The African River Aquarium: EPIC Aquascape Tutorial w/ Kribensis Cichlid & Congo Tetra

[Music] [Music] what's going on beautiful people so today's the day i can finally start the build for my african river tank i've been looking really forward to this for a long time finally it's ready to go so we've got a nice low iron glass tank it's four foot so a decent size and that's gonna mean we can get some nice flow going all the way across it the lighting on the tank was custom made by myself as i say custom that makes it sound fancy it's just two led 30 watt flood lights and strip of wood hung from the ceiling but i painted everything black and the led floodlights are black as well so i think it looks pretty good [Music] so we've got a really good set up there to get us started now one thing i do want to change though is the background or the lack of a background currently the tank's completely clear now if you come away from the wall that's absolutely fine but i don't want to do that because it's going to come into the room no no no but because it's set back against the wall you find that once you fill the tank up with water you get this really weird sort of darkening in the background i've actually done it on my ecosystem tank it's too late now because i filled up with water but you know you've got to learn from these things definitely putting a misted background on the tank [Music] so the next job is to completely clear the background i'm using rubbing alcohol to go over the whole surface and then after that i'm just going to take a razor scraper to ensure there's nothing left on the glass there's nothing worse than putting the background on and then finding there was something a little crusty bit stuck to the glass and it makes the background look terrible it's also quite hard to get out afterwards as well so more work now means it'll look better later on so we need to prepare the background film now this is an easy process that can be messed up pretty quickly i know this because i've messed it up so many times myself first of all you want to cut it out to roughly the same size of the background of the aquarium just measure it all up and then get cutting [Music] next up heavily missed the glass on the aquarium i mean like properly heavily missed it the whole thing needs to be dripping in soapy water usually this process is easier when the aquarium's like facing upwards but that's not possible it's too heavy i'm just going to do it like this you then want to place the film onto the aquarium with the actual film side on the glass and then the backing facing out towards you [Music] this means that the whole film is stuck to the glass making it easier to handle so if we peel off the backing we can now spray the sticky side just cover it again loads of soapy water the more the better and now because we've got some good weight on it all we can just peel it off spin it round and stick it on when you try and do this all on the floor it ends up creasing up and sticking together it's just awful [Music] then take a squidgy and make sure it's like a proper one you don't want to use plastic card because it will scratch this nice sort of film and what you've got to do is work from the middle outwards pushing the air and the soap out as you go initially i just go over it all lightly and then i go over more firmly afterwards because you'll notice that even then there's more air and soap coming out [Music] next up grab yourself a brand new razor blade and just run it around all the edges don't try doing this with a blunt one it will go really badly [Music] right now we really are ready to go first of all i need a base layer going down but it needs to be a little bit different to how i usually do it usually i just chuck it all in and then cap over the top with sand but we are putting fish in there that going to dig the substrate i'm talking about the crabensis for a start who knows what else would do it but i know they did they've done it before to me in one of my other tanks and just just destroyed the whole thing so what i'm going to do is put the base layer in little bags they've got like zips on them they're all made of plastic so they're all safe for the water they won't rust that kind of thing even the zips made of plastic [Music] so i'm filling the bags with some recycled sand and gravel from some of my previous setups try to save everything i can because i know i'm going to need it later on this is a mixture of coarse gravel fine gravel there's a bit of aqua so this is basically everything in there now we don't want to completely fill the bags up because they need to be able to sort of squish down and go a bit flat about halfway to three quarters full is fine so these will be the biggest bags and i'll put them at the back of the aquarium to create the most height [Music] [Music] right next up aquasaur i'm going to put this in a bag as well but not not even as much as we did with the gravel and sand just to give like a little layer over the top of the gravel sand and then we can cap it all later now believe it or not the roots will easily penetrate these bags i know this because i've done it before and it's worked really really well [Music] right it's time now to cap everything off and lock it down so the sound we're using is a mixture of fine and media grading no specific reason it's just that's what i had it's a quartz based sand so we might get some diatoms from this we might not i mean i'm not gonna be using high high lighting so hopefully it's all good i don't know if you've noticed there but i keep poking my finger in to check the depth we need to make sure we've got enough sand all over the areas we're gonna be planting in to you know actually grip the roots or the stems or whatever's going in there i'd say you need at least about an inch and a half to two inches of sand to be able to do this properly right that's the base all sorted now it's time to get some hardscape now here comes a really really fun bit all that rest of it was just like preparation really wasn't it let the fun begin [Music] so what we've got here is a mahsiv piece of generic bogwood i got this from my local maidenhead aquatic store now a big piece like this it's not going to be cheap is it but luckily because it's so big you only need one or two like a smaller one as well you know you could just do it with one though couldn't you how much character though does this one piece have i can already see the fish swimming in and out of it [Music] oh come on guys that is what i'm talking about right there it's not until you start moving around it like this you can really sort of get the actual shape because from straight on like that it kind of looks like one piece but then you can see as we come to the side we've got all those channels moving down there all the way down the back we can come behind here there's lots of room for some interesting places for planting but more than that there's some great places here for fish i'm really going to enjoy watching the fish coming in and out of all these different areas and making their own sort of territories how cool is that going to be i'm going to put a load of rocks as well up against all of this wood no doubt they'll be dug out if the cribs have got anything to do with it but also it just looked really good for detail i started off with that one there just to sort of get a look and i think that rock sort of color really does suit with the style i'm going for looking at the research i've done anyway of the african sort of rivers there's quite a lot of this whitish sand and a lot of lighter rocks there's a few darker rocks as well but this is somewhere in the middle and to be honest i've got a lot of them and i want to use them oh let's just keep going um i had no plan just just keep putting stuff in and changing it and sticking with something as we go [Music] now at this stage when it comes to putting down the rocks i'm not following any sort of format or plan i'm just picking out points on a wood where i think rocks will look good you want to do quite a few rocks that are close to the wood though it gives it more sort of a natural look like the woods fall in there or float it downstream and got stuck [Music] i'm also placing larger rocks on top of the wood at specific points this is to ensure that the wood doesn't float up i mean it's a big piece of bogwood at the end of the day and it will try and float but we can't just rely on those big rocks i'm also going to be using the cotton wool method and cyanoacrylate super glue don't worry this is all completely fish and plant safe after we've applied a good amount of the glue we then spray on some bicarbonate soda this makes the glue go instantly rock hard and we get a bond between the two surfaces straight away and why this is good is because it means we don't have to wait till the next day or even a few hours or whatever we can carry on with our work straight away [Music] oh that to me is looking pretty sweet so it looks random but it kind of is random if i'm honest but not completely so i've tried to give it a sort of directional flow you notice how that rock was deliberately facing that way just to continue that sort of line um i felt that we needed something at the back there as well so we put those nice two just peeking through and it also gives us something to attach some plants to you know the anubias bobitus java foam whatever we're gonna use proper african plants those are though yeah everything's stuck down i think there's plenty of sort of detail rocks and now we need to go to the finer details and put all the sort of stones around the edges ah an absolute treat for you here some super sexy slow-mo shots of me throwing stones on rocks when laying down your detail stones don't be too formal with it just get in there chuck them on top this actually mimics what it'd kind of be like in nature as it's flown downstream that's how i'm viewing it anyway next up we're going to use some even finer gravel just for even more detail again chucking it really loosely but keeping it close to the rocks but then every now and again randomly sprinkling some away from the rocks as well but not too many i then wanted to fill out this back section and make sure it had greater height to it also i was worried about detroit's collecting there and now that shouldn't happen it also means that any plants we put back there will already be a nice height which will create a good sense of depth so yeah i'm crazy pleased with how this hardscapes turned out now i don't design the hardscape or think about it too much before i do it you let the hardscape sort of choose for you if you've got like i've got quite a bit of hardscape there but not a huge amount like not like a store if you've got so much to choose from you can design it first and then find the perfect pieces can't you but realistically most of us can't do that we have to do you know we have to make do with what we've got and that's what i've done in this case i noticed a flat edge of it so we could either stick it upright or we could put it on its side and on its side work perfect for the dimensions of the tank right guess what it's time to start on the plant in and make this tank come alive and we have got a ton of plants to choose from because i've been stocking up so over here is where i've got a ton of all the different java fern types i've got trident fern i've got narrow leaf and then i've got anubias different types of anubias as well look at this one this is the cofferfolia look at those crinkled leaves they're beautiful i've got tons of varieties to be honest as well i'm going to get them all out and have a look i need to prepare them all everything we've got some larger ones as well at the back that oh it's focusing on the wrong bit we'll see we're going to see them all in a minute anyway new leafs as well new leaves [Applause] [Music] prepping your plants is easy all you've got to do is peel off the outer rock wool and then usually there's some more attached to the roots this just easily scrapes off sometimes you might want to give it a rinse in water as well [Music] right we've got two types here of java phones just to start with so down here we've got the trident fern look how narrow those leaves are they look so so good don't they they call it a trident firm because it's like that's a poor example most of the time there's like there you go three prongs sort of coming off of the top stays really narrow and this is ironically the narrow variety which is bigger than the trident but you know you can't call them narrow and narrower could you so we've got quite a lot of that i'm going to make that into one sort of section and then make that one sort of section and keep them separate so you get two different looks around the tank i think that'll look a lot better than just merging it all in actually do you know what before we get started putting them in i want to start with the biggest java phone first and i ordered a special mother plant from next door look at this beauty so that one is huge i'll start with that one and i can build around it [Music] so this is a beast of a java phone and we want to make it our main focal point when attaching epithet plants you know plants that attach to decoy i like to glue them onto a piece of rock first reason being is that i can move them around at any point apply a generous amount of ciao acrylate super glue gel to a rock you can then take the rhizome of the java fern and push it onto the glue don't worry this doesn't harm the plant at all [Music] and there we go look we can just slot it in wherever we want [Music] i then repeat the process for all the smaller java phones as well [Music] so yeah that's enough java fern what i try to do is keep it in this sort of area coming across but not coming out here because then it will give the impression that's an open river area do you know what i mean i mean that's how i'm seeing it anyway but that's plenty there and you'll notice that none of this java fern is actually stuck to the woods at all all of it has either been stuck to pebbles that kind of thing or actually this is the only one that's sort of been pushed into a space so the reason i do that is that if they're in a bad area or like the flow's back whatever i can move them around at any point you know i might find as it grows that covers up the middle section too much i don't know who knows but i'm going to continue to do that now with all the anubias as well [Music] all these anubias are absolutely stunning plants now they need to be in the foreground or up high in my opinion in the wild these are the sort of plants that grow near the edges of the river this means that sometimes they're in water sometimes they're out of water they're really really tolerant to different conditions as well i'm going to be placing one right at the top of the tank here in the hope that it will grow out the top in future this is called immersed growth and it can look awesome [Music] and now i'm making sure that i attach all the smaller anubias in the foreground these are also really good for covering up any unsightly roots or glue patches from sticking down of previous plants [Music] ah popeyetus this is like the african plant isn't it it wouldn't be an african river setup without this plant in there [Music] do [Music] [Music] okay so that is all of the plants that aren't planted there's a lot there i'm not gonna lie but you guys know me i like to plant heavy from the start i'm going to put a sum of all of that in there so far up in the top corner here somewhere like total costs at the end of the day this is a four foot tank this could be a showpiece for your room so although it looks like a lot of money i don't think it's too much to put aside to make your main focal point you know seem amazing i mean people will happily spend thousands on a television weren't they and this is better isn't it come on okay so one of the first plants i'm going to be planting is this one here so this is cryptocurrency balance i not strictly an african plant but i do want some stuff to better plant in the background areas um and the alternative is valid scenario which i'm not a massive fan of to be honest so i'm going to go with this and a few others as well i'm not talking huge amounts it's just enough to sort of get the get the tanks started and avoid any algae issues stem plants really do help with that on startup [Music] so again these plants aren't strictly african but we have got almost a whole bag of aqua soil in there and we might as well take advantage of those nutrients haven't we [Applause] [Music] right i'm going to fill it up in a second and then i can put sort of stem plants in as well but before we do that i want one more plant to go in and that is a nymphaea lotus that is just going to look so good as a centerpiece coming up the middle there and also off to the side here i look amazing it's just a big lotus plant that sends up these thingies and they grow massive oh you'll see okay here it is look now it doesn't like much at the moment does it but give it a month and this guy will be going nuts it sends up these leaves sometimes all the way to the surface as well that sit like lily pads on the top it's gonna look so so good [Music] i always find it's a really good idea to lay down some paper towel before you fill up your tank and then if you fill it really slowly it'll be crystal clear as well [Music] i don't know if you guys caught that then right at the end of that time lapse you can just see the wood starts floating up and i spotted it as well because it's sort of just on the point where it was going slowly it was nearly there so i pushed it down quickly i grabbed the rock and i've stuck it right there like you can see all those bubbles are on it's nicely balanced and then it's sort of pressed on that section there so the whole piece of wood was starting to do that because the area that i glued behind this anubius here come unstuck it wasn't enough i thought that one piece would be enough to hold it all but come on that's a massive piece of bogwood that was very uh ambitious of me to say the least but yeah all good all resolved and now it's weighted down i think it's gonna be quite a long time to be honest before this bogwood's actually sinking on its own it's all good no problem crisis averted but you can already see look the tannins are being released into the water from this bog when it looks really good doesn't it um if it stayed at this level okay i'm perfect with that but i know it's gonna get so so dark it's fine we can sort that out in a little bit we get the filtration running a quick water change we'll put some stuff in the filters to bind all that organic matter as well and it locks it in and it stops all the coloring [Music] so mosses don't really grow in the african river systems but rickia does this stuff is amazing it grows quite quickly though and is so vibrant and green traditionally it's a floating plant but if we tie it to rocks tightly with some cotton thread it'll grow compact and look so so good [Music] be sure to trim off any loose bits because it will grow back in so much more thick [Music] so [Music] oh we are looking so sweet now there's uh that ricky moss really was not moss actually i don't know what it is is it like a epiphan i don't really know we call it a mosque because it sort of grows like one but it actually isn't one anyway it's looking so good in there now that's all the plants for now that i want to do i'm thinking about putting a big chunk of ludwigia in the back there just to help with the water quality whilst we're getting things started i'll probably put that in later though you know after this video if so if you see it in the future vlogs make sure you're subscribed by the way guys for updates for all of this and all of my other aquariums just do a little spin around of everything and that's my computer desk and there's my mountain scape and there's my amazing discus and not to forget the neon tetra jungle and also the weird sort of i don't know dutch style tank with just a ton of plants in that are growing nice and healthy yeah anyway the tannings are already kicking in big time aren't they you can see this sort of like a brownie tinge to everything now let's get those filters hooked up and then i could talk you through them as well [Music] top tip for you when you're trying to put pipes onto your inlet and outlet just heat up the edges with either a lighter or heat gun i'm using and you'll find it so much easier [Music] making sure to clean off the surface here so that any floating plants don't go straight down into those filters on initial startup and the net method was taking too long so a cheeky trick is to use a surface skimmer does it in seconds [Music] now it wouldn't be much of a river system without some serious flow would it so i'm adding in this wave maker to push water around the tank at a decent rate [Music] by pointing the wave make at the surface not only do we get good oxygen exchange but also will get an awesome shimmering effect from the light [Music] all right let's talk a little bit about filters so filter one is an awase 250 thermo so it's got the built-in heater and a pre-filter it's the cheapest of the lot but it does really good job and i like that it's got the heater in it means we don't have to have it in the aquarium if we need it i mean i don't really need it this room's heated up plenty for the crubensis and at the moment they're going to be the only the only uh fish that require sort of more than room temperature usual room temperature i've got a decent level of room temperature yes as many of you know i actually heat the room rather than each individual tank except for the discus tank because obviously that requires a lot more heat it's much more economical that way so that means i don't really have to heat this tank at all actually but it's there if we need it and then on the other side so this this inlet and outlet this is a really budget one it's an all-pond solutions filter actually it's um an ef ef-1 plus it's got a built-in sterilizer a uv sterilizer and um yeah no frills really nice and cheap does a great job i think it's the same as sort of sun sun brand in america yeah it's like all white label stuff anyway so i now need to leave this overnight i'll come back tomorrow it should be pretty clear i've added an organic binder to both the filters so that should trap the tannins in there hopefully it'll be nice and clear tomorrow i mean i do quite like this sort of misted look um but it's gonna be like that even with the tannin removers in there because there's so much bogwood at least for a while but look at this look at the shape of all of this look at the depth we're getting there's gonna be so many interesting places to look at oh i cannot wait so yeah see you tomorrow we can put the first fish in [Music] but it got to tomorrow and guess what we could not put the first fish in now to be honest this wasn't too unexpected it's completely normal with a load of bulk wood to do this to your water now there's two ways you can clear it one you just let the filter do its thing and wait a long time but ain't nobody got time for that so we're gonna do an almost 100 water change [Music] that is more like it now we do still want some tannins in the water because it will look really authentic and awesome won't it but the level that we had it out was much too high now it will increase over the next few days but it won't have that sort of murkiness to it this time and personally i can't wait for that to happen but in the meantime it's time to get our fishing and this that we're looking at now is the krebentas tank now i'm staying right back here because as you can see there the male has just coming out of his cave and i know he's going to scoot back in there as soon as i go any closer well we might as well at least attempt it hadn't we we're getting there we're getting there are you going to stay out for us mr mel we're going to see you in a minute and no he's gone i set this tank up about three months ago to house these baby cribs well they weren't babies at the time they weren't even born but in the previous setup the parents kept eating the babies either the male the female i'm not really sure now the idea was to set up the tank so i could easily scoop out the babies when they're really young however these guys haven't been predated on a tool it could be the way i set up the tank there's loads of hiding spaces and also i think the parents feel comfortable and not threatened i say parents i've not seen the female for a very long time now at least three weeks so i'm expecting the female to have passed but we have got all of these lovely babies to carry on the generation i mean i could be completely wrong though she's just in the cave constantly now the problem is i did set that up so they could hide meaning i can't catch them so i'm gonna have to take apart the whole escape it should be quite easy because all i've got to do is take the rocks off the top [Music] this was actually more difficult than first seemed because i couldn't remember how i built this it was quite a while ago now the moss looks so good on these rocks it would be a shame to waste them so i'm gonna save them to use in another setup at some point no idea what or when but they're too good to go to waste [Music] well it took me a while but eventually i was able to round up all the baby fish i'm sure you can appreciate this insanely hard to count all of these but there's got to be over 50 in here surely the only fish left in the original tank is the krabensis dad i think it would be a good idea to catch him now and put him in the tank first [Music] so in goes our first inhabitant our beautiful malcolus and away he goes no i'm just kidding in the last setup he seemed quite shy and stayed in the cave quite a lot but in this setup there is far more hiding spots and sometimes when there's more hiding spots you'll see them more because they know they can get to safety a lot quicker right it's time for the babies [Music] and don't they look amazing it's really interesting how they school together like this didn't really see it too much in the smaller tank because obviously they were just compact in small areas but they really are enjoying going around their little groups so interesting to watch [Music] [Music] [Music] bye [Music] so i'm at my local maidenhead aquatic store in taunton uk a few weeks ago i came here and they had some really cool congo tetras i'm hoping they're still going to be here but first of all martin one of the workers at the shop showed me these blue diamond tetra that looks so good definitely something that i might be adding to the tank at a later date [Music] and they also had this awesome collection of corals now i won't pretend to you guys i know what i'm looking at because i haven't got a clue but doesn't it look pretty [Music] they also had these gorgeous blue akaras in stock as well and now i mentioned to you guys a while back that i want to do a tank specifically for these a big planted south american tank obviously these aren't appropriate for an african river system but definitely something i'm considering for a future project fantastic they still have the congo tetras in stock however they are only the females now the females still look great but they don't have the big finish that the males have so what i'm going to do is add these to my tank first and then i'll add males at a later date [Music] [Music] can you see the fishies gracie are they good is he good do you like them is it good thumb up thumb up that's a finger that's what she does [Music] so we are back from the fish shop with the fish of course now the first thing we want to do is float the fish well in the bags on top of the water that way they can get used to the same temperature of the tank it won't be a lot in it to be honest but still it's always good practice isn't it we also need to make sure we switch the light off so we don't completely freak them out so we can let the congo tetras temperature acclimate for a good 20 minutes after this time i can cut them out the bags put them into a net and then place them into the tank now i completely trust my fish store and i know all the guys that work there so when they tell me the fish have been in for several weeks with no problems at all they've been through several rounds of medication as you can see from the tank when i collected it then in my opinion there's no need for any sort of quarantine period if you guys just go to some random store and buy fish they could have been in that day for all you know so always make sure you just continue fish or you know get on a really good first name basis with a local fish store at the end of the day it all comes down to trust doesn't it [Music] oh i cannot tell you how exciting this is so obviously the congo tetras were a bit skittish to start with and went and hid straight away but what was interesting is that the creventus went straight up to them and started sort of sniffing around [Music] and it was good to see they were paying no interest at all to the crubensis babies so now that we've got all the fish in it's time to add some beneficial bacteria to the tank now i've already got cycled media inside the canister filters but this is just an extra precaution i also do daily water testing when i first set up a tank if we're getting any spikes of ammonia or anything like that big water changes straight away this is the way i've always started my tanks with great success in the past but it's important to remember water testing and water changes are key [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: MD Fish Tanks

Views: 344,747

Rating: 4.9422383 out of 5

Keywords: aquarium, african cichlids, cichlid, md fish tanks, md, fish, tanks, fish tank, cichlid AQUARIUM, lake tanganyika, lake tanganyika cichlids, lake tanganyika aquarium, aquascape, aquascape tutortial, aquarium setup, step by step aquarium, aquarium fish, aquarium fish tank, african cichlids how to, aquarium how to, aquascape how to, how to, step by step, guide, coral reef aquarium, congo, congo tetra, kribensis, kribensis cichlid, cichlid aquarium, aquarium video, aquarium relax

Id: 37GntJo93ec

Length: 40min 2sec (2402 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 09 2021