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Posted by Slaytonp on April 29, 2003 at 08:09:58:
In Reply to: question about the water portion posted by shopaholic on April 29, 2003 at 01:41:20:
:Nice set up! How deep is that water? What do you have living in that set up? Do they like the depth of the water?
:The water goes from 12 inches deep in the right pool down to 10 and then to 8 inches deep in the lagoon and remaining run. I have a variety of tetras (rummy nose, head-tail-light, neon, X-ray) in the right pool along with a couple of tuxedo platys and an algae eater. The depth is fine for these small fish. I can't keep much in the center as they don't like the narrow run and tend to swim over the barrier into the lagoon, but right now, there are some platy fry in there that drifed over from the main pool. The lagoon and rest of the run has various platys-- moonlight, sunset and tuxedo that have hybridized. A fish fancier would disapprove of mixing and allowing hybridizing. There are also a couple of algae eaters in there, a lone neon tetra that ran away from home and an amusing, but plant destroying crayfish that is going to be moved to a cichlid tank as soon as I get the nerve to catch the devil. I had three red-clawed crabs for awhile, but these are semi-terrestrial, wandered around in the terrarium, ripped plants to pieces and took over the frog shelters ad lib. (They otherwise don't have a propensity for frog legs and the frogs ignored them), so I moved them out. They're cute, but not appropriate.
The falls aerate the water, but I do have a filter and heater in the main pool. The tubing for circulation is colonized with denitrifying bacteria (deliberately) and help the ammonia levels stay very low.
It's not the depth that is so important with small fish like these, but the water surface area per fish. Except for a couple of the algae eaters, all of the fish are under 2 inches. I've had only minimal fish loss, and those were new introductions, mostly new neons. The pH is pretty high (7.4) for them.
The tank is rather high maintenance, but I enjoy doing this and have the time now that I'm retired.
Patty:
