Bostave

No worries. I am inspired by your journal and will start my own this week. Similar to my aquascape competition entry but more focussed as this time I can be more patient.

http://mobile.abc.ne...816?pfmredir=sm

Love it! Great job!

Please check your account settings on the forum. There is a section where you can subscribe to get emails for posts made in your thread, pms and other similar actions on the forum. Checked that option and see if it works as before.

Thanks Jason. I made the spinach chicken which is also called chicken saag.

I had no issues with it. Same for Kusuri. These products are not antibacterial so should be fine.

27/12/2016

 

Last entry of the competition and year.

 

Firstly, a big thank you to PCS for holding this competition. It was an excellent excuse for me to convince the Mrs to bring this tank from storage and use it. I have created aquascapes in the past but they have been in three feet tanks and over. So this was a challenge and a learning experience. The limitation of the tank volume restricted the placement of hardscape. The initial idea of keeping crypts seemed good as the pruning would be minimum (or none) as the older crypt leaves melt to nothing but the small volume of the water meant some variation of temperature enough for the whole crypts to melt.

 

The expense for the project was hardly anything. The tank, light (donated by Fishroom) and the ferts came from the PCS auctions (all sponsors), plants and shrimps and the two catfish species from my existing tanks, CO₂ refill ($30) at Aquotix but it has been used on all tanks. 

 

About the  aquascape

It has matured well. I like the contrast between the different shades of green and the red on the sides in the back. Tonina and Sygnonathus offer brightly coloured and structurally beautiful plants in the front. The shrimps are thriving in the 'jungle'.

 

A video of the aquascape showing differnt sides of the aquarium and the growth of the plants.

 

 

I enjoyed being a part of this year's competition and it would have been great to have more entrants. I want to congratulate PCS for this competition and hope they continue to hold such competitions next year. 

 

Thank you. 

Special meaning green unlike in wa which is dead and brown.

I personally don't think it is that bad. The fish aren't hybrids so that is good. Many domesticated fish have been subjected to similar fates. Angelfish (platinum, blue marble,etc), discus. (leopards, turquoise, etc), rams (golden,green,long fins), tetras have many strains which have been developed from variations from the wild forms and many of these are beautiful.

30/11/2016

 

Hi all,

 

Not much to report. 

 

The tank has matured well.

 

The foreground looks lush with UG. Tonina and Sygnonathus are doing well so are other plants.

 

Some crypts that were planted and melted are growing back.

 

The leftside of background was planted with Persicaria but it is growing slower than the ones planted near the filter. 

 

I had to introduce a common bristlenose catfish to remove the algae and he is doing much better job than the three Otocinclus (now back in with the shrimps). 

 

A short video of the aquascape

 

Thank you

The guy stopped messaging. Lol

Thank you. Growing up all my cousins had angelfish in their tanks. When I had my first tank, everyone asked me to get them except for one uncle who said that he would get those for me and he did. Eight of those. Since then angelfish have been a part of my life. I have great luck breeding them. The pictures of the breeding ones in the post above ate from Hobart. They spawned on glass chopping board bought from chickenfeed stores. Bred regularly every three weeks for 4 months.
I look forward to meet you and discuss angelfish breeding at the PCS meetings.

As the Fish of the Month for December, there will 2 lots of bags of 2 adults (most likely a male and female but haven't spawn) Pterophyllum scalare around 8-10cm available at the PCS Meeting for auction. These are special lots to raise money for Stuart Grant Fund for Cichlid Preservation and have kindly been donated by one of our PCS Members - Terry. Terry has been breeding South American cichlids for decades.

 

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Freshwater Angelfish

Pterophyllum is derived from the Greek word for "winged leaf" and scalare means "like a flight of stairs" in reference to the dorsal fin. Angelfish are laterally compressed or look like a disc on edge with long fins coming out of the top and bottom and have 2 'feelers' in front of the anal or bottom fin. The tail is vertically oriented and may be from scoop shovel shape to long and relatively narrow depending on the variety.

 

There are three species that are seen in the hobby

 

Pterophyllum altum deep Angelfish, altum angel size 10 inches and more.

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from Orinoco, Rio Atabapo, middle and upper Rio Negro

Water paramters: Temperature : 28-30ºC, pH:5.8-6.2, Hardness: 1-5ºdgh soft acid water.

 

Pterophyllum dumerilii, P. leopoldi longnosed angelfish (size 4 inches)

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water parameters: Temperature : 24-28ºC, pH : 6, Hardness : 5ºdgh soft acidic water.

 

Pterophyllum scalare angelfish (size 6-7inches)

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Water paramters: Temprature : 26-30ºC, pH 6-6.9, Hardness : 1.2-5ºdgh soft acid water.

 

Classification

Order: Perciformes Family: Cichlidae

 

Distribution

Amazon and its tributaries

 

Sex

There is no sexual dimorphism among angelfish. During spawning, females develop a rounded genital papilla while the genital papilla of the males is pointed.

 

Diet

Live feeds such as bloodworms, mosquito larvae, tubifex worms, daphnia. Frozen and freeze dried live feeds.

Commercial fish feeds.

 

Feeding frequency

Feeding quantities depends on the amount of the feed being consumed in 5 minutes. 2-3 such feedings each day is advised.

 

Maintenance

Needs a well planted tank with Amazonian plants.

 

Water changes

weekly 1/3^rd water exchanges has been recommended.

 

Character

Slightly territorial, but still a shoaling species. Does well in both species and community tank .

 

Spawning

The Scalare is easy to breed and millions of tank-raised specimens are sold every year over the world. Different colour and finnage varieities have been developed such as marble, albino, platinum, ghost and veil tail varieties. Once a pair is formed, the pair isolates itself. Both fish will take turns to clean a vertical substrate such as breeding slates or tanks wall or broad leaves of Amazon. Once the site is clean, the female with the broader papilla will lay eggs in a rows and will be followed by the male who fertilizes the eggs. The pair fan the eggs and remove any undeveloped eggs. The fry take 48 hours to hatch and another 48-60 hours to be swim freely.

 

Some pictures of my own angelfish spawning.

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Some Europeans have bred altums in captivity.

 

References

Baensch Aquarium altlas Volumes 1 and 2 br Dr Rudiger Riehl and Hans A Baensh

The enclyclopedia of freshwater tropical fishes by Axelrod, et al.

Breeding aquarium fishes by Dr. Herbert R Axelrod

www.finrama.com

 

Photos

from google and few of my own.

7/11/16

 

Just an update. I have been trimming the stem plants, performing weekly water exchanges, fertilizing (weekly) and adding CO₂ (daily).

 

Photographs

Complete tank

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Bit closer

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Utricularia graminiflora is growing well and has formed a dense carpet in the front

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More will follow in the next couple of weeks.

 

Thank you

11/10/2016

 

Hi,

 

Update

 

Photos of the setup prior to changes. 

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Utricularia graminiflora has been growing well and had started to rise at certain intervals. So I sprinkled some Amazonia powder over it to push it in the gravel. A small amount of the powder (10 grams) was used to achieve this. Not worried about the ammonia spike from it.

 

The Bolbiltis was trimmed to keep it growing from centre and to prevent it from pushing the Persicaria  towards the filter.

 

Ludwigia berviceps was replaced with Rotala colourata. I like the red on the right hand side of the tank and wanted to balance with some red colour on the left. The different shades of green are in the center and in front of the red plants.

 

Photos

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The fertilization has been via the aqua-pic solution which I won at recent PCS raffle.

 

Thank you for reading. 

 

Cheers, 

Bostave