# Mr. Aqua 17G Amazon blackwater biotope-ish



## bcarl_10gal (Feb 13, 2014)

Fellow Tampa tanker here....

Yes our water is hard due to the water coming from the Aquifer (all that limestone). I personally use a RO system because I am on a well with a water softener. I have had success with tank with hard water around 8-10dGH. If you are concerned about it(I wouldnt be in this setup), check out Marine Warehouse, they sell RO water. They also have a good selection of plants if you catch them right after a shipment. This area is very pro-reef though! Good Luck!


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## Freemananana (Jan 2, 2015)

Ro water may do you good. If you keep the set up low tech, you may be able to do mostly top offs with RO water and less frequent water changes (RO water gets pricey from a LFS). I think our store sells it for $0.50 a gallon or so.

FORGOT! The tank looks great. I love the look. The little school of Tetras is adorable. I wouldn't go too crazy. Maybe the pair of fish, but all those pencilfish may add up with such a small tank.


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## doinkmobb (May 12, 2010)

I'm sure the fish will do fine in super hard water, but I'd like to at least make an effort to recreate the softer, acidic waters these fish come from. 

MW is the best place around, but it's still a 30+ minute drive for me. But, being from Tampa, you understand that _everything_ is a 30 minute drive away. Depending on how crazy I want to get, maybe I'll buy an RO system. If only I had a reliable source of rainwater...like the 640,000,000,000 gallons of water that drenched my house for 3 hours the other night, and will continue to do so for the next 4 months.


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## Freemananana (Jan 2, 2015)

A large funnel into a 55 gallon drum. Use some gutter guard to keep leaves out. Is it worth it? Probably not, but it's an idea haha. Pretty much a cistern.


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## Raymond S. (Dec 29, 2012)

So get a larger plastic tub and "collect" it...LOL...
How are you calling T5 low light...curiosity mind you.
A Zoo Med fixture(two bulb?)has rather poor reflector(from reading on here) and that
should work in your favor at that height.
But IF it's not their Reptile fixture/w one bulb...I'd suggest you replace one bulb/w the Flora sun.
And specifically from PE I would do a 7 hr max amount of hrs on the light.
You might make it 3 in the A.M. and then 4 in the P.M. so you can view when you get up and later in the day also. Those Anubias being that close to the light might not survive it still. Perhaps try the type of Pearlweed with an "M" for the first letter in each name of it. This is a picture. Both on the top and bottom right side. Grows very small leaves once out of the water and has lots of roots hanging down(Mangoves)from it
when growing on top like in the top of the wood you have.
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/picture.php?albumid=14281&pictureid=51554
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/picture.php?albumid=14289&pictureid=50361
This plant would love the light and you would need to trim it every two weeks.


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## doinkmobb (May 12, 2010)

Raymond S. said:


> So get a larger plastic tub and "collect" it...LOL...
> How are you calling T5 low light...curiosity mind you.
> A Zoo Med fixture(two bulb?)has rather poor reflector(from reading on here) and that
> should work in your favor at that height.
> But IF it's not their Reptile fixture/w one bulb...I'd suggest you replace one bulb/w the Flora sun.


Sorry, let me explain that a little better.

Yes, it's the two bulb fixture, with only one 6500K bulb on. And on the acrylic insert shield that protects the bulbs from getting wet, I covered a large portion of that with black contact paper and electrical tape in a haphazard fashion. The picture I have up is just with electrical tape on the shield, the contact paper blocks out much more light. I'll try to get a picture of what I'm talking about. 

If the Anubias is unhappy, I'll reduce the photoperiod or block more light. Hopefully the water begins to stain up nicely, which will reduce the usable light also.


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## Raymond S. (Dec 29, 2012)

Great...I have an Odyssea two bulb fixture on a 10g(yea, I know) and my Pettite even on the bottom of the tank got completely covered/w GSA.
Took out one bulb and the GSA has(over a couple of months) gone away.
Don't know if a single bulb in Flora sun would be bright enough. They tend to have poor visible light, but have both blue and red in them. I usually only use one in conjunction/w another type of bulb for the brightness of that second bulb.
Right now in one of my two 10g tanks I have a Reef sun on for 9 hrs and in the middle
a Flora comes on for 3.5 hrs.
Looks like you got it under control. Give the fishies some time, they will color up.


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## doinkmobb (May 12, 2010)

Here is the tank without the modified splash shield in place. Super bright, the fish were immediately not amused by this. This is only the one 6500K bulb, it's blinding with the 10K bulb on too.



Here's the original picture in the first post with just random electrical tape on the splash shield.



Now with contact paper blocking off more light.



Same camera settings for all shots.
And here's the splash shield.



I was messing around with my TDS meter also, here's my readings.
Tap water - 215 ppm
Water from the PUR filter - 215 ppm
Tank water - 415 ppm(!)
Tank water after changing out about 4 gallons - 357 ppm

Tap water isn't as bad as I thought and apparently the PUR filter does nothing. The tank water reading seems high, but there's fish, bacteria and algae living in it and decaying organic material. I've never taken a TDS reading from any aquarium I've owned before, so I have no baseline to...base that on.


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## Freemananana (Jan 2, 2015)

This site seemed pretty good at explaining TDS and helping with the testing:

http://www.theaquariumsolution.us/tds-what-does-it-mean-and-why-should-i-test

I've never checked it personally and likely never will unless I plan on setting up a RO system to change my TDS more than just tap level.


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## doinkmobb (May 12, 2010)

I made some homemade blackwater extract today. I grabbed 12-15 magnolia leaves from my front yard, threw them in the food processor with some water, strained the muck through a media bag and got some nice, dark, tannin-y goodness. 



And it made the tank look excellently murky. Here's a shot with the camera set to auto white balance, making it look clear somehow.



I set the white balance to 6500K and retook the shot. _This _is an accurate representation of how the tank looks, a nice amber tinge.



Not bad for $0 and 8 minutes worth of effort.


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## Crazy Bunny (Jul 23, 2014)

*Nice nice !!!*

I too setting up a Amazon Biotope for my Apristogramma.

I put lots of almond leave and alder cones if you can find some.
those cones can stain your water in no time with just a couple.
and very good for your fish too.


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## skoram (Aug 9, 2012)

another natural way to soften your water is to slowly filter it through sphagnum peat moss. this is what alot of the guys over on apistogramma.com seem to do to make their water more appropriate for blackwater species.

on a separate note, a 200 ppm increase over your tap water is pretty strange. I am assuming you are also not adding any ferts (bad idea if your only plants are anubias), which makes it even stranger, though I have no idea what could be causing that high an increase. even when I go 3 weeks without a water change in one of my tanks with tons of detritus and mulm, it only rises about 50 ppm over the tap.


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## doinkmobb (May 12, 2010)

skoram said:


> another natural way to soften your water is to slowly filter it through sphagnum peat moss. this is what alot of the guys over on apistogramma.com seem to do to make their water more appropriate for blackwater species.
> 
> on a separate note, a 200 ppm increase over your tap water is pretty strange. I am assuming you are also not adding any ferts (bad idea if your only plants are anubias), which makes it even stranger, though I have no idea what could be causing that high an increase. even when I go 3 weeks without a water change in one of my tanks with tons of detritus and mulm, it only rises about 50 ppm over the tap.


I thought about putting some peat in a media bag and sticking it in the Fluval. With the extract though, I can add in a little or a lot, depending on how clear the tanks looks. 

I did add a little bit of ferts when I first put the anubias in, just to give it a jump start. It could be related to that; I don't plan on adding any more ferts to the tank, so I'll see what the TDS meter says at the next water change.


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## doinkmobb (May 12, 2010)

More fun with the TDS meter
Tap water - 265 ppm
Top off water sitting in a bucket - 270 ppm
Tank water - 370 ppm

TDS measurement of the tap water is 25% higher than it was on Thursday. Intredasting. I've got 3 gallons of distilled water waiting to go in when I do my next water change. 

I found some info on what TDS means to a fish in a physiological sense - http://www.tropicalfishkeeping.com/freshwater-general-articles/total-solids-tss-tds-freshwater-aquarium-188697/ 
And this part stood out: *"The TDS in Lake Tanganyika is around 400 ppm. Compare this to the near-zero TDS in many Amazonian streams."* Keeping tetras in an environment better suited to a Tanganyikan cichlid is most likely not doing the fish any favors. 

​


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## skoram (Aug 9, 2012)

adding extract to the tank won't soften the water at all though it may possibly decrease your pH slightly. I think if you can get the TDS down to around 200 tetras should be ok, though some other species like true blackwater apistogramma may have a tough time.


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## doinkmobb (May 12, 2010)

skoram said:


> adding extract to the tank won't soften the water at all though it may possibly decrease your pH slightly. I think if you can get the TDS down to around 200 tetras should be ok, though some other species like true blackwater apistogramma may have a tough time.


Yeah, I understand the tannins are just to increase acidity and promote a certain "authentic" look as well. I've decided against a pair of Apistogramma, I feel like the tank is just a bit too small. Instead, I think I'll add some dwarf pencilfish and some flavor of Cories.


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## chew (May 18, 2012)

doinkmobb said:


> I made some homemade blackwater extract today. I grabbed 12-15 magnolia leaves from my front yard, threw them in the food processor with some water, strained the muck through a media bag and got some nice, dark, tannin-y goodness.


I want to see what the wife would do if I did this lol.

Tank looks nice. Super simple and I cant wait for the anubias roots to grow in


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## Raymond S. (Dec 29, 2012)

Store brands of Blackwater extract seems like the way for me to get consistent 
amounts of it in the water as I do 5x1 g water changes in my 10g tank each week.
So when I change the 5g I'd knock out half my tannins if I tried cones etc or even
spagnum. So If I didn't have a food processor(but I do have a blender) can I take
a half g bottle and just put a "same amount each time" of Magnolia leaves(easy for me) into it with tap water and let it sit for x amount of days ?
I really think it's best to be consistent/w this is why I'm asking and I'd rather it
were cheaper than store brands of the Blackwater extract.

Odd it seems to me, but my tap is 6.6-6.8 PH most of the year. While it comes out at 100 TDS.


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## doinkmobb (May 12, 2010)

chew said:


> I want to see what the wife would do if I did this lol.
> 
> Tank looks nice. Super simple and I cant wait for the anubias roots to grow in


Thanks. 
She wasn't home. I do most of my projects when she's not around or asleep, as to avoid "the business". Even so, sometimes she'll see some sand or filter gunk in the shower and get a little annoyed. 



Raymond S. said:


> Store brands of Blackwater extract seems like the way for me to get consistent
> amounts of it in the water as I do 5x1 g water changes in my 10g tank each week.
> So when I change the 5g I'd knock out half my tannins if I tried cones etc or even
> spagnum. So If I didn't have a food processor(but I do have a blender) can I take
> ...


Makes sense to me. Make a recipe with x amount of leaves and y amount of water and I'm sure the strength would be pretty close each time.


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## skoram (Aug 9, 2012)

doinkmobb said:


> Yeah, I understand the tannins are just to increase acidity and promote a certain "authentic" look as well. I've decided against a pair of Apistogramma, I feel like the tank is just a bit too small. Instead, I think I'll add some dwarf pencilfish and some flavor of Cories.


Your tank footprint is perfectly fine for a pair of most Apisto species - check out apistogramma.com. Most of the "pros" there keep single breeding pairs in 15G longs, though a 10G would probably be too small. The bigger problem is your TDS, but there are a variety of ways to solve that problem. Using distilled water will certainly do the trick, but could get kind of expensive in the long run.


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## andrewss (Oct 17, 2012)

very cool tank! love the blackwater look


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## Beefy (Mar 6, 2015)

skoram said:


> adding extract to the tank won't soften the water at all though it may possibly decrease your pH slightly. I think if you can get the TDS down to around 200 tetras should be ok, though some other species like true blackwater apistogramma may have a tough time.


Not strictly true, soluble/aqueous tannins and humic acids will still chelate metal ions. Nowhere near as much as a big bag of peat though.


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## doinkmobb (May 12, 2010)

skoram said:


> Your tank footprint is perfectly fine for a pair of most Apisto species - check out apistogramma.com. Most of the "pros" there keep single breeding pairs in 15G longs, though a 10G would probably be too small. The bigger problem is your TDS, but there are a variety of ways to solve that problem. Using distilled water will certainly do the trick, but could get kind of expensive in the long run.


If it were just a pair of Apistogramma, they'd be fine in this tank. Apistogramma + some other fish feels like too much to me. I usually like to have a conservative number of fish, I'm always worried they'll be too crowded.

I'll see how I do with this blackwater environment and if I can maintain it the way I want to, I can have an excuse to get another tank for an Apistogramma pair.


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## doinkmobb (May 12, 2010)

Added some frogbit yesterday. A member named ddavila06 sent me a lifetime supply. 





Tetras have colored up nicely.





We're moving in a few weeks, I'll wait until the tank has resettled before I add more fish.


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## doinkmobb (May 12, 2010)

I finally got around to grabbing a few more fish. I added 5 skunk cories last night. I was hoping to find some Adolfo's cories, but the selection wasn't great at the fish store. I like 'em though, they're active and energetic. I think they're enjoying the sand, leaves and tangles of driftwood; it's rare that I see all 5 out of at the same time. 

Somehow, in nearly 25 years of owning fish, this is the first time I've had cories. I was just never interested in them before. I'll definitely add them to future tanks. 

I'm still planning on finishing the tank off with 8 or so dwarf pencilfish. I fashioned a craptastic plexiglass top (plexiglass is too thin and was difficult to work with) to keep them from leaping out. My two kittens occasionally attack the tank, so I don't want the fish to spazz out and leap to their deaths. 

After 4-5 water changes with distilled water, I've gotten the TDS down to 150. And I top off with filtered water from work, it's comes out at 20 ppm, way better than topping off with 230+ ppm tap water.


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## doinkmobb (May 12, 2010)

Latest full tank shot. The frogbit died out days after I chucked it in there, not enough light. 
I really like how low maintenance this setup is - no ferts, no CO2, barely any algae, no trimming, minimal water changes. I have to siphon up some mung once in a while, but that's it. And I bet the filter has many months to go before I have to clean it out.


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## Daisy Mae (Jun 21, 2015)

*Magnolia water*

I really like the look of your tank. Also love the fact that you're experimenting with magnolia leaves from your yard. 
I got really interested in Neocaridina shrimp and finally bought some from a fellow hobbyist in town. Of course, I found a lot of people recommending Indian almond, guava leaves etc etc. but these suggestions are not that local to me. Yeah, yeah, I could buy them on line but still, I wanted to use what I have growing around me, and Victoria is not called a Garden City for nothing. 
I was lucky enough to find alder cones during a road trip, so I got me about a half cup of those. 
But I also picked some leaves from my yard, so right now I have cherry and magnolia leaves. The cherry leaf went in first (small tank) and the next up will be the magnolia. Yeah! Thanks for giving me inspiration to go ahead with my experiment.


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## Powerclown (Aug 17, 2014)

Cool tank,excellent layout,less is more,congrats


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## doinkmobb (May 12, 2010)

Uh...did my last post disappear? Three of the five cories died, not really sure what the cause was. They were all flashing when I put them in the tank, maybe they had some parasites or something. But none of my flame tetras are flashing. 

I've been doing 20-25% water changes with distilled water every other week at most. The tank is over filtered and lightly stocked. The two remaining cories are active and eating. I have no idea.


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## doinkmobb (May 12, 2010)

I decided to forgo the pencil fish and got 9 black phantom tetras instead. One of my kittens knocked my light fixture into the tank a few days ago, which made me think having nervous, jumpy fish isn't really the best idea. When tetras get scared, they hide in the depths, instead of catapulting onto the carpet. 

The phantom tetras already colored up nicely and they've had the effect of drawing the flame tetras out in the open as well. Maybe the addition of more tetras made the flames more at ease? Instead of hovering an inch or two off the bottom, they're occupying the whole lower 2/3rds of the tank now. The tank looks a lot livelier now. 

Water parameters right now:
Temp: 76F
TDS - 140ppm (trying to keep it under 150)
KH - 5 (tap is 8)
GH - 5 (tap is 13)


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## doinkmobb (May 12, 2010)

Man, I guess I'm not a very good fish master, [STRIKE]two[/STRIKE] three phantom tetras died on me...and another one is looking iffy. 

Water parameters check out though:

Ammonia - 0 ppm
Nitrite - 0 ppm
Nitrate - 5ppm
pH - 7.8-8.0 (kinda high, not sure why)
TDS - 147 ppm

Maybe stress? It's weird they lasted nearly a week and then died though.


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## doinkmobb (May 12, 2010)

This is how I feel about my tank right now:


Seven of my nine phantom tetras have died, the flame tetras have ich pretty bad, the cories and remaining phantom tetras look to be barely affected, if at all. I have _never_ had a die off in a tank this bad before. It's especially baffling since I've taken steps to adjust the water quality to something more suitable to these fish. 

Now the temperature is cranked up to 86, I have an air stone going and I guess I'll see what happens over the next two weeks. 

Possibly related: 5 days ago, I bought 4 dwarf cories and 2 sparkling gouramis for my planted work tank that has been up for two months with no fish. I use super ridiculously filtered water and have been doing weekly or bi-weekly water changes. Come in today, one of the gouramis and three dwarf cories are dead. Yay. 

The only common thing between these tanks is where I got the fish, a pretty reputable store in Tampa. In total, I bought 20 fish from them, for two different tanks and have had 14 die. I'm not here to bad mouth them, but I think I'll try my luck elsewhere.


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## doinkmobb (May 12, 2010)

The Deathening is over.

The ich infestation has ended finally. The temperature is back down to a balmy 78 degrees. Most of the fish that died showed no signs of ich though. Apparently, I'm only allowed to have two of each fish; I have the Noah's Ark of aquariums. The two skunk cories survived the ordeal, but I lost all but two flame and two black phantom tetras. 

I decided I wanted something besides tetras swimming around and grabbed two Bolivian Rams. I had one as a kid in a completely not ideal 10 gallon so I wanted to try a second time and give them a more suitable environment. In the quarantine tank, Ram A (I think a female) was slowly herding Ram B (definitely a male) around. When I transitioned them to the main tank, the female started angrily chasing the male. I added a piece of wood as a divider and moved it a few times. Now the male is out in the open and the female has been in a holding pattern in the corner for two days. There's been some displaying but no insane aggression, so I'll see what happens. 

The female was eating while the male was not. The male decided to not actually ingest any food for about a week. I tried flake food, sinking granules, NLS 1mm cichlid pellets and even some homemade gel food. Nope. Everything was sampled and spat out. 

Now in the main tank, getting them to eat is still a chore. The tetras maul anything I put in the water and the cories are becoming morbidly obese by vacuuming up all the sinking pellets that I'm trying to direct to the Rams. The male is sorta eating now, but not very enthusiastically. I've never had such picky fish before. 

As far as stocking, I think I'll add 5-6 more black phantom tetras and two more skunk cories and call it done. 

This is the male


Still the male


Crazy looking orange snail, it's the only one in there


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## doinkmobb (May 12, 2010)

It turns out I have two male rams. They each have a territory but they bicker a lot; the dominant male looks great though.







And here's the difference between my tank water and purified water from the store. I didn't realize how nice and murky it is.


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