'The Un-Amazon' tetra haven
 

Well, I got a little crazy and started a freshwater tank :surprise: I figured it will give me something to look at while I finalize plans for my saltwater tank(s), and I've been seeing a lot of really beautiful planted tanks lately.

I wanted to do something really low tech for this one, since the saltwater tanks will be pretty complex (the 6 gallon extremely so, with all the DIY lighting and such). I had some space by the window and little bit of extra cash, so I bought a 10 gallon kit from Walmart...
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/u...jority/019.jpg
and proceeded to set it up with a heater I had lying around. Since Walmart also had a fair number of South American creatures swimming around in their tanks, I decided to use that as my theme.

To that end, the tank was filled with tap water which was allowed to sit for a day. I then added some washed sand, pebbles, and stones, and since I was planning this to be a planted tank, I seeded the sand with some clay and peat. The next day, I went and bought 10 neon tetras and 5 glowlight tetras, and a 'sword' plant from Walmart. Once I got them acclimated and placed them in the tank, I let them settle in for a day and then dosed the tank with peat...
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/u...jority/008.jpg
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/u...jority/009.jpg

The fish didn't seem to mind much. Actually, the cloudy water probably made them feel more secure... and the color that the water took on was what I wanted to achieve.
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/u...jority/010.jpg

I realized after doing some research that the plant I had bought was not actually a 'sword' plant after all... or at least not an Echinodorus species as I had first thought. E. tenellus turned out to be a species of Cryptocoryne, C. parva to be specific. Anyways, I realized there was more than one plant in the pot so I split them up, and replanted them near the front of the tank where I will allow them to establish. I plan to start a S.E. Asia planted tank in the near future, so these will eventually move into that tank, but for now they provide welcome greenery until I can order some plants online.

For a more natural look, I added some cleaned dead sticks, dead leaves, etc... all the things a normal natural stream might have.

FTS: March 25
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/u...rity/013-1.jpg

My tentative plant listing:
Echinodorus quadricostatus (mid ground)
E. osiris (specimen plant)
Mayaca fluviatilis (stem plant, background)
Heteranthera zosterfolia (stem plant, background)
Egeria najas (stem plant, background)
Ceratophyllum submersum (floating)
Azolla spp. (floating)
Salvinia minima or rotundifolia (floating)

All of these plants are found in S. America, so they fit my theme. I added an Otocinclus and a Corydoras a couple days ago, and have built a 'floating' vegetation mat over half the water's surface. Yesterday I added some live roots and a little more vegetation (what was left of the plants that I used to create the mat)... I don't have pics of that yet, I'm going to wait and see how it looks in a week or two. I may have to pull the roots if they start to look bad.

Some random pics... the fish are looking great! Must be the distilled water that makes up their environment, I switched it over gradually over the past 2 weeks since I set up the tank.
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/u...jority/044.jpg
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/u...jority/006.jpg
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/u...jority/025.jpg
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/u...jority/002.jpg
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/u...y/P1010811.jpg
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/u...y/P1010823.jpg
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/u...y/P1010826.jpg

Big Bertha, a gravid female and the biggest of the neons...
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/u...y/P1010807.jpg

FTS: March 30
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/u...y/P1010835.jpg

Thanks for looking! More to come as the tank fills in or things change.

Looks good. Are you just using natural sunlight?

Yup, no artificial anything in this tank.

EDIT: Hmm, I'll bet you're thinking about the sun heating the tank... I'm home during the day and have observed around a 2.5 degree Celsius rise in the temperature over an 8 hour photoperiod (currently, this will change as summer comes closer), with around 6 hours of direct sun. I will need to get something in place to deal with this... so I'm building my own mini-chiller. Should be much cheaper than those Coolworks setups, though I could just save some cash up and add one of those to the HOB filter. I'll document the build when I do it for the benefit of others.

Quick update:

Added some driftwood, changed out the filter for a 150 gph power filter, added some sphagnum moss and dead leaves, 3 more otocinclus, another peppered cory, and 4 black neons. Downgraded the heater to a 50 watt, and tinted the back of the tank with a 35% heat reflective window film.

FTS May 4, 2009:
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/u...jority/053.jpg

I'll add some detail shots later.

looks great....such a neat idea too. I'll be following this one along

That is a great looking "natural" tank. will follow along with this. :biggrin:

Neat! :cool:

Still have a soft spot for neons! Tank is a cool concept!

Yeah, it turned out okay... I realized after I had done it that I have sort of a riparium thing going on, with the emersed growth and roots hanging in the water. Not as nice as some I've seen on the internet, but an interesting idea nonetheless. Originally I did it as a way to give the tetras some sort of cover, to make them feel more comfortable. They do seem happy, but I won't know how happy until I get my test kits and test the parameters. I do a 20% or so water change every couple days (never more than 5) with distilled water, so I expect the water to be pretty good. I top off with distilled and aged tap water, so the water should have some hardness (but not much).

I promised some detail pics...

I love this pic of the 4 black neons... they move away from the larger shoal of neons and glowlights by themselves occasionally, but most of the time they stick with the crowd. Never far from each other though, even within the school. This pic turned out a little different than the others... the auto white balance on the camera kicked in.
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/u...jority/049.jpg

Auto white balance on this one too... but it shows the texture of the debris on the bottom of my tank, and the contrast with the fish.
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/u...jority/051.jpg

And a couple more.
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/u...jority/046.jpg
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/u...rity/044-1.jpg
http://i633.photobucket.com/albums/u...jority/048.jpg

Thanks for looking, and your kind comments.

Makes me want another freshwater tank.