Fishmosy's Barney Springs Biotope tank

[fishmosy 997]

Barney Springs is a pretty special place

Ever since I first visited Barney Springs I've wanted to do a biotope tank.

Here are a few shots and a video of the shrimp from Barney Springs. I believe they could be the same species as Caridina sp. 'Malanda' but time will tell.

Here is a shot of the tank as I set it up when I got the shrimp home. I actually brought the red rocks back with me from Cairns. Extra 15kg of luggage! Anyway the layout of the tank has been changed since then and is under constant tweaking. I'll post a full build of the tank once I'm happy with its layout. Also I'm swapping the filter from a Fluval 106 to an Eden 511 because the Fluval is just too powerful for the tank. I have to have the pipes closed at least 60% to stop the shrimp being blown around.

Here are some shots of the shrimp a couple of days after they were first added to the tank. You'll notice some of the shrimp seem to have a disease - their bodies are white indicating tissue necrosis. This was probably related to stress during transport. I culled a couple of the worst ones but the others came good after a week or so. A handful of losses out of the 50 or so that I packed is not bad.

The shrimp like Boss Aquaria's Snow

Here is a video of them chowing down

 

[fishmosy 997]

Some pictures taken over the last week. The shrimp are showing more red and blue colouration now.

 

they also enjoy Benibachi kale tablets

 

 

[Disciple 1,003]

Very nice.

Are they all still doing well?

[fishmosy 997]

Yep doing super well so far. The last video and pics were from a couple of nights ago. 

[Baccus 271]

Great to see some Barney Springs shrimp in a home tank. I dont know if I still have any left. They didnt seem to do so well in the two tanks I ended up putting them in.

From when I went to Barney Springs

[Disciple 1,003]

Yep doing super well so far. The last video and pics were from a couple of nights ago. 

Great work.

[fishmosy 997]

[kizshrimp 255]

Nice! They really do look like Malandas don't they. 

[fishmosy 997]

Yes very close to Malandas. Can't wait to see what @ura comes back with in regards to taxonomy. 

[fishmosy 997]

This photo shows the three colours that these shrimp seem to have in my tank - blue, red and yellow. I know I've had berried females but have yet to see any shrimplets - though I haven't been paying too much attention lately. Will have to have a closer look this afternoon.

[GotCrabs 305]

How's the tank going Mosy?

[fishmosy 997]

So now the Aquatic Gardeners Association 2015 Aquascaping competition results have been released, I can provide a full update on this tank.

As you might have guessed, I entered a reworked version of this tank into the AGA biotope category. Unfortunately I didn't place with this tank but I did get top 10 with my zebra tank.

http://showcase.aquatic-gardeners.org/2015/show502.html

To make my entry for the AGA comp, I started from scratch with a reworked layout. specifically I wanted to give the layout more height, slope and depth.

 

I emptied the tank and started by adding a thick  layer of river sand towards the back of the tank.

over that, I added a mix of benibachi soli and crushed volcanic rock (basalt) which I bought in bags from Bunnings and crushed by hand using a sledge hammer.

 

 

Then I added some large pieces of basalt to hold the sand in place, particularly as I added snails to the tanks.

Edited November 9, 2015 by fishmosy

[jayc 2,853]

Well done on the Tully River Zebra tank - top 10.

 

Edited November 9, 2015 by jayc

[fishmosy 997]

2 hours ago, jayc said:

Well done on the Tully River Zebra tank - top 10.

Thanks mate. Thought the Barney Springs might have ranked a bit higher but the judge's comment on the immaturity of the moss suggests the tank should have had more time to mature and is probably correct. In fact it looks a lot better today than when I entered it into the competition. Will post pics shortly.

 

 

 

 

 

Continuing from above....

The rest of the tank I filled in with the benibachi and basalt combination, sloping down from back to front.

Next I added the red algae covered stones from Barneys, starting with the largest and working my way down until the smallest rocks about 1 cubic cm in size. Also added some tiny shards of quartz as this was mixed amongst the basalt at Barneys

 

Then I filled the tank slowly to avoid disturbing the substrate

Added the filter back onto the tank (at this time I was running a Fluval 106, but have since swapped to another filter)

The airline at the front was used to acclimate the shrimp to the new water in the tank.

Added a couple of fig leaves collected from Barney.

The snails went straight in, no acclimation necessary.

Edited November 9, 2015 by fishmosy

[fishmosy 997]

After acclimating, the shrimp went back in.

And here is the tank after the water cleared.

[fishmosy 997]

 

Edited November 9, 2015 by fishmosy

[fishmosy 997]

 

And a day or two later

 

Edited November 9, 2015 by fishmosy

[fishmosy 997]

Gotta show this as this is my new favorite snail. The mini golden from Barney Springs. It only gets to a maximum of 5mm across the shell, They are like a mini Notopala (e.g. the native waterhouse snail). Their shell can also be black too. I'll post up some more shots of these guys later. So cool.

Here is the shot from the AGA aquascaping competition showing one in comparison to Stenomelania denisoniensis, a snail of about 2-3cm in length

Edited November 9, 2015 by fishmosy

[fishmosy 997]

Sometime between setting the tank up again for the comp and taking the pictures for the comp, I swapped the filter from a Fluval 106/206 (can't remember) to an Eden 511. The Fluval just moved too much water and so I had to have the flow valve half closed all the time which put pressure on the pump and probably contributed to the pump being noisier than what it normally is. The other reason was that the Fluval was too big to sit beside the tank on the rack, meaning the Fluval took up extra space that could be used for more shrimp tanks :(

 I'm really happy with the 511 which I'm also now running on my zebra tank. Both have been faultless so far and they sit nicely behind the tanks, meaning more space for more tanks on my rack.

 

To take pictures for the comp, I had to move both the Barney Springs and the zeb tank onto a temporary shelf as the rack just wouldn't work to get the lighting right over the tank. Whilst I was at it, I gave the glass a really good clean inside and out.

Here the water was a bit murky after the move.

 

Next night and the water was clear again.

I took my photos for the comp at night to minimize any chance of reflections showing up on the front glass of the tank

 

Then I started taking macro shots. I used a Nikon D5100 with Nikon 100 mm macro lens, tripod and two Pro Z LED lights (no camera flash obviously) to get my shots. The other tank shots were taken using the Nikon 40-75mm lens that came standard with the D5100.

 

[fishmosy 997]

[fishmosy 997]

I didn't really like how high the water level was as it made the largest stone seem small, and I wanted it to dominate the aquarium,

The red stones seem much more dominate in this shot.

[buck 390]

Definitely looks better with the lower water level! 

[fishmosy 997]

[Grubs 227]

Cool Psephenids.

The red velvet is really 70's shagadellic!  Another great tank @fishmosy

[fishmosy 997]

Thanks mate, I thought they were water slaters but your ID seems much more accurate. Beetle larvae! Ha, would never have guessed.

I'm not sure what the red stuff actually is. I'm guessing some type of diatom as it only grows on the top surface of the rocks indicating it requires light to survive. I will have to scrape some off the rocks and stick it under a microscope at some point.