again.

I also gave up on a delicate hairgrass carpet and just jammed tufts in where they'd stick. The peat on that slope is like trying to plant in aerated icing sugar, so I called it a success to get what I did. At this point it lives or it doesn't:










On the livestock front, I've got a bunch of really fat, sassy and randy fish it seems. 

After talking with a researcher at UofF who's breeding otos as a pHD project (I think), he suggested bumping the tank temp to 81F and adding Repashy food. I'd been meaning to use it for months and was just being lazy, but I added a good chunk yesterday and it was gone within hours.

He said vittatus didn't really seem to have a trigger, but responded to a tank with a spawning mop, good food, and relatively high temp.

My plan is to do a simulated dry season now, with the higher temp to start with and just enough nitrate management via plants/small water changes to keep the TDS increasing. The otos may spawn on their own before a cool change is done, but if not, I'll let this go for a few months and then try a big water change during a storm front/low pressure event.

There isn't a ton of surface movement in the main tank since I raised my water level above the spray bar (made the siphon start easier), so I added two powerheads pointing upwards in the sump. The plants probably don't appreciate the murkier surface layer in the tank obstructing some of the light, so I may need to redrill some surface agitation holes in the bar. I've already got a 14 hour (with 4 hour break) photo period, and only a bit of hair algae on the java fern.










That and the higher temp really seem to have made a difference in evaporation rate (ironically a good thing in my case), so I add about 10 gallons a week now in top up water from the feed line.

I've been feeding like crazy, eliminating the off days, and almost doubling the food amount of both pellets and veggies, and I've been seeing results. It's a funny tank...one minute it seems like there's no fish in the whole thing, and other they're all out and swarming.

Little piggies:










https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24ufDTXEo7M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2KyMwV-Rws

The corys were DEFINITELY trio-ing off yesterday with the males hounding the fat females. Going to continue to fatten them up for a few more weeks, then maybe try a little cool water change if I can't resist.

Even the otos were even pairing off and acting a little...odd. They normally sort of follow each other around, but these two in particular caught my eye with this little dance they were doing. Not 100% normal oto behaviour, so I'm keeping an eye on them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6jQjXz_hF8

Haven't posted any livestock photos for a bit, so I'll leave you there. Seem to be all coloured up well, and getting noticeably plumper. Fingers crossed!


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

After seeing the breeding behaviour last week, and having a big snowstorm (sort of) yesterday, I couldnt resist a cold water change in the main tank today. It seems to have yielded eggs!

"Big" ones:



























Little ones, about a quarter of the size:



























Think I can at least say they aren't snail eggs, at least. All the snails in this tank aren't even as big as the bigger eggs.

I noticed the sump had a bit of peat building up in it (filter is a little coarse), so I pulled half the water out, stored the filter biomaterial, and vacuumed it out. 

While that was going on I added a container of thawed frozen baby brine shrimp, and as usual everyone came out to play in a big school. Can't really tell if they all school up because they like the calm water, or the lack of circulation spooks them into thinking something is wrong (figure the latter).

I then filled the sump back up with cool water at 70F instead of the main tank's 80F, and turned things back on.

In the evening I noticed these


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## WaterLife (Jul 1, 2015)

Good work!

I am going to be doing a large community breeding tank pretty soon, breeding some dwarf shrimp (Neos and maybe Caridinas), Corydoras hastatus (and maybe the other dwarfs, C. habrosus and C. pygmaeus, and maybe Aspidoras as well. Thinking of adding some other mini fish to breed as well, but haven't put my finger on a species yet. I am also considering breeding a species of Otocinclus in there as well.

Any recommendations on what species of Otocinclus, or a close relative genus of Otos, such as Parotocinclus, Nannoptopoma/Hypoptopoma, Hisonotus, etc. I should breed?

Which genus and/or species is more likely to eat eggs and/or fry? I have not yet researched many of the genus/species so sorry if this or that species is more well known to have a meatier diet. Just looking for pointers.

Would really like to be able to breed a less common species, just to help make them more available in the hobby. But alas, I know rarer often comes with being harder to breed or even keep alive.

That brings me to which species proves harder to breed and which are easier?

If you know a source for the fish you would recommend, let me know!
I usually buy through Wet Spot Tropical Fish, as they get in less common fish.
Here are some "Otos" they occasionally get in stock
https://www.google.com/search?q=wet...ved=0ahUKEwj1jJn6lJzLAhVB6GMKHeHVCZIQ_AUIBigB
But I think I have seen MsJinkzd or her friends get in some other less common "otos", so I could see what she can get.

Hisonotus aky ("green oto") is one I would like to get a hold of.

Keep up the good work!


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

My sources up here probably wouldn't do you much good (Canada), but I wouldn't hesitate to recommend MsJinkzd. Heard good things about Wet Spot too.

If you can get o.vittatus (smallest variety, solid lateral stripe with little connected tail dot) they're the ones people seem to have the most success with. The odds of oto babies surviving in a community tank aren't very high, however. They're tough to breed at the best of times, so if you're serious about wanting fry a species or near-species tank is your best bet. Shrimp are a maybe, pygmy cories a maybe, but much else tends to enjoy fry or eggs as snacks.

Get fish that will tolerate 81F if you want to breed, too.


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## touch of sky (Nov 1, 2011)

Your tank is looking great, and congratulations on the eggs. I hope they hatch!


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## WaterLife (Jul 1, 2015)

I've researched the fish I planned on breeding in this set up and they shouldn't harm any eggs or fry (they won't even eat their own). But some of the eggs in your pics do seem a bit smaller so maybe the smallest eggs would get eaten, but most should be fine. Shrimp and snails will actually keep fungus from growing on the eggs (the species I will keep won't harm the fertilized eggs). Haven' really found a upper water column fish that would fit the bill, but looks like it would be a nano fish species with a mouth too small to eat any eggs or fry (micro rasboras or some other boraras sp.).

The set up I plan should pretty much be just as good as a species only tank due to the other fish pretty much being of no threat. The tank will be heavily planted as well, and I will be sure to provide ample amounts of food (even natural growing algae and microfauna)

Otos trigger a spawn with 81*F water? I know other Loricariidae such as plecos can spawn with warmer temps, but I thought most Otos were cooler water fish and cold water changes trigger spawning (just like Corydoras).

O. vittatus huh? Isn't that one of the common otos? I think I will pass on that species since there's already enough of the commons in the hobby. Want to be more "beneficial" to the hobby by "expanding horizons" with breeding less common species to make them more available. I will research the species I can get a hold of and see what can fit into my program/set up (care requirements and spawning triggers).

Thanks for the info!


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

touch of sky said:


> Your tank is looking great, and congratulations on the eggs. I hope they hatch!


Thanks! Me too. The smaller ones were gone the next day, sadly, but the bigger ones seem okay (still look viable).

Bump:


WaterLife said:


> I've researched the fish I planned on breeding in this set up and they shouldn't harm any eggs or fry (they won't even eat their own). But some of the eggs in your pics do seem a bit smaller so maybe the smallest eggs would get eaten, but most should be fine. Shrimp and snails will actually keep fungus from growing on the eggs (the species I will keep won't harm the fertilized eggs). Haven' really found a upper water column fish that would fit the bill, but looks like it would be a nano fish species with a mouth too small to eat any eggs or fry (micro rasboras or some other boraras sp.).
> 
> The set up I plan should pretty much be just as good as a species only tank due to the other fish pretty much being of no threat. The tank will be heavily planted as well, and I will be sure to provide ample amounts of food (even natural growing algae and microfauna)


That seems at face value to be a workable plan, though bank on a softwater, low pH tank as well. Have never seen a spawning report with viable fry above pH 7.5, ~200TDS.

Keep in mind too that the otos may be inhibited by the presence of other species, though I have no idea if this is the case.



WaterLife said:


> Otos trigger a spawn with 81*F water? I know other Loricariidae such as plecos can spawn with warmer temps, but I thought most Otos were cooler water fish and cold water changes trigger spawning (just like Corydoras).


If only it was that easy. 81F will speed up their metabolism and allow the females to develop gravidity quicker. Triggers are largely unknown.

You can't say "otos do such and such" any more than you can say that for "tetras do such and such". Breeding congo/neon/blue/lemon/cardinal tetras isn't a uniform process, and nor is it the case with otos. Oto isn't a species, it's a genus, and a hugely distributed one.



WaterLife said:


> O. vittatus huh? Isn't that one of the common otos? I think I will pass on that species since there's already enough of the commons in the hobby. Want to be more "beneficial" to the hobby by "expanding horizons" with breeding less common species to make them more available. I will research the species I can get a hold of and see what can fit into my program/set up (care requirements and spawning triggers).


The only species the hobby cares about is o.cocama, honestly. Anything else is a specialists' concern. Can you honestly see someone being willing to order "tetras" and get a grab bag of any old tetra when they show up? People don't blink at doing so with otos.



WaterLife said:


> Thanks for the info!


No problemo.


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## touch of sky (Nov 1, 2011)

How long should it take for them to hatch?


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

touch of sky said:


> How long should it take for them to hatch?


Thinking about three days, but it's just a guess. First for me!


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## touch of sky (Nov 1, 2011)

Great, not too long to wait


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Well, sort of an anticlimactic update. Eggs disappeared, and didn't appear to be eaten, but I haven't noticed fry. It's 100 gallons of course, so I could have a bunch of critters in there that I've never seen yet lol. The eggs were there until Wed, then just sort of went poof.

On the weekend I added a few amano shrimp to the mix. Never kept shrimp before, but they seemed like a good option for going after some hair algae that I can't quite get rid of. I've read that they're pretty benign around eggs and fry, so I might get a few more if they work out.

Also started up the quarantine tank last week to house 16 genuine o.vittatus that I got for $2.40 each. That's about half the price I normally see, and I jumped at the chance because I only have a few of the little guys, and they seem the easiest to breed. After that addition, I think I may call it quits on the fish side for a while and just let the tank sit and develop. Dropped them into the tank with some peat and spawning mops for cover, and they seem to all still be there.


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## touch of sky (Nov 1, 2011)

I hope you get a surprise and they some out of hiding in a few days and show up as fry.


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## theatermusic87 (Jun 22, 2014)

touch of sky said:


> I hope you get a surprise and they some out of hiding in a few days and show up as fry.


I hope so too! It's been almost 2 weeks, so maybe they take longer than you expected


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Thanks! Still nothing. That said, nobody would believe there are 40 otos in there until feeding time either.


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## jlfkona (Jan 1, 2013)

Any updates?


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Nothing ground breaking, just sort of in maintenance mode.

The fish budget right now is $40/2 weeks, so a little on the low side to do very much. I'm saving up to buy another sump pump of the same make and model as the circulation pump, in order to function both as a backup in case of issues and as a sump drain pump (right now I'm still draining change water in buckets, not a fan). 

I had batch of 16 o.vittatus that I picked up for $2.50 each which made it through quarantine like champs, and it was my first experience trying the "plop and drop" method of basically NOT acclimating fish. Worked well, certainly a lot easier on me and supposedly on the fish as well. No losses, and they disappeared into the jungle without complaint.

Plants above and below water are doing well, and I'll try to grab some new pictures soon. Have to raise the emersed grow light soon since the plants are basically up to that height, and it could do to be a longer lamp too. Only a few of the more shaded plants have died back, otherwise everything seems okay. Lost some of the mosses by not watering/spraying enough...too much work if they're so picky you can't miss a day here and there so no big loss.

Still have a bit of an algae issue, but it's stabilizing at least and doesn't look quite so bad. I pull the spray bar and clean it off every couple of weeks to get rid of hair algae there (right under the light), and the amano shrimp are making a little dent in the algae on the java (added 6 amano shrimp a few weeks ago). I'll pick up some more of them later on to boost the cleaning efforts, and since my wife really likes them. Can't get enough light to the carpet plants without getting algae higher up, and so I can live with a cleaning crew taking up the slack.

Gave up on finding a Uruguayan sword since it just isn't available right now, and planted an echinodorus "el diablo" as my centerpiece plant instead. Newish hybrid that I haven't found much info on, but came recommended. The other swords are all doing great, if growing slowly (fine by me).

Carpet plants are spreading, though the hairgrass is all toast. Sans CO2, not super surprising. The others are spreading slowly, but growing well.

The corys are still as happy as ever, and are due to get a boost in numbers after the drain pump arrives. 

All in all, though, same number of fish as before


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

We have baby cories! Or at least one lol


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Tiny little guy:


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## jlfkona (Jan 1, 2013)

AdamTill said:


> Tiny little guy:




This is awesome! Congratulations!!!


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

So turns out there are at least three juvie corys in there, which means that I'm sure there are more. Nice to see! Barely ever see the otos at all anymore since the Val jungle is getting thicker, so at this point even if they spawned I'm not sure I'd know lol

Anyway, saved up enough fish money to buy a drain pump. It's the same as the main pump, which though overkill for the drain (can drain the whole sump in a couple of minutes), it provides a hot spare in case the return pump conks out.

Drained the sump and dried it on Friday, keeping all the bio material stored nicely in buckets. Set up a powerhead in the display tank to keep things circulating. Created new pump mounts to have them both drawing from the pump well, and siliconed everything in place. Today I got things hooked up and tested (works well), and I'm just about to refill the sump from the RO fill line (4-5 hours).










The line with the ball valve on it is for the main tank return. Adding the ball valve means that I can not have the return line lose prime and drain back during maintenance, which adds a bunch of junk back into the sump. The smaller line is just off a tiny powerhead which I use to circulate water when the sump is isolated, while I'm bringing it up to temp or to maintain flow across the biomaterial.










Here's the wall connections. Upper is the full line, lower is the drain line.

Last bit of plumbing I'd like to add is a thermostatic mixing valve on the RO feed line. Right now it comes straight off the cold water. That's generally fine sinc the fill rate is so small, but it's quite cold if I have to refill the whole sump.

Lastly, we got some cherry shrimp to add a bit of colour to the tank. Brought the GH up a bit to 3-4 and the temp down to 75 to accommodate the shrimp by mixing in a bit of tap, but otherwise mainly filling with RO. The general consensus here on the forums is that the Amanos shouldn't hurt them, but the lhs sure seemed to think it would be a bad idea. We'll see I guess! My wife wanted a bit of colour in the tank and I've been having a bba issue, so this seemed like a nice move. Be fun to have a 90 full of shrimp too, and unlike the Amanos these will hopefully be able to breed if they're happy.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Hooked up the sump, stirred everything up, out popped this (or these, can't tell) guys. Neat stripes! Literally no idea of species at this point, but a year of effort seems to have paid off. So happy!


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## theatermusic87 (Jun 22, 2014)

I love how the title of the thread changes every time there is an update 

Excellent that there is fry, did you do anything specific or is it just random/seasonal?


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Thanks  Nothing super new, mainly bumping the temp for a bit. Still don't know which species this is, so that will determine what worked, to some degree.


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## Lonestarbandit (Feb 7, 2013)

I am confused. Are they cory, Oto or a whatsit?
Or is everyone on different talking points lol.
Seems to me to be Pygmy Cory but not the last whatsit.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

The newest photo of the fry with a bunch of horizontal stripes is an oto, just too little to tell what species (there are 3, maybe 4 species of oto in here).

Also have c.pygmaeus fry from juvie down to eggs which got laid last night. Very easy to tell Cory from oto fry even when tiny, by how they move.


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## jlfkona (Jan 1, 2013)

I love you have set up your tank to meet the needs of your fish. It us awesome they are breeding well! Congrats!!


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## Lonestarbandit (Feb 7, 2013)

That is quite cool. 
I love pygmy cory and Otos.
Just ordered 20 from someone (pygmy)
Have about 15 oto.
They are so much fun to watch.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Thanks folks! Should have a pretty full tank at this rate with the way things are going. Just realized everything we have at the moment is breeding too, if it can. Have baby otos and pygmy corys, the lamprologus multifasciatus babies are getting brave enough to leave the shell bed more and more, and even the nerites and seed snails are breeding (or trying). Seems like everyone is pretty happy...which makes me happy!

Could definitely do with about 1000 fewer seed snails, but given that I like to overfeed the big 90 to make sure it's easy for fry to find food I can live with that. I figure almost anything that will eat snails will also eat fry, so I just live with the snails. Might pick up a few more assassin snails at some point.


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## Lonestarbandit (Feb 7, 2013)

I wish my nerites would STOP trying. Eggs everywhere. Gah.


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## WaterLife (Jul 1, 2015)

Congrats on the fry!

The 4 Otocinclus species won't crossbreed?

I'm thinking assassin snails would eat fish eggs, maybe even wigglers if it can latch onto them before the swim away.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Lonestarbandit said:


> I wish my nerites would STOP trying. Eggs everywhere. Gah.


Lol, too true. The multis get offended by things in their territory (eggs, debris, small snails) and dispose of them into neat little garbage piles, so it's not too bad for me.



WaterLife said:


> Congrats on the fry!
> 
> The 4 Otocinclus species won't crossbreed?
> 
> I'm thinking assassin snails would eat fish eggs, maybe even wigglers if it can latch onto them before the swim away.


Thanks! Nope, no cross breeding ever reported. Not sure anyone's ever done enough breeding of these guys to say it can't happen though, and I'd be fine to establish otocinlus adamus some day lol.

I'm sure the assassins would eat eggs if ever hungry enough, but they're way overfed and lazy in my tank. The eggs are always on the leaves, and the assassins are always on the tank floor and glass. No way they'd ever be able to sneak up on a fry too, way too slow. Plus, with only 2 in a 90 gallon, the odds aren't enough to worry about.


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## Lonestarbandit (Feb 7, 2013)

Multis???

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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Yep: The Best Dwarf Cichlid for the Beginner (Full Article) | Freshwater | Feature Articles | TFH Magazine®

Different tank of course.


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## Lonestarbandit (Feb 7, 2013)

Ah yes I was thinking same tank he's crazy lol

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## vision (Sep 29, 2015)

so exciting!


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## end3r.P (Aug 31, 2015)

Lonestarbandit said:


> I wish my nerites would STOP trying. Eggs everywhere. Gah.


This. I was not aware that they would still lay tons of eggs when I put a trio in my 5-gallon. Eggs all over the glass. Oh well.


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## Lonestarbandit (Feb 7, 2013)

Yes I was equally clueless till they went mental.

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## AquaAurora (Jul 10, 2013)

Gratz on your fry!


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Three months growth!










Well, haven't seen the little oto fry lately, but his cory friends have been growing up nicely and other generations have also made themselves known. I haven't done a good "clean and stir" in a while, so maybe he or she'll make themselves known again then.

On the shrimp side, this first batch of reds almost died out entirely, where after a week only two were left. I checked with a local expert who said everything looked good (parameters etc), and picked up some more hoping I'd just had a bad batch. These new ones are doing much better, so I'm hoping they stick around this time.

In the mean time, I've been taking a page out of jlfkona's book and added a few pear tree branches to the tank. After checking to see that pear wasn't supposed to be toxic, I took a chance on adding the branches bark on. That can be a bad idea because bark often has chemicals in it to repel critters, and thus can be toxic in a tank, but the fish and shrimp seem to LOVE it. I'm seeing otos out in the open for the first time in forever!

Plans for the next wee while include saving up for an order from TanninAquatics (love their stuff), and getting ready to FINALLY stain the stand. I'm also scheming up a way to add a TON of more riparium space for emersed plants, which will combine with an effort to hide some of the equipment. The spray bar should ultimately get concealed, and I'm hoping to also find a way to get a different heater into the sump (this one ended up too big to fit, hence why it's been exposed all this time).

Anyway, here are a few photos. The branch-scape isn't permanent, but I'm liking where it's heading. Forgive the random hovering rock, it's holding things down at the moment.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Quick little update- new in tank planter!

I've decided that the next long term update to the planting of this tank is going to be two 24" long, tiered planters across the back. That should make for both an awesome look, and an amazing amount of filtration for the tank. It's tiny little bioload should be next to nothing compared to what the plants are kicking out.

For now, I wanted to fill in some of the weak above water space on the left side. The garden centers are full of pond plants right now, and it seemed like a great chance to pick up some new options to try out.

I chose these:









The "planter" was my in-tank recovery chamber, last used to nurse a little shellie back to health that the others were picking on (she's great, and a new mama).

Planting went straightforward...remove dirt, wash off fertilizers, add to tank under clay balls. Cover with gravel.










Finished planter:










Ta da:



















Don't love the look of the clay balls at the waterline, but it'll work for now until the rear planters are ready. Could paint the planter tank black, but I'd rather not.


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## jlfkona (Jan 1, 2013)

Awesome - what a great idea! Something I might need to look into!!


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## Lonestarbandit (Feb 7, 2013)

Very artistic I like it!

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## TaylorTurner (Mar 15, 2016)

This tank/project is so awesome. Well done!


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## monkeyruler90 (Apr 13, 2008)

awesome set up!


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Thanks folks! Slowly winning the war on bba too, which is nice. Not much this weekend other than maintenance on this tank, the Shellie tank, and the goldfish tank. Just soaking my airplants here...definitely the easiest way to do this.


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## TaylorTurner (Mar 15, 2016)

I'm glad I'm not the only one who soaks my epiphytes in the aquarium.


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## theatermusic87 (Jun 22, 2014)

TaylorTurner said:


> I'm glad I'm not the only one who soaks my epiphytes in the aquarium.


Me too!


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

I tried misting, but I'm not diligent enough, or I kill them with overmisting (killed two via rot).


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## Jamo33 (Feb 18, 2014)

Awesome set up, read it all the way through, definitely an impressive tank. Hopefully the oto's start becoming extremely productive! That would be some success story!


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## AquaAurora (Jul 10, 2013)

AdamTill said:


> Don't love the look of the clay balls at the waterline, but it'll work for now until the rear planters are ready. Could paint the planter tank black, but I'd rather not.


I hope you have good luck with the fiber optic grass, I didn't (I think both my humidity and light was too low). As for planter container I've spray painted several of mine black using the Krylon fusion spray paint, works great! Or you could super glue some moss to the front of the planter to grow and hide the balls.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

AquaAurora said:


> I hope you have good luck with the fiber optic grass, I didn't (I think both my humidity and light was too low). As for planter container I've spray painted several of mine black using the Krylon fusion spray paint, works great! Or you could super glue some moss to the front of the planter to grow and hide the balls.


Nope, it all died; only the umbrella grass made it. This planter submerges even the crowns of the plants because it's stuck to the overflow, which is too much depth for these species. I'm *almost* done with the new planter supports which will allow crowns out of the water, so I'll try again with those once they're plumbed in.

On the fish side, the pygmy cories decided that they didn't want to be in the open anymore, and took up residence in the vals at the back. That was the final straw - I barely saw any fish at all!

After listening to me complaining for a few weeks, my wife was nice enough to surprise me by saying we could buy some new fish for the tank (I'm saving up for a decor change otherwise).

After doing a bit of research to make sure of compatibility, I chose a small herd of brochis splendens. Same food as the rest of the lot, and BIG. They made it through quarantine with flying colours, and seem very happy in the new tank. Their colouration under tannin light is much different (very neat) than in clear water, and you can start to see the point of it.

So, given I doubt these bruisers will be oto fry safe, that may be the end of this chapter for a while. Going to try again with the otos in another setup, but for now, I'm enjoying having FISH! That I can see! All the time!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LS6iV4K2Hk


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Having become enamoured with riparium plants but having run out of space, I contemplated how to add more room on the same tank without breaking it down. I decided that shelves were the best option.

With the limited room available, I eventually decided on two 24" balcony planters. I thought out doing something custom out of plywood, but the cost to waterproof it would really delay my botanical purchases, and I'm already going stir crazy there lol. Eventually I plan to use foam or something of the sort to hide the planters and give the illusion of an eroded riverbank.

Here are the shelves in progress and finished. They needed a multitude of cutouts to accommodate valve, piping and light access, but they came out pretty decently in the end.

What they look like before contorting them in place behind plants and wires:









With notches:









Slid into place:









Allowing for valve and cleanout access:









Planter box on top:









Some over under baffles to try to ensure not too many stagnant places in the planter:









Once I'm happy with everything I'll stain it all, but given I keep saying that I'm not making anymore promises.

Some other residents to come out of quarantine today:









...and a male:









They LOVE the residents/fungus that form on newly submerged branches, so I plan to swap those out as needed.

Also picked up some new bronze finish curtain rods to replace my ghetto light hangers, and some decorative chain. Those will be a future project.


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## BrynjarK (Jun 20, 2016)

*Hey!*

Just had to comment on your project man, it was supposed to be a quick google on ottos and now 1 hour (or more?) later im just stunned man. I keep an 12 year old alligator snapping turtle in a 700 litre tank and i have a cuviers caiman with 300 liters water and 3 m2 land, so i concider myself pretty dedicated but man i have to do something radical with my 54 liters otto tank now!

So utter respect for wanting to breed this awesome but kamikaze species and congratulations on succeding! Man must be an awesome feeling

And thanks for a great read and inspiration, love your plumming set up, food for though!


- Brynjar Konradsson, Dk


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## AquaAurora (Jul 10, 2013)

Bwahahahahah! The riparium bug has claimed another!
I know how you feel about the itch to buy more plants for the riparium. I have my 55g cram packed with plants, plus my 20g long, my 2.5.. and my 3g bubble bowl... also my 40g breeder is growing veggies. I have to avoid looking at potential plants when I'm out or I'll end up with more I have no room for (already having that problem with some aquatic plants >.>'' ).
The 'nose' on your new fish are quite amusing.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Yep, totally converted. I really want to just make this a leaf-litter, blackwater tank, and move the aquatic plants over to my goldfish tank. If the make it, they make it, otherwise I don't have to feed the goldfish for a while lol.

Really just tired of the balancing act between enough light/ferts etc to get the carpet to stay healthy (but so much to get TOO much BGA or hair algae etc etc) without CO2, and TOTALLY not interested in CO2 in any tiny way.

My wife also gets frustrated that she doesn't know if the fish are healthy because they (otos/pygmies) are always hiding in the plants. 55 otos went in, but I have NO idea how many are left. I suspect the weir claimed a good number, sadly, and I regret that choice. In the next iteration I just plan to have gravel and emergent plants in the weir, but not piled deep enough to risk a fish that somehow gets over the mesh. The mesh itself needs to be higher too, but disguised a bit for aesthetics.

On the fish side, I really like farlowellas - always entertaining to watch move about, and never scared to stay out in the open.


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## AquaAurora (Jul 10, 2013)

AdamTill said:


> Yep, totally converted. I really want to just make this a leaf-litter, blackwater tank, and move the aquatic plants over to my goldfish tank. If the make it, they make it, otherwise I don't have to feed the goldfish for a while lol.
> 
> Really just tired of the balancing act between enough light/ferts etc to get the carpet to stay healthy (but so much to get TOO much BGA or hair algae etc etc) without CO2, and TOTALLY not interested in CO2 in any tiny way.
> 
> ...


I find my goldfish don't bother the plants if I give them a good vegetable based diet. I always keep cucumber in the tank for them and feed repashy soilent green (as well as pellets). But I don't have anything too delicate since my lights are mostly over the diy in ank sup/aquaponic system where I'm growing their future food. SO I have anubais in tank and a [censor] ton of floating water sprite.
Speak with forum member xjasminex, she keeps more delicate plants with her goldfish just fine and gave me advice on keeping plants with goldfish, gave me the confidence to try goldfish out finally!

I can understand the frustration of not getting to see your fish. I only have life terrestrial plants (riparium style) on my 55g, nothing under water (no light gets past the jungle anyways). I can't see my fish any more though because of all the pothos that's grown over the front tank glass.. plus all the pothos roots. But the fish love it so I don't mess with it. The tank is on a very low table so top of tank is at about hip height and I get a easy view of the riparium plants. If i ever redo the tank I'd probably change the fish stock (keep less/smaller fish) and sell off my (probably 200 feet of) pothos so I could see in again.


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## AdamTill (Jan 22, 2015)

Hi folks,

Been a few months, but I haven't been slacking off in that time. I've actually started to do a few of my logs as YouTube videos, and that's been a bit of a learning curve. I'll post links to those in this update.

The big tank has been humming along with minimal changes, though algae had started to become a constant fight. Additionally, the riparium plants had started to curve towards the light more than normal, and had a few yellowing tips here and there (which can be a million things, I learned).

In an effort to stave off algae I increased the riparium lighting and decreased the aquarium lighting proportion (moved one 58" light from over the tank to over the riparium plants). That was of dubious benefit, since my dwarf sag died back a bit.

I also realized that all my bulbs were getting old, so they got swapped out for new ones.

I debated dropped back on ferts to try to get things back under control, but in the end I decided that killling off my plants to try to control algae wasn't worth it.

On the scape front, I ended up pulling out most of the branches since (though pretty) they were hard to work around. The critters loved them, but they grew hair algae to a level that I couldn't rationalize.

All that done, the tank started to come back into order.

On the fish side, my brochis splendens have been a lot of fun, but they've absolutely leveled the tank in their happy snuffling through the substrate. My poor large sword has most of its root exposed, and the dwarf sag keeps getting buried. Needless to say, the next incarnation of this tank will have a level surface, and a bit of strategic use of wood around the bases of larger plants.

After watching this video on LED Costco shop lights:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I-fUrI5mwo

I decided to look for similar ones up here in Canada. The light output seems good, and the spectrum would likely actually be pretty flattering in a tannin tank.

I couldn't find the exact light, but these seemed similar (bit more lumen output at the same K rating, so hoping for similar PAR performance):
Luminus® LED Shoplight

Two of those fixtures will replace my riparium lights, and will hopefully make for very happy plants there.

The T5's will go downstairs to my new quad 20/29 gal rack, dedicated to otos. I built that out of lumber, and I have a half hour video dedicated to that here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xpf5iV6dgjo

The goldfish and my wife's guppies got new racks too, so my saw has been put to good use lately.

I also got my first order from Tannin Aquatics, which I was thrilled with! My unboxing video is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1eiHa6vrO8

..where I go in detail on the prep for each botanical, and my plans for the near future.

Pictures!
















































































In a nutshell, the fish and shrimp from the 90 will go downstairs, and the tank will be drained and emptied. A new stand will go under the 90, will be scaped, and then the fish will come back up.

The tenative new plan for the 90 is a ton of riparium plants and very few underwater, but with a cool botanical setup. I'm tempted to leave the underwater portion VERY low light, and go with a cool java fern only setup, with only dim light filtering in from above (maybe some bolbitis too).

People who have run java only have said it can look very cool when it isn't competing with other plants for ferts, and that way the brochis can snuflfle to their hearts content without uprooting plants.

I can't wait to play with the Tannin materials too, and it's making my work on the new tank stand seem like it's taking forever


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## longgonedaddy (Dec 9, 2012)

Have fun with the stuff from Tannin, I know I've been.


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