Loaches Online Forum

This is an ~8gal tank, 24"x6.5"x12," with a reverse photoperiod 10gal planted sump/paludarium: a high oxygenation system. Flow is ~150gph, at approx 20x turnover in the main tank. These are fish that thrive in such a setup, for those interested in one.

Miller's Blue Tetras
In nature they populate rivers, and have brilliant coloration for the planted aquarium. However, I have a male that is particularly dominant and chases the others into plant cover. They max at around 2" and do fine at the 74-76F temp of this tank.




Cherry barbs like current and add some activity. They seem to prefer cool temperature. When mixing males and females they will mate and drop eggs constantly, but I am of the opinion the females need a larger tank to escape randy males. My lone current female is a bit shy, so a poor pic.


Kuhlii loaches, of course. There is plenty of plant cover in this tank, but if you look close my group piled upon one another.

I normally trim that into a cave for them but have been lazy.

Older pic of two all excited about messing up my carpet.




Otocinclus


Another that did well are Whitecloud minnows, but they are boring and I now keep them in another tank. They spawned iin this tank without intervention though. Here are pics of a couple fry.



One that did not fare well in strong current are H. rasboras. Others claim they like current, but they are happier for me in a lower current tank.


Bonus pics of my Hillie.




HTH

I've never seen a 8gal tank, that looks larger than it is.


Superb!

That looks great

I love all the plants. Any CO2 in there?

Thanks There's DIY CO2 >40ppm. It is a high light/dosing setup. I see you're in San Diego, mamaschild. If you like plants you should join our club. (I'm Czado there.)

Joe

Are you keeping kuhlis in a non-heated tank? Sorry if I missed something there...

There's a heater in the sump/paludarium, but the equipment has kept a pretty steady 74-76F for the past year and I have not seen it turn on over normal use (I can no longer see the heater after converting the sump to a paludarium, though).

I am probably doing a poor job explaining to others curious, so here's a couple pics.

The water goes into the main tank on the top right, drains on the top left, then flows down the flex pipe to the top left of the paludarium/sump. From that point it flows down a carved "river" (like a wet/dry) to the submerged area/cave on the bottom.


Inside that cave is a hole (covered by non metallic window screen) that leads to a hidden compartment in the back. In this compartment is the MagDrive return pump, heater, and auto top-off system. The water then returns back to the main tank via the right flex pipe. The paludarium structure is styro coated with cement. Here is the opening for the compartment, which is shaped like an L if that makes sense.


Last summer temp rose to the low 80s, too high for the Hillie I think, and this year I am brainstorming some solutions. I appreciate suggestions.

In the end there are many different configurations for a nano river tank, of course. This is simply one guy's idea.

I love it when "one guy" turns out to be a mad scientist. Crazy set up! Super job.

Heh. Glad you like it, Mark. Love your tanks.

i know this was long ago but that tank is amazing, that is what has pushed me into keeping hillstream fish.
whats the stock in nums cuz IMO it looks a litle overstocked?

david

Fascinating pictures, and thank you for the information on the barbs/rasboras with current.

As for kuhlis: I have two in a hillstream tank right now, and they are doing well. One is seriously gravid now. No hiding at all, they chose to live in a sword plant (there is very little current in their area). Hillstreams, even the aggressive one, totally ignore them. Temp is supposed to be 74-75, but it is a bit higher now during the days.

Hey, sorry for the very late reply, David. I am glad the tank pushed you over the edge

Last I posted I had 6 Blue teras, a female Cherry barb, the Hillie, 4 Kuhlii loaches, 4 Otocinclus, lots of "pest" snails, and a couple shrimp in there. Total volume (including paludarium/sump) is around 10gals. The tank is overstocked by most standards, though often when people look at my full tank shots they ask if I keep fish I am very dependent on the plants for bio-filtration and cover.

(I've since traded away the Tetras, which I find boring, moved the Cherry barb to another tank, and replaced them with Psuedomugil furcatus, aka "Forktail Blue-eye Rainbowfish," which is a really cool small fish that seems to like current, but are hard to take a pic of. If I get a good one and some experience I'll post in this thread. Home of the Rainbowfish has great info: http://members.optusnet.com.au/chelmon/Pseudomugil.htm )

very pretty fish that is!
And I love your tanks.