350L (92 gal) transformation - project planning

[ReproachfulLoach]

Hi all! Posted here a while ago that I was looking for ideas for my 350L tank with 5 clown loaches (this thread). Had a hard time finding the aquascapers who did not tell me to get rid of the loaches as step 1. So, I finally find the contractors, they do an assessment visit (for which I paid, of course), calculate the budget and then they just ghost. On the plus side, I ended up with the calculations they made and now that I have more time on my hands I decided to do the project myself which will give me much more creative freedom.

I need some help planning this project.

I already have a mix of spieces from different geographies (clowns, blue gouramis, barbs, corys, and two rescue otocinclus that I absolutely love and want to have some more) so it is not going to be a biotope. I am targeting something messy like what you get if you google botanical/blackwater/South Asian to give my folks a nice river bed to dig in.

My itinerary so far looks like this:

Material
Large driftwood - 2 major pieces, ideally ~60–90 cm each
Dragon stone - 5–10 kg, selected pieces rather than a box
Light/natural sand - 25–30 kg
Smaller branches/twigs - optional, 2–5 pieces
Leaf litter - Enough for an initial partial covering, plus reserve

​

+ plants:

• Microsorum pteropus: 6–8
• Anubias nana / similar: 6–8 — mostly lower/shadier areas.
• Bucephalandra: 5–7 — accents

The action plan is:

- soak driftwood well for a couple of days
- scrape the tank, remove the old submerged filter column.
- attach plants to driftwood
- remove most of the water, have fun catching fish (I DREAD this part; on the other hand, I would die if I were a fish and someone would be doing the redesign around me); put the fish in a large plastic container with an air pump.
- remove old decorations and sand, scrape.
- add new sand, install driftwood, hide ugly loach houses behind the driftwood and stones
- add water and conditioner.
- put the fish back in.
- add leaves.

1) Please check (or roast) the plan. Have you done anything like that? Did it work for you?
2) Do you see any risks? I once had a large group of fish die when I added new soil to the tank. Do you see anything reckless here?
3) I want to add more livestock. It is probably best to do it after I'm done so that they do not have to endure the apocalypse.
4) Is there anything I could do to make sure algae does not come back?

Any advice and words of wisdom are very welcome!

 

[Noroomforshoe]

IMO-
The loaches may get scrapped on the dragen stone, The dragonstone is taking up room in a tank that has a large bioload and serving no purpouse.
I suggest that you find hollow decorations with smooth surfaces for the loaches. I have many loaches and i know that finding large smooth hollows is like finding gold at the end of a rainbow.
Consider Pvc pipe, consider taking a potter class and making it yourself , consider broken ceramic and teracotta pots and sand the edges.
Also IMO,
You should not throw out most of the water. 80 gallons of clean water sounds great doesnt it? But the fish are used to the water that they are currently living in, it contains millions of bacteria ,microrganisms, and other substinces, that no other water in the world has.

 

[ReproachfulLoach]

IMO-
The loaches may get scrapped on the dragen stone, The dragonstone is taking up room in a tank that has a large bioload and serving no purpouse.
I suggest that you find hollow decorations with smooth surfaces for the loaches. I have many loaches and i know that finding large smooth hollows is like finding gold at the end of a rainbow.
Consider Pvc pipe, consider taking a potter class and making it yourself , consider broken ceramic and teracotta pots and sand the edges.
Also IMO,
You should not throw out most of the water. 80 gallons of clean water sounds great doesnt it? But the fish are used to the water that they are currently living in, it contains millions of bacteria ,microrganisms, and other substinces, that no other water in the world has.

Thanks! That is a good point. I'll use my "old" water for the large plastic container where I'll put the fish. I guess if I let the dust settle, I can get away with keeping most of my water.

I am keeping their current ceramic houses. They do not look fancy, but the fish seem to like them and I can hide them among the driftwood. But anyways, replacing dragon stone with something less scratchy and maybe more driftwood makes a lot of sense. I like the idea of masking a few PVC pipes for them to hide it. They loved their bamboo houses when they were smaller.

 

[fishthatfit]

On the die-off after you added soil: that reads like ammonia leaching out of the soil rather than anything you did wrong handling it. Aquasoils are made to release it and plain sand is inert, so the thing that got you last time isn't in this plan at all.

The organic load here is the leaf litter. It's the only thing going in that breaks down, and in your order it lands at the end of a day where the substrate has just been stripped out. I'd hold the leaves back a week or two and add them a handful at a time instead.

 

[ruud]

I'd rinse the sand first, crush leaves and mix these along with twigs and perhaps some cones in the sand; you'll get a lovely natural substrate look. Some inspiration: The Tint

Dead, brown tree leaves are mostly made from cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin; I wouldn't worry about any negative effects ... unless you work with normal light output, which is seldomly a good idea.

Biotope-ish tanks are all about subdued light, spotlights, shades. More inspiration: Home BIOTOPE AQUARIUM Project - BAP

 

[fishthatfit]

Fair on the ammonia, dry brown leaves aren't a nitrogen source the way aquasoil is. What I'd still stage is the oxygen demand, since it's a big surface area going in at once and clown loaches are the first fish in that tank to show it.

The other thing about crushing them into the sand is that it puts the decomposition underneath instead of on top. The loaches will keep the open sand turned over, but not the parts under wood or up against the back glass.

 

[ruud]

The biological oxygen demand (BOD) of dead brown leaves is generally nothing to worry about, nor is whether the leaves end up under or between wood, at the back of the tank, or on top of the substrate. The amount of carbon they contain is substantial, but most of it is refractory and decomposition is slow.

Then there is the upside. Leaf litter provides enrichment, shelter and food, while also contributing humic substances whose role in aquariums is surely underestimated. Many of the fish we keep have evolved in habitats where leaf litter are an integral part of the environment.

I think "biotopes" are the easiest tanks to maintain due to several characteristics;
- typical presence of "terrestrial waste"/botanicals
- typical subdued light
- typical low fish stocking
- biotope keepers are often more conscious of water profiles
- vigorous cleaning is absent (and impossible to perform!)

Some leaf litter / detritus in one of my tanks Blackwater / Parosphromenus gunawani

Feel free to disagree, of course. Conflicting opinions make for a better forum.

Cheers!

 

[fishthatfit]

Fair enough. On whole leaves I'll give you the point; tanks like that one are the evidence.

Where I'm still not sure is the crushing specifically, since milled leaf worked into fine sand is a lot more surface area sitting somewhere with much less flow through it than the same leaves lying on top. Have you seen it behave differently that way round, or does it end up much the same either way?

 

[ruud]

No I haven't.

 

[A201]

I'm not a big fan of commercially manufactured fish houses or PVC pipes. Although such things do the job, they just aren't very aesthetically pleasing.

I agree that dragon stone might be a little abrasive toward Loaches, but the danger for injury is remote.

My primary tank is loaded with honeycomb limestone, which is somewhat abrasive. My groups of Modesta, Kubotai, YoYo & Tiger Loaches have never displayed any major or lasting scrapes.

Shop online & visit your local rockyard or landscape company. Select some really cool appropriately sized rocks.
It's not difficult & is very rewarding to build caves & crevasses simply by angling and stacking rocks.

As for driftwood, big chunks of gnarly Spiderwood are usually easy to find online. I have three huge pieces of it. Spiderwood provides instant shelter for any bottom feeder.

 

[ruud]

Throwback monday, my nano stream tank, the whole substrate made of rocks: Dayaoshan hillstream

These stones didn't seem to have any effect on water hardness.

 

[ReproachfulLoach]

On the die-off after you added soil: that reads like ammonia leaching out of the soil rather than anything you did wrong handling it. Aquasoils are made to release it and plain sand is inert, so the thing that got you last time isn't in this plan at all.

The organic load here is the leaf litter. It's the only thing going in that breaks down, and in your order it lands at the end of a day where the substrate has just been stripped out. I'd hold the leaves back a week or two and add them a handful at a time instead.

Good point, it could totally contribute. I would say the main reason was that the soil absorbed oxygen, because all the gill-breathing fish were struggling to breathe, but gouramis and corys were perfectly fine. Anyways, this was something completely unexpected.
I will be careful with the leaves because I do not want to mess with the water chemistry more than I have to. Thank you for pointing that our.

I'd rinse the sand first, crush leaves and mix these along with twigs and perhaps some cones in the sand; you'll get a lovely natural substrate look. Some inspiration: The Tint

Dead, brown tree leaves are mostly made from cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin; I wouldn't worry about any negative effects ... unless you work with normal light output, which is seldomly a good idea.

Biotope-ish tanks are all about subdued light, spotlights, shades. More inspiration: Home BIOTOPE AQUARIUM Project - BAP

Thanks for sharing these. I love the way sand looks when mixed with leaves, it's much more natural than just plain sand with leaves on top. Will definitely do that.

The biological oxygen demand (BOD) of dead brown leaves is generally nothing to worry about, nor is whether the leaves end up under or between wood, at the back of the tank, or on top of the substrate. The amount of carbon they contain is substantial, but most of it is refractory and decomposition is slow.

Then there is the upside. Leaf litter provides enrichment, shelter and food, while also contributing humic substances whose role in aquariums is surely underestimated. Many of the fish we keep have evolved in habitats where leaf litter are an integral part of the environment.

I think "biotopes" are the easiest tanks to maintain due to several characteristics;
- typical presence of "terrestrial waste"/botanicals
- typical subdued light
- typical low fish stocking
- biotope keepers are often more conscious of water profiles
- vigorous cleaning is absent (and impossible to perform!)

Some leaf litter / detritus in one of my tanks Blackwater / Parosphromenus gunawani

Feel free to disagree, of course. Conflicting opinions make for a better forum.

Cheers!

I will need to do some reading on the oxygen demand topic.

Personally I like biotope setups, because they look like they provide better environment enrichment to the fish than cleaner decorative setups. The fish in your video look like they are having fun.

I'm not a big fan of commercially manufactured fish houses or PVC pipes. Although such things do the job, they just aren't very aesthetically pleasing.

I agree that dragon stone might be a little abrasive toward Loaches, but the danger for injury is remote.

My primary tank is loaded with honeycomb limestone, which is somewhat abrasive. My groups of Modesta, Kubotai, YoYo & Tiger Loaches have never displayed any major or lasting scrapes.

Shop online & visit your local rockyard or landscape company. Select some really cool appropriately sized rocks.
It's not difficult & is very rewarding to build caves & crevasses simply by angling and stacking rocks.

As for driftwood, big chunks of gnarly Spiderwood are usually easy to find online. I have three huge pieces of it. Spiderwood provides instant shelter for any bottom feeder.

After reading this thread, I decided to skip the dragon stone for now and bought more driftwood instead. At some point if the tank feels empty, I may add some limestone. For now I will hide a few of the old ceramic houses between the roots and driftwood just to give loaches more options.

 

[fishthatfit]

I would say the main reason was that the soil absorbed oxygen, because all the gill-breathing fish were struggling to breathe, but gouramis and corys were perfectly fine.

That's a better explanation than mine. Gouramis and corys can both gulp air at the surface, so them being fine while the gill-only fish struggled is pretty much the signature of low oxygen. Ammonia would have hit all of them.

 

[AnilS]

Hi all! Posted here a while ago that I was looking for ideas for my 350L tank with 5 clown loaches (this thread). Had a hard time finding the aquascapers who did not tell me to get rid of the loaches as step 1. So, I finally find the contractors, they do an assessment visit (for which I paid, of course), calculate the budget and then they just ghost. On the plus side, I ended up with the calculations they made and now that I have more time on my hands I decided to do the project myself which will give me much more creative freedom.

Hi, your plan is already very strong and very good...i mean it is solid, spectacular..still i will consider safety and security of fish first...take your time to build and enjoy.

 

[ReproachfulLoach]

Hi, your plan is already very strong and very good...i mean it is solid, spectacular..still i will consider safety and security of fish first...take your time to build and enjoy.

Thank you! This weekend is going to be fun and the fish are going to hate me, but I am determined!