Clear water stream, Acacías, Meta, Colombia

Aquarium information

Aquarium description

Set-up date

February, 2024

Aquarium decoration

The aquarium has a bottom of fine white/beige sand. I collected the rocks from a river near my home. They were arranged to look as natural as possible. There are also smaller peables, 3-5cm in the tank.

The leaves were found outside in my garden. I collected the brown ones and some with some green/yellow on them. I rinsed them and boiled them for 6 minutes. There are a few seed pods in the tank that I bought in an aquarium store.

The roots on the right side of the tank were bought in a local fish store and were placed to simulate roots or a branch coming into the water from the river bank.

The plants in the right back corner are Cabomba aquatica, and on the left side, there is Elodea najas. There is also some Najas sp. that has been placed in the sand by the current. On the bottom, I randomly placed some Sagittaria subulata and Eleocharis acicularis.

The background is placed behind the aquarium. The background is a styrofoam plate carved with curves and painted brown to look like a natural river bank.

In the rainy season, I make the current stronger, and in the dry season, I make the current very slow. The rainy season in Colombia is from may to October.

Aquarium equipment

Filtration is done by a superfish 150L p/h internal filter and the tank is heated by a 100w heater from superfish.

Fish care

The aquarium contains four species of fish:

• Osteogaster melanotaenia (Callichthyidae) – 5
• Hoplisoma axelrodi (Callichthyidae) – 3
• Apistogramma macmasteri (Cichlidae) – 1
• Axelrodia riesei (Characidae) – 12

The fish are fed twice a day, in the morning and late afternoon around 5.00pm. I feed the fish bloodworms, tetra granules, and HS aqua artemia wafers, and when I am at the local fish store, I pick up some life tubiflex for them.

Plant care

I give the plants liquid fertiliser from Colombo every 2 weeks. I also give them Colombo Carbo CO2 replacement.

Plant list:

• Cabomba aquatica (Cabombaceae)
• Eleocharis acicularis (Cyperaceae)
• Elodea najas (Hydrocharitaceae)

Water care

I do a 30% water change every week and fill it up with cooler water to simulate rainfall. I use seachem prime to make the water safe for the fish.

Dimensions

Length

60 cm

Depth

30 cm

High

35 cm

Volume

63 L