illumnae's poor attempt at a Rio Orinocco biotope (240 gal) - 56k warning

[illumnae]

Hi everyone! After almost half a year of slowly collecting inhabitants, changing plans halfway and just generally getting the tank in order, my attempt at a Rio Orinocco biotope setup is finally taking shape! This used to be a mixed South American biotope tank with blue discus, but due to various reasons (largely the sudden imports of rare Rio Orinocco fish that I couldn't resist!), the concept has changed over time. This is the thread previously started when it was a discus tank:

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?87343-illumnae-s-240gal-S.A.-biotope-with-Blue-discus-%29&highlight=

There's still a lot of work to be done to reach the final product, but a huge milestone for me was a few weeks back when I transferred my quarantined altums into the tank. So far so good (fingers crossed!) and the altums are actually looking even happier to be in this tank than they were in quarantine!

All the fish in this tank are wildcaught :)

Current inhabitants:

Pterophyllum altum - ~20 (didn't count exactly after quarantine losses)
Uaru fernandezyepezi - 7
Satanoperca mapiritensis - 6
Satanoperca daemon - 7
Geophagus winemilleri - 5
Mesonauta insignis - 5
Corydoras metae - 25
Dekeyseria sp. (L52) - 3


Future inhabitants:

Hyphessobrycon sweglesi - 50 (wild caught Red Phantom Tetras, currently in quarantine)

Sorry in advance for the dirty water and dirty glass!

FTS:

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x110/illumnae/FTS1.jpg

Some group shots:

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x110/illumnae/GroupShot1-1.jpg

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x110/illumnae/GroupShot2-1.jpg

Check out the hero Corydoras metae in the focus!



Tank inhabitants:

Uaru fernandezyepezi -

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x110/illumnae/Uarufernandezyepezi2.jpg

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x110/illumnae/Uarufernandezyepezi1.jpg

[illumnae]

Satanoperca mapiritensis (looks a lot like S. leucosticta, but it's not) -

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x110/illumnae/Satanopercamapiritensis1.jpg

Corydoras metae -

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x110/illumnae/Corydorasmetae1.jpg

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x110/illumnae/Corydorasmetae2.jpg

Dekeysera sp. L52 -

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x110/illumnae/L521.jpg

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x110/illumnae/L522.jpg

[illumnae]

Geophagus winemilleri -

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x110/illumnae/Geophaguswinemilleri1.jpg

Mesonauta insignis (I waited SO LONG to finally find some wild caught ones!!) -

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x110/illumnae/Mesonautainsignis1.jpg

Last but not least....Pterophyllum altum -

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x110/illumnae/Pterophyllumaltum1.jpg


Didn't manage to get a focus shot on the Satanoperca daemon this time as they're still small. Maybe next time!

[PleiadesSTi]

Cool. :)

[gabloo]

Very nice!

[damian_ireland]

i like it. a bit bare, maybe some more wood ?
How long have you had the altums ?

[plecocicho]

Nice tank, little more driftwood maybe. please do not feed any bh mix to yoir fish, as uaros will then surelly develop hille and satanopercas will bloat.

[illumnae]

Hi, definitely more wood :) They are sitting next to the tank awaiting a weekend I'm free to scape!

I don't feed bh mix to any of my fish, not even discus. It's just too much trouble for me. I've been feeding them a staple of NLS Thera+A with occasional treats of frozen bloodworm or freezedried blackworms. The UFY have been with me since February, and the satanopercas since April. No problems with this diet!

Altums have been with me for a few months now. I had 6 adults that I've been keeping since 3 years ago, but I gave them to my father-in-law earlier this year, so they're now swimming in his house!

[blkg35]

Awesome collection of South american cichlids. You've got some pretty rare ones.
Can't wait to see some pics of the new driftwood added.
How long have you had the altum? Did you lose any?

[illumnae]

I've been acclimating and keeping altums for 3 years now. Generally have very low death rates on them (less than 20% death rate overall). This year I had a pretty heavy casualty rate due to my own carelessness during the quarantine process resulting in cross-contamination of various wild fish that caused the altums to contract columnaris. I rectified all my stupidity in this latest batch, and it was a 10% loss on this last batch that you see in the tank now (18 survivors out of 20 in this batch. I had a total of 4-6 left on the batches I was stupid on).

[Discus-Hans]

LOVEEEEEEEEEEEEEE your Uaru's, but it looks to me you got all males????

Hans

[illumnae]

No idea on the sex :( They came in as a batch of 13, and the LFS quarantined them and took the loss of 6 pieces. I acquired the remaining 7. I don't intend to seriously breed them, so didn't even bother to look closely to sex them...I just like them as a colony :)

The importer is possibly bringing in another group over the next couple of months and I'm thinking of adding another 2-3 to the colony after thinning away some eartheaters to prevent bioload overload.

[Dieselfool]

Wow! Nice.

[ExReefer]

Nicely done!

[lipadj46]

more wood!

http://www.barrreport.com/showthread.php/9332-FS-Gnarled-manzanita-driftwood-Batch-7-over-100-pics