Can food change your tank? part I

The term "serious hobbyist" means different things to different people. To some people it mean "knowledgeable". To some others means "experienced". However most people tend to use this term for people who have many tanks or a passion for fish keeping. To me, it simply means "people who care to provide their fish the best conditions". That's all. Best conditions means water parameters, the right tank mates (both as species and as number of fish in the tank), a suitable and functional aquascape and the correct maintenance of the tank. You don't have to spend much money. You simply have to invest your money the correct way. With these in mind I was recently faced with a dilemma. I used to feed my fish a lot of different foods which was distributed in the water in different ways which allowed different species to get it while ensuring that no fish was left without food. Thus I used flakes which was distributed in the whole water column (so fry was able to get some of it without leaving the security of their caves), large sinking pellets (which all large fish would take in mid-water), floating pellets (allowing big fish to take it from the surface while the smaller ones could take the flakes in piece) or shrimps (which were simply taken by those who could). Recently I bought another kind of food: small sinking pellets. The size of the pellet is approximately 1 mm which is relatively small for the big fish. Thus you have to add a lot of them and feed your fish more than once daily. The big fish will try to get as much as they can in mid-water while the small fish will take the ones which reach the bottom first. When the water column is clear, the big fish (still hungry) will start to search the sand for more food. I keep a large number of sand dwellers (7 Fossorochromis rostratus, a Placidochromis electra) and bottom feeding fish (4 Synodontis sp. and two Pterygoplichthys multiradiatus) to which searching the bottom for food is the natural way to feed. While the other fish will take most of their food in mid-water, those fish prefer to search for it on the sand. The sight of Placidochromis electra or F. rostratus digging in the sand is beautiful, natural and very interesting. However, the structure of my big tank didn't allow those fish to search for food as they would in nature, simply because there was no "large" sand area which to patrol for food. As you can see on the top picture below, the tank was aquascaped in such a way as to provide the maximum number of caves and crevices and a continuous tunnel running through the whole length of the tank. Thus, the fry and the small Synodontis catfish were able to go anywhere they liked without the risk of becoming a dish in the menu of the haps. Therefore I had to create an open sand space while keeping a large portion of the tank with rocks and many hiding places. I had to rearrange a lot of stones increasing the number of hiding spots at the two ends of the tank while removing them from the center of it. In the end (bottom photo) and area measuring 100 x 65 cm was cleaned from rocks and new sand was added to increase the depth. The final depth of sand in the middle section was increased from 3 to 6 cm which I regarded as enough. After the addition of sand I always perform a big water change to remove the fine dust which was not removed during the pre-washing thus clouding the water. An 80% water change was made during a 4 hour period and the fish seemed to like it - as they always do.

The "old" aquascape. The rock formation is running across the tank's long axis creating a continuous tunnel and many hiding places. However, it didn't allow bottom feeders and especially sand dwellers to eat as they would in nature.

The "new" aquascape. The rock formations at the two sides of the tank were substantially increased while the center of it was cleared. My Cryptocorine sp. became more visible - an additional bonus.

Of course, the main issue is not whether I like this aquascape more than the previous one but what do my fish think about it - it is they which will live in there. To start with, the fry and catfishes didn't seem to care at all. Apart from an initial hesitation of the sailfin plecos to cross the "open" space, the rest seemed like at home. The fry quickly found new caves and were soon standing at the opening of their new homes quite happily. It was then time to "test" the functionality of the tank. I anxiously waited for 8 more hours, to make sure every fish had the time to make its best arrangement and then dropped some of the new food to see what their reaction would be. I watched the fry taking the food as they normally did while most of the haps tried to get the most of it while sinking. When there was nothing left floating in the water, well, it was show time. I was resting in the big armchair wirh the camera in my hand, background cleared from shinning and reflecting objects. Of course, I was not disappointed.

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