Re: [Killietalk] Planted tank

[Debunix <debunix at well_com>]

On Thursday, September 8, 2005, at 11:00 AM, killietalk-request at aka_org 
wrote:

> your tank is too big for most killies

It may be too big to easily catch fast-swimming small fish, especially 
if planted heavily enough to make the netting difficult, but it's 
certainly not too big for the fish.  Lampeyes would love the schooling 
space.   A colony of pupfish would be fascinating (hoping I can have 
one like that someday!).  A mix of a top-dwelling epiplatys, and a 
midwater aphyosemion would be gorgeous and wouldn't hybridize.  You 
could have a lot of spots to hide peat pots for SAAs or nothos.

But I'd be very careful about what you put in there because they'll be 
hard to get out.  If you put in fish that breed *too* easily in there, 
the killie equivalent of guppies, you're going to go nuts trying to 
pull out enough of them to keep the population from breeding themselves 
into an overpopulated, polluted tank (thinking of a friend who had to 
get rid of the kribensis in his 125 after they overran it.....he had to 
empty it completely and let it dry out to keep fry from popping back up 
out of the substrate and restarting the overpopulation cycle again).

And the UGF, regular or reverse flow, is not generally favored among 
plant nuts.  I'm sure you can find lots of arguments pro and con if you 
search the archives of the Aquatic Plant Digest 
(http://fins.actwin.com/aquatic-plants).  External canister filters are 
usually the filter of choice for large tanks, so they can be hidden 
underneath the stand, but still be easily accessed for cleaning.

Re substrates:  I tried a couple of tanks with layered substrates, some 
with soil under gravel plus flourite, and one with flourite under 
crushed shells for a brackish tank (wanting some flourite for the 
plants plus the shells for water hardness and the neat white 
appearance).  The biggest problem I had with both was that moving 
plants around, topping and replanting stem plants, repairing holes in 
the plant cover where the fish got to digging or pulling things up by 
the roots, all these would make a big mess.  Eventually I gave up and 
went to 100% flourite.   The plants were happy in both setups, BTW.   
I'd use some flourite and a nice local gravel mixed, not layered, so 
you don't end up with the substrate looking pocked and pimpled as the 
lower layers get brought up.  YMMV.  If you're mostly using anubias and 
java ferns that prefer attachment to rocks and driftwood anyway, so 
aren't often digging around in the substrate, it may be fine.


Diane Brown in St. Louis

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