Staffylover's Two 200s (Pantanal/Catfish kingdom)

[Staffylover]

Last week decided to spruce up my tanks, for the last 3 months it's been pretty much water changes only, so put a large plant order in then spent a morning having a kind of spring clean (in August) every tank got at least one new plant plus did a lot of extra jobs I had been putting off, it was a lot of work but worth it as things were starting to annoy me,
Back to these 2 tanks, the Rio 180 has been set up since January and is a Pantanal theme here is how it looked when first set up

[Staffylover]

Stocking for this tank includes
Spotfin hatchetfish
Serpae Tetra
Black Phantom Tetra
Green fire tetra
3 young Rio Paraguay Ancistrus
group of C.Septentrionalis
1 Festivum





The Ancistrus has a lovely yellow base colour, especially the female, plus they are much flatter in body profile than your standard BN, the Festivum also has a nice yellow base colour which I wasn't expecting

[Staffylover]

In terms of plants it's been a bit of a struggle, firstly it's infront of a window so suffers from BBA, I have managed to block out more of the light so this is back under control at least for now, secondly the Ancistrus like to eat a lot of the plants I try to put in, however just added some more Sagittaria which might be safe and Hydrocotyle to try and give the Hatchet fish more cover, the tank is currently looking like this, it's finally starting to look how I hoped it might it's just going to take some time

[Staffylover]

Tank 2!
I had an Aqua Oak 340l but in the end found it heavy going and could never use it with the lid, so back in January it got sold the plan was always to replace it with 2x200l tanks instead, the tank sold quickly and the Rio180 was up and running at around the same time, I wanted to use the Eheim pro4 600 filter that I already had, so this time went for a Roma200 I do really like the Fluval tanks,

It was a while before I got time to set this one up but I had the wood for the scape sat there ready which came online from Riverwood Aquatics, really happy with it and would do this again if I needed, there is not much choice in the local shops and I wanted the scape to be mostly wood as I wanted to make this tank primarily for Catfish,
I tried to go for a forest pool effect with lots of hiding places for the Catfish

For swimming fish just put in smaller fish that I like, exchanged the flame tetra that stick to the bottom for harlequins that swim near the top,
For plants I have stuck to small leaf Anubias, moss and green crypts, most of this came from my other tanks, the only thing I might change is to replace the crypts at the front with smaller ones to create more of a carpet effect
I am super happy with how this tank has turned out, now all I have to do is try to make the scapes in the other 6 tanks better so I can be just as happy with them all!
I don't have many pictures of the set up as my laptop broke and I lost most of them I just have this one of the start



and this one the side view after fish had been added

[fr499y]

Nice!

[Staffylover]

stocking for this tank
2x orange fin L012 pleco
3x porthole catfish
C.Sychri
C.Splendens
3x S.Petricola
then also a bunch of Harlequins, my glass bloodfin tetra, a few thick lipped gourami, a few small rainbowfish and 5x Setnai barbs,
The mix of fish seems to be working well, it's all peaceful but there is also colour and activity especially now that the Harlequins are starting to colour up,
Here is a pic from a couple of weeks ago



Here is a recent pic, I also have a quick video so will have a go at loading that up.

[Staffylover]

Video looks like it has worked

[black ghost]

Mesonauta insignis, I believe, like most ‘festivums’ in the hobby. It’s about the best looking Mesonauta, imo.

[BalloonMolly]

Video looks like it has worked

What a gorgeous tank! Big fan of the Porthole Catfish in particular.

[Staffylover]

Thanks @BalloonMolly they are lovely, related to Hoplo catfish I have been told