whats you guyses oppinion on river tanks?

[krap101]

im thinking about making a river tank with like hillstream loaches and stuff. im planning on doing that thing with the eggcrate and the powerheads. and you connect a tube onto it so you can have a 1 way current. i think i may have some like hatchetfish and stuff in it too. maybe liek a 20 long or something like that

 

[Codefox]

That's a cool way to do it. I'm working on setting up an Amazon tank, but I'm really not going to bother with simulating the current right now.

 

[krap101]

i think i got a couple ideas. maybe like 2-3 bamboo shrimp,? dunno if they can live in a currenty area. ima have my marimo balls grow a lil and break em and they can roll around. a couple different types of hillstream loaches (hopefully) and maybe like some type of tetra or something. i think i might put some cories in there.

any suggestions?

 

[czcz]

I've broken up marimo balls and it works well. Martin Thoene's manifold design is also a very good CO2 reactor. Fish behavior under more natural water flow is interesting; my hillstream glides through the tank from time to time, and is pretty active. I know this isn't usually true of hillstreams in traditional (even over-filtered) filtration flow. I've logged my river tank and various things I've tried at the first link in my signature, if you want.

I've only tried blue tetras, said to come from streams, and they didn't handle the current well. Cherry barbs did well in current, as did white cloud minnows and rainbows. Otocinclus seem to like the current. I think cories are a good idea. Even non-filter feeding shrimp do well, so I would think bamboo would too. I move a little under 200gph through an 8g tank.

There's a whole crew of guys with river tanks, including Martin, at The Loach Forums.

 

[krap101]

i know you have to wash out the marimo balls out sometimes, but how small should you break them? would they grow faster as a big ball? and is there a size where it stopps growing?

 

[czcz]

I broke them up to 1-2mm balls. They grow slow either way and I've noticed no difference. The smaller they are the more often I have to roll them. I've read that when they're bigger than a baseball they break open because the insides rot. That's got to take years.

 

[m249saw]

Talk to Botia on plantedtank.net

He has a tank setup for hillstream loaches that is pretty cool.

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=15303&highlight=hillstream+loaches

 

[krap101]

how about some roseline sharks?

 

[krap101]

so i think my lil setup thingy will be some shrimp, hillstream loaches, some sort of like fast water fish, and some SAE's

 

[Blazeherd2306]

SAE's will get too big and active for even a 20 long IMO.

 

[krap101]

hmm then otos then?

 

[Puriti]

Sounds neat! ^^ -- the tank idea