Re: crenacara filamentosa

[David Sanchez <barbax2@yahoo.com>]

Dennis I think this goes a long way to giving credit
to the benefit of a planted tank. The plants most
definitely have a scrubbing effect on the water and
purify it from many organic compounds. To illustrate
this my buddy John has a unbelievable tank that unless
I was there to see it I wouldn't believe. His tap
water has a conductivity of 80 us/cm and the tank in
question is a heavily planted 55 gallon tank. It has a
laterite substrate and no CO2 injection but is the
most impressive tank I've ever seen. It has no
filtration and a population of 100 cardinal tetras and
a few Killies. The tank is so overgrown with plants he
gives away a few plastic bags full of plants every
week. The kicker is the Conductivity in the tanks is
60 us/cm!!! It has gotten lower then the original
water put in the tank. In other words the plants
lowered the conductivity of the water!!! WOW needless
to say this goes a long way in teaching us something.
I have always preached the use of plants but this tank
gives us some great possibilities. The plants are the
only filters in the tank and there doing a better job
then any filter on the market I would say. To us
Apisto nuts this illustrates my point. There is still
allot more questions to ask but I feel this is the
direction Apisto breeding needs to take. Many people
ask for the secrets to breeding Apistos well, plants
may be the answer many are looking for.

David Sanchez



--- Dennis or Karen Eichorst <fishnstitch@kcnet.com>
wrote:
> The time when I had filamentosa spawn I was amazed
> because the water near
> neutral and I was not doing anything to reduce the
> hardness.  However, an
> interesting point David made is the use of plants. 
> I had the fish in
> lightly stocked, heavily planted 40 breeder tank. 
> This is the best tank I
> have ever had for plant growth (CO2 injection) and
> whenever I would do a
> water change you could watch streams of O2 bubbles
> coming from any damaged
> leaves.  Even though I used CO2 whenver I measured
> the pH it was near 7.
> 
> I only had 1-2 spawns hatch but every 2 weeks had at
> least one pair spawn
> for a long time.  Anytime there were eggs they were
> always on pennywort.


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