Moving Back to an Asian Fastwater Tank

[dpatte]

Years ago, I was running a 150 gallon asian 'fastwater' tank. The concept was as follows:

I setup the tank with standard filtration (AC110, Emperor 400), then added I added extra pumps to draw water from one end of the tank then feed it in the other end - somewhat like an endless swimming pool.

Water at one end was drawn down through several quickfilters into custom plumbing, then below the substrate to the other end of the tank.  At the other end I used two ac110 power heads to blow the water back through the tank. But most of my water movement came from a mag 18 pond pump setup like the powerheads to increase the right-to-left water flow.

With a lot of plants, and especially javamoss, the result was like a moving stream, gorgeous.

Here is a shaky old low-res video i took about 10 years ago on my BlackBerry
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10630100257&set=vb.890770257&type=3&theater

My only issue was that the undergravel plumbing occasionally developed 'air' in the pipes below the substrate slowing the water flow, and that my quickfilters at one end, and the big powerheads, including the mag 18, at the other were fairly ugly, so visually it was only 'nice' in the middle 4 feet.

Anyway, 2 years ago I got rid of the 180 and replaced it with a 220 gallon. For some reason I decided instead to go with an old-school South American community tank.. low ph, slow water movement, tetras, corys and angels, etc. I have never been happy with it.

So I'm thinking of going back to the asian fastwater tank concept, but this time using my 220 and with external plumbing instead of internal.

Here is my livestock plan....

12 Rainbow, Lacustris or Bosemani
20 Black Ruby Barbs
6 sae
3 golden cae
3 RedTailBlack
12 Balas
4 Bushynose
12 Clown Loaches

So, here are some issues that I'm looking for advice on...

A) Lacustris or Bosemani. I notice that Lacustris are on the Red List of endangered species. Does anyone know if Lacustris in the market are still wild-caught? Which of these two rainbows do people prefer? Which are hardier?

B) Red Tail Black Shark. Also Redlisted - same concerns as above.

C) Who here has kept clown loaches successfully? I always hear horror stories of them getting ich. Should I be concerned?

D) does this 220 g sound overstocked?

E) The tank will be around ph 8, fairly hard water. Is this too extreme for the bushynose? Are there some asian fish I could consider instead of plecos to help keep the algae down?
 
F) Any other suggestions?

[lucius]

BA's always has redtail black sharks so I find it odd that they are redlisted. 

Denison Barbs are nice.

[robt18]

A few answers/suggestions...

A) Lacistrus rainbows that we'll find in the trade are all pond bred now. Bit of warning with them - I find they're very temperature sensitive. Otherwise, great fish.

B) Red tails - also pond bred, so again, no worries.

C) I find clown loaches get stressed from moving tanks, but mostly are very susceptible to ich when they're under 2". After that period they tend to be a lot hardier. If you do run into ich problems with them, it'd be great if you had a quarantine tank for them because as soon as you crank up the temperature to 86 they clean up really quickly. The loaches have no problem with the temp jump.

D) Stocking issue I see is the balas and clown loaches. They both get close to 12" long and at maturity may run out of space. I'd scale them both back to about 8 and then I think you'd be ok.

E) Local bred bushynose are typically ok with higher pH, so I would advise getting something from a local breeder. Stores do still sell wild caught bushynose which might not enjoy with the pH jump so much. If you want to stick with the Asian theme, take a look at hillstream loaches or something in that category. They'd like the fast water movement, but I couldn't tell you how effective of an algae eater they are.

[dpatte]

Hillstream loaches... interesting

I had heard this name, but don't know I have ever seen any, nor do I know anything about them.

http://www.loaches.com/articles/hillstream-loaches-the-specialists-at-life-in-the-fast-lane

the article actually shows a tank setup with powerheads like I had in my 150, and they like algae.. good call.

[guck]

I have 3 hillstream loaches (Sewellia lineolata).  One by itself in a 10g and 2 in the 25g.  They are quite interesting.  They can be pretty fast

[charlie]

Dave , I remember this tank in it`s fast water days, looking forward to seeing what you come up with this time.
If memory serves me well , I think you had Bala sharks & Denisoni Barbs at that time??
Denisoini  would look great in that tank.
Regards

[Pyrrolin]

I don't know the other rainbow but boesemani are wonderful.  I had 4 but lost 3 during a moving accident, plan on getting 5 more when able.

I have had clown loaches for about a year or so now and never had any problems with them.

Red tailed sharks can be aggressive and cause problems.  I personally like the rainbow sharks more but they can also be aggressive.

12 balas might be pushing it and make it over stocked, maybe half that number.  These can get a foot long and grow fairly fast.  I had 3 for a while that grew from about 3 inches to 5 or 6 inches in a few months.  Clown loaches grow quite slow.

bushynose plecos are great, but you don't see them as much as you would like usually.  I like them myself

Sae I have heard are great cleaners.  I have heard of problems with cae and don't see the point of them if you have sae and bushynose plecos.

A bottom fish that I would recommend that are great to watch are yoyo botia.  When they come out to play, they have lots of fun.

I assume the barbs are smaller, which could be eaten by adult balas as a convenience

[ftan]

Silver arowana

I saw one at La Niche on the weekend,about 2 feet long.

[dpatte]

Hi Charlie. You have a good memory! Indeed I had balas, but the barbs were Rosy Barbs. The Rosy barbs actually bred regularly in the tank so I had several sizes. If I could get denisons to breed, then that might be a good option.

On another thought - one of the things that crossed my mind since I started this thread was a concept I had about considering biomass for esthetics. When housing different species, The biomass of each species should be pretty much the same. This means only a few individuals of each species of bigger fish, and then a matching 'mass' of individual for smaller species. This suggests that I should scale down the number of Balas which grow quite quickly yet perhaps increase the number of barbs.

So now I'm considering 5-7 balas, maybe 8-10 clown loaches, but 24 black Rubies.  

[Pyrrolin]

that is sounding better.

I am still concerned with the possibility of having 5-7 12 inch fish and 8-10 10 inch fish, balas and clowns.  5 and 8 should be ok, but 7 and 10 sounds like a problem.  Clown loaches take years to get to full size but you still have to consider full size fish when stocking