Little pleco stream (journal)

[fischkopp]

A while back I ordered a 33 gal long tank with the dimensions 48x13x12 (lwh) from BA. I liked the long impression that this size gives you right away. Initially this tank should be a nicely planted (low hight) apisto (long footprint good to divide territories) tank. Well, some time between ordering and receiving the tank I acquired some plecos so this project went a different route: a stream tank.

In a stream the water basically flows only one directrion. Simply adding power heads will only create whirls instead of a nice stream current. The bests way is to suck the water in on one side and pump it out on the other. That is exactly what I am trying to achieve with this project.

I. The tank
Has the really cool dimensions I told you above I also got the 'matching' 48X12 metal stand to stack two tanks of this size on top of each other. So I had to add a wood plate to account for the extra inch in width. All the sides and the back have black vinyl attached; there is nothing like that since I saw Xenon using it as background. In this pic I test the tank for leaks and level it.




II. The Stream Tubing
I used 0.5 inch PVC tubing that I got from CT (nobody else seem to have it) to build an undergravel system with three intakes on the right and two outputs on the left. Three intakes are used to avoid a bottleneck due to a clogged intake and hence assure high flow rates. The segmentation of the tubing serves the same purpose. Everything is glued together and at least dried for 24h.




III. The Stream Tubing - Output Close Up
The output will hold the power heads. They are not glued to the system for easy maintenance. The bottom is glued to an acrylic plate. The weight of the gravel on top of this plate will makes sure that nothing moves or even rise above the gravel.




IV. The Stream Tubing - Intake Close Up
The intake is staked; I thought it may be better to suck the water in at all levels, but I didn't want to have intake going from bottom to top. It probably doesn't make any difference. The intake itself is removable too. It also has the acrylic bottom plate.




V. Spray Painting
White PVC tubing isn't really what you want to see in your tank. So I spray painted it black - used common oil based exterior paint. The edges of the wood plates that hold the thank on the shelf got a paint job too. There shall nothing distract from the tank




VI. Power Head
I had two used Penguin powerheads that I didn't mind to break. I modified one while the other one was still in use. The intake become the 0.5" tubing glued on, the output got some tubing parts to allow flow direction - you will get a better idea of this later. The added parts are spray painted.




VII. Stream Tubing Output
The tubing system with attached power head inside the tank. Initially the power head is placed right below the surface. (excuse the dirty glass)




VII. Stream Tubing Intake
This is how the tubing looks like in the tank. I built an attachment for the intake with PVC tubing and drilled as many holes in as possible without breaking it - not shown, because it looks ugly. Much nicer is the look with the filter sponges in place.




VIII. Adding Gravel
I know that beige sand would be the appropriate choice. However, I like black and used 1 mm silica sand as gravel bed. I was very careful that no piece went between the acrylic plates mounted to the tubing and the glass bottom. I had four bags that I rinsed before adding it into the tank. Ended up to be about 3 inch, quite a bit for a tank the wont be much planted However, I believe that a deep, not compacted, gravel bed will add biological filtration to the system, especially with high flow rates that I am aiming for.




IX. Hardscaping
The theme of the tank should be any South American river, lots of wood got caught somewhere or root are washed out by the water. No rocks will be present. Thanks to Adam I got several pieces of Manzanita wood, which turned out to be very nice for this effect. I soaked the wood a good week or two in the bathtub so that it sinks and changed the water a couple of times so the it releases most of its tanins before being added to the tank.




X. Running the Tank the first time
After I was happy with the placement of the wood I filled the tank and switched the power head on for the first time. I was quite impressed with the flow of just this one. Initially I also had a Hydor Koralia running for more current, but removed it later because it can not be adjusted to run in line with the stream, hence creating more whirls.




XI. Installing Filtration
Initially I planned using one Eheim 2213 for filtration, but ended up using two just to be on the safe side as plecos are not really not as small biomass. The spraybars of both filters are installed right above the power header, which as be lowered to provide the space. The  filter intakes are both on the other end. Both filters have a sponge on the bottom and are filled with Substrate Pro ceramic ball up to the top to maximize biological filtration. Additional filtration comes from the sponges at the stream intake and the gravelbed. Heating is 150W. The second power head connection is closed until I have time to modify it.




XII. Softscaping
After adding some Mopani driftwood and rearranging the initial Manzanita setup I thought that some plants may not hurt. So I planted a bit. They plecos liked it very much, so from all the plants you see here only the Myriophyllum survived. At least I tried but this will ultimately not be a planted tank.




Final Look
This is how the tank looked like in the end. The lighting is a single Sunblaster T5HO from the hydrophonic store. An temporary HOB filter runs carbon to get any nasty stuff out of the initial setup; I will remove it later. This is going to be the home of L340 and L134 as well as Apistogramma iniridiae.



Thanks to dpatte to post pics of his setup, to Adam for the wood, to Jetstream & Charlie to get me close to the plecos, to you for your audience

[dan2x38]

Nice Robert, very nice well thought out. Have to see it one day up close. Thanks for sharing dude...

[irene]

Very, very nice Robert.  I'm sure any new pleco's you acquire will be very happy there.

Irene

[Brine]

Nicely done, very clean.

[beowulf]

Very nice!! I had seen something like this on loaches.com and have been planing to use this setup when I get my 200+ gallon tank for my clown loaches.

[Nerine]

Looks great! Very nice setup 

[Vizerdrix]

Thanks for sharing Robert, that is very nice!  Makes me think of doing something like this myself...

[RoxyDog]

interesting...and very nice! 

[fischkopp]

Thanks everyone for your kind comments. Great if I can inspire someone to try something else (cant say new, I think this has been done at least a hundred times).

I forgot to mention that I attached an airpump to the powerhead, so that it constantly oxygenates the water. This is extremely important to keep the plecos happy. The tank is running for about a month now; needs a bit more current, and maybe a bit more wood (thanks RossW  ) but so far I am happy watching the pack.

[dan2x38]

Would have been nice in the Homeshow. How about a video?

[fischkopp]

Yeah, maybe next year when the tank is more mature.

[fischkopp]

I think it is time for a little update now that this aquarium is running for a while. Prerecord: there aren't any bad news, everything is running smoothly.




Technical Changes

I managed to install the second power head on the left side as planned. I found that the flow created by the two eheims and the two power heads was still a little low, especially on the right side. So I put the Koralia 1 back inside and placed it somewhat in the middle, blowing to the right. You can't see it very well as everything blends luckily in. I also added another HOB (there are two in total, on with carbon, the other one with sponges) just to provide some extra mechanical filtration. Those plecos create a lot of dirt; I totally underestimated this. So those HOB help a lot to clean up all the dirt that gets stirred up by the flow and the plecos it self. There are barely any dead spot. The downside is that the sponges need weekly cleaning, and they are literally soaked with dirt at that time. I haven't touched the eheims yet


Aquascaping Changes

I removed the mopani wood and doubled the amount of Manzanita (thanks to Adam and Ross!). Plants don't really grow well: they will either end up on the menu or collect a lot of dirt. I throw some african fern in, basically because I had no other place for it. The main plant is Amazon Frogbit, it takes out nitrate and provide shade. The root still collect a lot of dirt though. Unfortunately, duckweed got mixed in now ... I have to scoop the surface bout every two week with one T5HO strip.

I added a bunch of caves about four months ago, three clay tubes and a bunch made of bamboo. They are somewhat evenly spread over the tank and most of them are occupied now. The plecos seem more active since. It's mostly the males that stay in the caves. The females tend to hide in the woods.

What I would change is the substrate: while black looks nice, some of my plecos to change the coloration so much into dark that they are very hard to see. A sand substrate would be better, also because the plecos like to dig around theirs caves or whenever they need a way. Maybe I will change it one day.


Maintenance

I do a weekly waterchange, close to 50%,  and  gravel vac where accessible, sometimes but rarely I do two WC per week. As said, there is a bit of sponge rinsing at every session. Feeding. That's it.


Water

I don't treat the water other than for chloramine. I use Prime and dose per tank volume. The water comes straight out of the tap (phyton) - temperature adjusted of course. I never tested all parameters, there are only these few that I keep an eye on from time to time:

• Temperature: 27-28°C
• pH: 5.9 (en of  Nov 2008)
• Conductivity: 66 ppm -> ~130µS/cm -> ~4°dGH -> soft water

I assume all parameters are alright as there was no indication otherwise ... 


Inhabitants

• 7x L134 - Leopard Frog Plecos - Peckoltia sp. - 3 male, 2 female, 2 not sure
• 7x L340 - Mega Clown Plecos - Hypancistrus sp. - at least 1 male and 1 female

I had some apistos in there initially, but it didn't quite work out. There are just too many plecos, so there is no real place to hide or breed ... So now  there are only plecos in there, together with a bunch of MTS. This was kind of boring in the beginning. Everybody was shy, hiding all the time. Now, after a couple weeks without any big change in their habitat, they are more active. The L134 seem to have less fear, the L340 are very cautious. One cannot move much, but it is quite fun to watch them gliding over the ground. The L134 even become a little curious and leave their cave to check out what's going on when I do the water change.

How is the harmony with so many plecos? There was a bit of fighting at some point between the biggest L134 males, but it seems like the got it ironed out. One of them had a damaged tail, but not very serious and he recovered fully. The females seem to have their own little picking order although they do not fight about caves - maybe about being close to a certain male, but I can't say that for sure. Basically, the biggest female rules and gets to feed first. The L340 aren't very active when I am around.

I even had a bit success with breeding (will start another thread about that): the L134 had spawned twice. Unfortunately, the male kicked the eggs out of the cave both times. I could save most of the first spawn, but the second one is almost a total loss. And right now there is one L340 male eagerly guarding a few fry in his cave. So they seem to be happy.

Feeding

My plecos are picky eaters, carnivore most of the time. They are ok with Hikary Carnivore Pellets, cooked shrimp and sometimes even cucumber. But I have the feeling that most of the food I throw in there is consumed by MTS. The plecos seem just fine with all the wood in there ...


I am very glad that I set this tank up - the original plan was a hairgrass apisto tank. These plecos can be quite entertaining, it is hard to leave the sofa at times ...

Just wanna share. Hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to ask questions and make suggestions.

[irene]

That is an awesome tank!  Thanks for sharing, I was just wondering how your plecos were doing the other day!

[Groovylad]

Beautiful setup! You can see and appreciate all the hard work you put into it.

[charlie]

I am very glad that I set this tank up - the original plan was a hairgrass apisto tank. These plecos can be quite entertaining, it is hard to leave the sofa at times ...

Quite true   ,with that tank & the one above it    thanks for the update.

[cora]

wow! the tank is looking amazing, as is your pleco! Im jealous lol.

[Pamelajo]

Very nice!

[dan2x38]

Wow it has sure come together since I saw it the first time. Very nice like the look of it original for sure.

[tuvok]

I like it too. Both the look and the prep. If you don't mind, could you share where you got the sand?

[fischkopp]

Thanks everybody!

I like it too. Both the look and the prep. If you don't mind, could you share where you got the sand?

I got the sand at Aqua Tropicale in Montreal. It is black silica, not dyed. And it was quite inexpensive overall, I think about half the price of common planted tank substares, dont remember it exactly. The only downside you should be aware of is that the little grains have somewhat sharp edges. I havent noticed any negative impact on the plecos, but I wouldnt recommend it for eartheaters.