This is the first time I have replaced the bamboo in well over 4 years, so it did last for quite a long time. I must add that this tank is part of a powerfully filtered, sizeable sofwater fish system and receives at least 2 large water changes per day. I would not recommend using bamboo (or at least this sort of quantity of bamboo) in the home aquarium as it does rot down into the water. This isn't an issue in this tank for the above reasons.
I took some 14ft lengths of bamboo of various diameters and cut them into the lengths I wanted. Some tall to reach the top of the tank, and some shorter ones to take plants. These lengths were stuck to large pieces of flat slate with a 2-part marine putty which is normally used for marine rockwork construction and fragging corals etc. You have limited time to work with this stuff once kneaded together. After this dried, I emptied the tank of it's previous decor and started adding the new bamboo/slate combos. Unfortunately, as mentioned above, a lot of it did not want to sink, so we drilled several small holes in the back of each piece in order for it to take in water and expel the air. Most pieces then sunk, but a few still did not want to. I think the tank looks a little bare in places because of this, so at some point I will add more motherplants to the tank to compensate for this.
And here are some of the inhabitants:
First off, the loaches!
Some of the 15 clown loach specimens checking out the bamboo hidey holes:
Clown loach with a large sized L007 Tooth Nose Pleco and a Botia kubotai in the background:
Botia dario:
Botia striata:
Another large sized B. striata (gravid?) alongside a jumbo Corydoras sterbai:
Botia kubotai:
again, alongside one of the giant Corys:
Botia histrionica:
One of the 10 XL Corydoras sterbai, which have bred in this tank before now:
Congo Tetras:
Some baby Garra flavatra, added a few days ago. They are probably 1.5"TL:
And the beautiful angel fish that we have rehomed for a long-term customer of ours, who has unfortunately had to give up fishkeeping because of her ill-health. These were sold to her at another shop as altums, but we are not 100% sure on that. Shari, I'd be interested to hear what you think. Their behaviour is not typical for 'standard' angel fish. These are very mild mannered and often shoal together. A couple of specimens have slightly ragged finnage following the move, but this is now coming back nicely.
And finally, here is a short video clip of the tank, please turn the sound down to avoid camera refocus noise:
http://s88.photobucket.com/albums/k183/ ... CN8432.flv
I apologise if the 'still' pics showing the entire tank appear too bright. Despite being able to take close-up pics of my fish, I have trouble taking pics of actual whole tank set-ups. They usually appear too dark, so I switch to Auto mode, which then seems to make things too bright.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the photos.
Emma
Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.
