10G Indian/Burmese River Build

[Morgie]

This is my first attempt at making a biotope tank, so I thought it would be nice to do one that is different and a bit more unusual than the typical Amazon tank. My little 10 gallon tank is going to be based on an Indian/Burmese river/creek type habitat. I've done a TON of work on it today, although I failed to take any progress pictures (It was quite messy)
My plan for the tank:

The "Before":

It had some nice attributes, the rocks, petrified wood, and the driftwood I eventually got for it ended up looking pretty nice.
The CONS: UGF, that had absolutely no point. The sand went on top of the gravel it was supposed to filter (I quickly modified the tank to be safe for cories), not appealing!

Today I spent most of my time working on this tank (no pictures of progress, sorry)
~Moved the fish (etc) to a bucket with air stone
~Drained the tank
~Removed the substrate on top of the UGF
~Removed the UGF
~Cleaned the tank pretty thoroughly (20+ years with one UGF was disgusting)
~Washed play sand
~Put the sand in
~Drip acclimated the fish
~Put the decorations back in

And now I'm waiting for the water to clear up..
It's looking like this right now:

As you can see from the line of algae, the level of substrate has gone down a lot and the fish now have more room. I put the little store bought archway/cave back in just to give them some shelter for the time being.

Checklist:
~ 1x fully grown aponogeton (unknown sp., currently in a different tank)
~ 9x aponogeton bulbs (unknown sp., I don't expect all of them to grow)
~Main driftwood
~Small rocks
~Dwarf Gourami

Things to get:
~Large rock piece
~Various Rotala
~Hair grass
~blyxa (I have some, but it's not in any shape to be moved)
~black background (paint or plastic)
~Celestial Pearl Danios (x6)

I'd love any critique you guys have on my current aquascaping design or stock list (plants & fish).
I'll post regular updates here over the next few weeks and be sure to get some progress shots next time!

 

[Galligak]

Sounds pretty sweet!!! I'll be watching

 

[Morgie]

Thanks!
Also I have a question for you plant people. Do you know of any specific floating plants native to India or Burma? I'm having a hard time finding information on floating plants..

 

[Morgie]

I woke up to this tank this morning. It's much clearer, but still not perfectly clear yet..

And then I got to planting. I moved an aponogeton plant from my 5.5 to the back corner of the ten gallon and then planted the nine aponogeton bulbs ("betta bulbs") in various places in the tank. I definitely don't expect all of them to grow.. but the ones that don't will make good fertilizer
Here's a diagram of the current plant/hardscape layout

The green dots are the locations of the bulbs, the x is the fully grown aponogeton, the black shapes are the hardscape, and the tan oval is going to be a "no plant zone" in the tank.
After that I went out back to the pond and found a really cool looking rock to be the rock centerpiece.

Guest appearance by my 1.75 cats..

And here's the tank after today's work:

Also, my cories were posing, so here's a shot of them too..

Going to petsmart today to (hopefully) pick up
~a replacement heater
~a black background
~maybe some higher lighting (although my current lighting will be /adequate/ for the plants I'm planning)

 

[alex07]

Looks nice, you don't have another filter to replace the ugf?

 

[Morgie]

Thanks!
I have a very nice HOB filter, you just can't see it because of the terrible lighting in my room.

 

[Morgie]

Just picked up a 50watt heater and black background from petsmart, so now I've got all my hardware installed and running. Now I just need to work on getting those fish and plants!

 

[Morgie]

Went to my LFS (Fintastic) to browse the plants and fish and decided to go in a different direction with the tank. Instead of going for the CPDs, I'm going to have an anabantoid only tank, which helps it be truer to the Indian biotope.
At the LFS I picked up:
~A female dwarf gourami (she's TINY)
~A spiketail paradise fish (Pseudosphromenus dayi, never seen them for sale before, great find!)
~A red Indian sword (will be moved when the other plants fill in)
~some duck weed that was thrown in for free

My male dg is being a little gentlemen to the new tankmates at the moment, but I'm keeping a close eye on them for the time being. I'll take some pictures and upload them soon.
So! My final fish stock list for this tank is:
2x DG (m/f)
1x Spiketail Paradise Fish

 

[redsea]

Very Cool tank!

 

[Morgie]

Thanks!

I just made an order at aquariumplants.com (great selection) so next week I'll have all the plants for my tank as well. I have decided I'm going to go get some better lighting over the weekend before my plants come in.
Plants Ordered:
~Dwarf Hairgrass (x6)
~Rotala nanjenshan
~Rotala Indica
~Wisteria
~Cryptocoryne spiralis
~Cryptocoryne retrospiralis
~Cryptocoryne ciliata

That should probably do it for my plants as well!This tank is coming along much faster than I expected!

 

[Morgie]

Pictures!

My female DG. Her name is Princess Lady.

And my Spiketail. He is quickly becoming my favorite fish.


Going to (hopefully) get a better lighting setup tonight.

 

[Morgie]

Plants came in today from aquariumplants.com
I'm very pleased with the quality and delivery of the plants, I would definitely recommend them.

Here's what the plants looked like in the packaging. All the potted plants (hair grass, mostly) were in one package, and individually bagged. The bunch plants were in the other huge bag.

The picture's kind of blurry, but you can see my scape and my little spiketail.
I'll upload some more detailed pictures once the water clears up a bit and my fish get settled. :>

I'm can already tell I'm going to be completely addicted to planted aquascaping.

I'd love to hear what you guys think about my first aquascape!

 

[Morgie]

More pics:

 

[Wy Renegade]

Very nice biotype tank. Love the theme tanks, cool to see all the different variations and varieties people come up with.

 

[Morgie]

Thanks! This one was definitely a challenge, as there aren't too many Indian biotopes tanks, but definitely fun. I should upload a few new pics, my plants have started taking over, haha.

 

[Wy Renegade]

New pictures yet?

 

[Morgie]

Yep! I just pruned the rotala and wisteria, but I'm letting the aponogetons and crypts grow out.

 

[Morgie]

Here's my male dwarf gourami in his nest:

 

[Wy Renegade]

Very nice ~ I really like the 2nd picture. The greens make the gourami's colors really stand out!