The Puffer Forum

I'm going against my better judgement and starting another tank! Woohoo! This will be a nano planted Sulawesi biotope in an Eclipse 5. I'm using pool filter sand for substrate, a lot of big chunks of rock (or maybe a sculpted foam background!) for the 'scape, and a sponge filter. Lighting is whatever came with the Eclipse system. Temperature will be about 80. Flora is just a sprinkling of dwarf hairgrass - not technically from the same island, but close enough in appearance, and the real Sulawesi plants are incredibly expensive, delicate, and beyond my local water's and tank's capacity to support. (The trick to the plants will be to keep them surrounded by really rough rocks, since the snails eat plants like mad, but they don't like rough surfaces.) Fauna will be three rabbit snails (one orange poso, one orange spotted, one yellow antenna yellow spotted) and a breeding colony of Malawa shrimp.

Pictures of the island:
http://equator.web.fc2.com/indonesia-sulawesi-danao.htm
http://equator.web.fc2.com/indonesia-su ... matano.htm

Pictures of other people's biotopes:
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/tank- ... 1-a-2.html
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/tank- ... ost1162442

General Sulawesi critter information and pictures:
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/shrim ... gress.html

Malawa shrimp info:
http://www.theshrimptank.com/shrimpspecies/malawa.html

ETA: Here's the kind of background I have in mind, but of course MUCH simpler, and not quite so... linear? Angular? Well, it would probably be shaped more like one of the little rocky nooks on the floor of one of the lakes, hopefully on a life-sized scale.
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/phpBB/view ... highlight=