# tapajos biotope planning



## jamntoast3 (May 15, 2015)

hey everyone, I have a group of geo. Tapajos that I had been flip-flopping on what to do with and I finally decided that I'm going to center a Tapajos biotope around them in my 125g. so far I plan to have the geos (8 of them, 4 m 4 f) and a pair of w/c p. scarlare. substrate so far is just pool filter sand and I've got some big drift wood and a few big rocks I can jam in here and there. 
so here is where I need some advice, I want this to be as true a biotope as possible and I know the Tapajos has many different zones and habitat types. I am thinking of adding some Tapajos crenicichla regani into the mix, would these 2 species actually ever be found in the same area? I was thinking of trying to replicate the spot in a river where the open area meets the shore area so there will be a few plants (prob vallisneria sp.), to me it seems plausible you could find both species there. my other question is specifically which species of characins would I find around geo Tapajos that would work assuming I have the cren. regain in the tank as well. a lot of the descriptions of the Tapajos just mention "various characins" or something like that, i was thining ornate tetra if i can find some but I'm open to ideas


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## Iggy Newcastle (May 15, 2012)

Cool idea.

According to cichlidae.com, these are the cichlid species that occur naturally with sp. RHT....

Crenicichla acutirostris
Crenicichla regani
Crenicichla sp. 'tapajos shoulder spot'
Dicrossus maculatus
Dicrossus warzeli
Laetacara araguaiae
Teleocichla sp. 'tapajos I'
Teleocichla sp. 'tapajos II'

Unfortunately, the site offers nothing on it's natural history or habitat. It does state that it occurs only at Rio Tapajos.

I'd imagine a true biotope would be a stained/black water setup with wood, rock and few/scattered plants. When I looked into this, I found out Tapajos is actually a clearwater river. When I searched 'fishes of Rio Tapajos' several sites come up, including some MFK posts related to your question. One response suggested other cichlids(other than those listed above) occur naturally with RHT but no reference on this info.

Wish I could be of more help... maybe do a little more digging on Google, specifically on the Tapajos river.


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## jamntoast3 (May 15, 2015)

Iggy Newcastle said:


> Cool idea.
> 
> According to cichlidae.com, these are the cichlid species that occur naturally with sp. RHT....
> 
> ...


thanks for the input iggy, i actually went ahead and grabbed a group of crenicichla regani "Tapajos" so I'm going to include at least a pair (hopefully) in this tank. its great that you saw on cichlidae that they belong. i was just assuming that they would belong because the are supposed to prey on dicrossus and apisto fry, and i saw dicrossus on the list of neighbors on the seriously fish site so i was assuming c.regani would live around geo Tapajos. my plan right now is to float some Hydrocotyle leucocephala to diffuse some of the light over the tank and plan some vallisneria on the right side to create a sort of marginal zone near the shore where i imagine both species might be found. so far its turning out pretty good. in the end the stock with be 2 wc p. scarlare, 8 geo. Tapajos, 2-4 c. regain "rio Tapajos" and some characins. I'm thinking smaller might be better but i don't want to go too small, i know lemons are found in the Tapajos although i think its an orange variant and I've seen biotopes with black neons. so i don't know which i will end up going with. in one video of the tapajos i saw a small characin that was silver with a bright blue/green stripe going along the side almost like a blue tetra but longer. would love to have a school of those in the tank, they look very sharp.


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## jamntoast3 (May 15, 2015)

Here are the c. Regani that I picked up so far so good. Hopefully I don't lose any to aggression before I get them out of quarantine


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## Iggy Newcastle (May 15, 2012)

Nice. Please update as you go along. And good luck hunting down the tetra of your choice...


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## mrrobxc (Jan 21, 2014)

I would be careful about adding black neons as the regain will get close to six inches when grown. The pair I had for a long time could easily eat black neons. Look for something deeper bodies like the hyphessobrycon or moenkhausia species.

Good luck!


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## jamntoast3 (May 15, 2015)

mrrobxc said:


> I would be careful about adding black neons as the regain will get close to six inches when grown. The pair I had for a long time could easily eat black neons. Look for something deeper bodies like the hyphessobrycon or moenkhausia species.
> 
> Good luck!


thanks man, I was thinking that about the black neons. I have heard such conflicting reports on what the regani will eat and what they wont. I know my sax pike tried to eat a full size male diamond tetra at 4" and that's my only first hand point of reference so I was thinking they might be too small. I think I'm probably going to land on lemons, I wanted to do something different but they seem to work well in this set up plus they look great. I remember seeing an orange variant of wild lemon tetras coming in to my lfs a year or so ago. that would be nice to catch some of them this time for this tank.


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## jamntoast3 (May 15, 2015)

so a small update on this tank, I had to medicate a couple fish from this tank for suspected columnaris and have moved the Oscar out (the geos look like they have never been more relaxed) and I am finally moving on to creating the actual biotope. 
I moved in some stalks of Hydrocotyle leucocephala. I have a couple power heads that I was using to keep junk from settling on the bottom that were blowing the hydrocotyle around pretty violently so I turned off one and I'm going to re position the other but so far so good. I have just a double t8 (I think, maybe t5) shop light up top, I hope that is enough light for these plants.
on Saturday I also pulled my smallest C. regain out of my 50g and dropped her in to see what will happen, I was a little worried that she would be eaten, and she is doing great cruising around like she owns the place, even the biggest male geo doesn't even pay her any mind. so that has me very stoked. it kind inspired me to think about some smaller tank mates as well. I suppose it will depend on how crowded it gets once I have moved all 5 c. regani in, but I was thinking about possibly adding a harem of apistogramma agassizii or even a couple dicrossus maculatus into the mix, prob the a. agassizii though. so from there I started thinking on leaf litter in the aquarium and it seems to me to be the best idea if I want a true representation of a natural setting. so that's got me pretty excited, I've never used leaf litter before so this will be a bit of a learning experience. I'm a little worried about having junk on the bottom building up and screwing will the water cleanliness. I'm also expecting to occasionally have a leaf blocking my filter intake. so if anyone has any tips for a tank with leaf litter in it let me know.


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## jamntoast3 (May 15, 2015)

Video update for this project.


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## illy-d (Nov 6, 2005)

You probably won't have problems with Geos eating tetras, but your pikes will. Tanks looking good!


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## jamntoast3 (May 15, 2015)

Another short update and video. I added the l264s into this tank and reintroduced a male geo tapajos that I had in a hospital tank for a while. There is also a Heros curare in this tank right now but it's only for a while to grow out a bit. It was picking on a smaller one that it was housed with before so I put it where it definitely won't be picking on anyone for a while still. Anyway here's my l264 loving life

Here's a quick full tank video


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## jamntoast3 (May 15, 2015)

It's been a while since I updated on this project. A lot has happened. I had an incident a month or two ago which I believe was caused by a broken air pump compounded by me pointing the wave maker away from the surface. Everything was fine when I fed them at night, when I woke up it was the fish-pocalypse. I lost 6 red head tapajos and 2 l264. I couldn't find any reason the would have died so suddenly other than oxygen starvation. I replaced and upgraded the air pump. They stayed in that tank until last week end when I moved my remaining 2 geos, 2 l64s and 5 crenicichla regani to a 60g. The dimensions of the new rank us 15*15*50(I think off hand) so I was a little worried about the Geo's having enough space, but so far so good


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## jamntoast3 (May 15, 2015)

The two Geo's recovered pretty well and have spawned twice since the incident. Despite losing a bunch of fish I've had for years I'm pretty happy with how this tank is right now. Here's a couple pics of the stock and the new tank.





This is the 125 before I moved them, there are fish in there somewhere I promise. 
And here is their new digs


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## jamntoast3 (May 15, 2015)

so there are some corydoras on a fish list of a lfs that i go to quite a bit that might fit the bill, not a tapajos species but they look very similar. the species on the list is c. melanistius that looks super similar to c142 . what does everyone think, should i add these? i'll add links below.

c. melanistius
http://www.planetcatfish.com/common/spe ... ies_id=311

c142
http://www.planetcatfish.com/common/spe ... es_id=1019


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## Iggy Newcastle (May 15, 2012)

I can't help you with your Cory decision, but sorry to hear about your recent losses. New tank looks great.


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## jamntoast3 (May 15, 2015)

I decided to try something out today, I needed some tank space so I evicted a little female a. Agassizii from her tank. I first tried to move her to a community type tank where the only fish she'd worry about were some guianacara and some heros but that tank had too much current and she was flailing about which brought a lot of hungry mouths toward her and I could see that wasn't going to work out even though I though that would have worked. Not being able to do that I said whatever, come what may and placed her into my tapajos Biotope. I honestly wasn't so worried about the female regani but I was sure the male's would take a run at her. Happy to report so far at least I was totally wrong. The male's barely seem to care. The females have been more interested. How crazy. I'm sure it won't work in every situation but I'm very pleased with how it has in this case. Of course I have video proof, the video is short and bad but it's this little female Agassizii hanging out mere inches from one of my male regani. And they are what I assume is fully grown too. Fantastic.


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## jamntoast3 (May 15, 2015)

Rearranged the wood, here is an updated video of the tank as it is now.


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## jamntoast3 (May 15, 2015)

In case anyone is wondering the a. Agassizii did not make it, not eaten, but did die I think from an injury caused by a bite. There is an l333 that I have in this tank now too. Not tapajos, but close ish to some species that do live in this river.


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## jamntoast3 (May 15, 2015)

Made a big change to the tank recently.


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## Iggy Newcastle (May 15, 2012)

Congrats on the spawn. Tank looks good!


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## jamntoast3 (May 15, 2015)

Iggy Newcastle said:


> Congrats on the spawn. Tank looks good!


 thanks man, i'm impressed they decided to spawn myself. i have been experimenting with different temp water changes because i am trying to get 2 of my c. regani to spawn in a different tank so it seems to have worked here at least. still no luck with the pikes though.


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## jamntoast3 (May 15, 2015)

Looks like I might get lucky with mm y Pike's after all. I wasn't planning on this pair to breed, but I'll take it.


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