New heckels

[bavaria36]

Last April I prepared a new 120 gallon tank in the hope of setting up a Heckel tank. Well it has taken me 9 months to track down the heckels I wanted but they are here now.

I picked them up today from Daniel at Gulf Coast and he had been holding on to them for a week as I had been traveling. They really are in excellent condition and I have put them in the tank today with the lights out. I could'nt resist trying to feed them though and I couldn't believe it when they came out and started eating Tetra MicroCrabs already. You can see them picking food off the bottom in some of the pictures. The shots are not great but I hope you like them. There are 11 Heckels together with 12 Cory Virginiae which have been there for a couple of months already.

Water is right out of the tap aged for 1 day. Temperature at 82 degf. I am going to buy some peat today and will add that to the filter or the storage tank.

Here are a few shots of the tank before the fish went in and a couple the heckels settling in.
Aaron

[bavaria36]

A couple more

Aaron

[dpt8]

Are those aldolphi corys in your tank ?? I have 9 in hopes they'll be able to take the 83degree water. Your tank and discus look great !! Nice job !! David T

[Dan S]

Hello Aaron,

They look great, good sign that they are so active so early, most peoples seem to sit in the corner.

I will follow this with great interest as I put an order in today for some Heckels which I will get in about 6 weeks.

It will be great to follow your experiences.

Good luck

Dan

[bavaria36]

Are those aldolphi corys in your tank ?? I have 9 in hopes they'll be able to take the 83degree water. Your tank and discus look great !! Nice job !! David T

No, they are Corydoras Virginiae. I have not been able to find out much about them so I am a little concerned about whether they will be Ok at 83 gef. I need to ask around a little as there is not much info on the web.

Aaron

[hedut]

HI Aaron nice heckels and nice tank. I'm looking forward for next picture
Hendri

[plecocicho]

Nice tank. Could you describe your setup?

[bavaria36]

Nice tank. Could you describe your setup?

The tank is a 120 gallon and I am running two large air driven sponge filters and an Eheim Wet/Dry filter. It has been running for 9 months now so the filters are mature. There are two 200 W heaters and I am keeping the temperature at around 82 degf. The bottom is covered with a thin layer of pool sand.

I have three pieces of wood with a couple of anubias attached to them. The anubias grow quite well even in the low light levels of this tank. I have a planted tank in which the anubias grow fast so when I prune them I just place them in this tank as floating plants. They seem to last quite long.

Until today the tank has been stocked with some other wilds, the cories and a couple of Ancistrus sp. I use tap water that gets aged for one day in a couple of holding tanks. As I only had 6 wilds in the tank until now I have only been doing water changes every other day but this seems to have been enough. ( I have other more heavily stocked tanks and I have been doing 90% WC's in those recently ).

I still need to do a couple of things in this tank

1) get my RO setup running again so that I can use a 50/50 mix for the heckels

2) Add peat to the filter so that I can condition the water a little.

3) I need to move the heaters and sponge filters around a little just to hide them better

Aaron

[Eddie]

Amazing, they look like they are settling in well. Super nice heckels!


Eddie

[bavaria36]

Ok, so here are some pictures from this evening. The good news is that they have continued to eat whatever I put in the tank and now come up to the surface to take food. They even come rushing to the front of the tank when they see me move around in the fish room.

The really great thing is that after I drop the food in they spend an hour or so browsing and picking every little bit off the sand. They have taken tetrabits, Microcrabs, Veggie flake and BW's so it seems they will eat almost anything. My wild greens never behaved like this and are still picky eaters after almost two years. I guess it may be becasue these are juvelines while the greens were already adults when I got them. Having 11 fish in the group also seems to help the feel at ease.

Tomorrow I will start getting them used to the lights.

Sorry about the lousy picture quality .. I really need to get a good SLR if I am to take some decent shots

Aaron

[bavaria36]

and a few more

[Eddie]

Wow, thats fantastic! Dan must have trained them up well!

I still have 2 that will only eat FBW's

Take care
Eddie

[Terrybo]

Your tank and fish look great! I love how you can actually watch your cories - in my planted tank I barely get to see mine - they are pretty much hidden by the plants most of the time.

Terry

[bavaria36]

Your tank and fish look great! I love how you can actually watch your cories - in my planted tank I barely get to see mine - they are pretty much hidden by the plants most of the time.

Terry

Terry, I have a planted tank too with 9 Corydoras Sterbai and 8 Corydoras Leucomelas. They are big healthy fish and the Sterbais have spawned several times ( in fact the 9th fish is an f1 ) but like yours they hide most of the time and only come out to feed.

They are also very skittish and rush back into the plants as soon as I move in front of the tank. In this biotope tank, the Corydroas Virginiae seem to be getting used to me and spend a lot of time out front. IMO when you give the fish a lot of cover in the tank they tend to stay there even when fully acclimated.

Aaron

[Dan S]

Hello Aaron,

They are really active arent they. Im very impressed, what size are they?

Dan