New tank

madFrankie

madFrankie

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Feb 11, 2009
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Location
Melbourne
Country
Australia
Display Name
Frank
Hi Guys,

Been ages since I posted, super-slack, I know!
But while my Caudata.org membership has been neglected my little friends have been getting an upgrade!
Their new 4-foot tank has got all sorts of fun stuff for them to do and places to hide. Plants include various Anubias, Java Fern, Lilaeopsis, Java Moss, Riccia, Eleocharis and a few other bits and pieces. Lighting is provided by a single flouroescent tube that stays on from 5pm - 12am each day.

Hope y'all like it :)

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Extremely beautiful tank. Your aquascaping is top notch. The axie is beautiful as well. It is a very unusual caramel colour.
 
Cheers Ray,

He's got the oddest colouration, hasn't he? It's like he can't decide whether to be a wildtype or albino!
 
Ooooh, I do wish I had green thumbs. That looks lovely!

It goes without saying that the axolotls are absolutely gorgeous.
 
Thanks for the feedback Jacq and Phil :)

philbaker76 said:
he looks a like an Albino to me; nice colour.
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Yep, but he's got this amazing caramel colouration (thanks, Ray, for the adjective, I was struggling there...) that I've not seen on an albino before.

See below for a pic with my golden albino that shows him off a bit better...

small.jpg


I'll throw it out there for one and all... Anyone got a firm classification?
 
I am beginning to suspect Australia has arguably the prettiest and widest array of axie colours around. :D (And i though I had the wierd axie colours :rolleyes:)
 
Hi

Great setup, and cool coloured axolotls
 
Lovley tank, love what you have done...

I would suggest letting that grass in the foreground thicken up real nice, and give it a prune make it look like a lawn ;)

Your light wild axie looks alot like mine. Does his gills stay that odd green/lightbrown (kinda like baby vomit :p) colour always, or does he have bright red gills?

Ray, your right, we may have a straighter gene pool then other places

eg. hybridization with tigers...
 
b00f said:
Lovley tank, love what you have done...
Click to expand...

Cheers! :)

b00f said:
I would suggest letting that grass in the foreground thicken up real nice, and give it a prune make it look like a lawn ;)
Click to expand...

That's the idea. it's only just gone in though, so I'm going to let it get established a bit before I start pruning.
Hopefully the lawn-effect will work. I've heard that it's very hard to do with low-light tanks, but I'm going to give it a shot anyway. Have you seen it done in an Axie tank before? any tips?

b00f said:
Your light wild axie looks alot like mine. Does his gills stay that odd green/lightbrown (kinda like baby vomit :p) colour always, or does he have bright red gills?
Click to expand...

He's pretty consistant in his colouring, the golden albino goes from very pale to bright red in the gills depending on how awake/excited she is, but he stays pretty much the same baby-vomit (love it! :D) colour all the time.
 
madFrankie said:
Yep, but he's got this amazing caramel colouration (thanks, Ray, for the adjective, I was struggling there...) that I've not seen on an albino before.

See below for a pic with my golden albino that shows him off a bit better...

small.jpg


I'll throw it out there for one and all... Anyone got a firm classification?
Click to expand...

Wildtype - and a lovely one too.

Have you considered posting this to the calendar competition? It's a great shot.
 
Yep, it's in there with a few other shots. We shall see what Mark thinks of them... heh.
 
axolotlgangster said:
What substrate do you have?
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Two types, I've got Red Sea Flora Base where the grasses are planted and plain old-fashioned sand in the other areas where there aren't any rooted plants.

I've got large river stones scattered over top of the substrates as well. They look fantastic, but beware they do make cleaning a bit harder as you have to suck any settled crud out from under/around them.
 
Thank you for a visual treat. Beautiful habitat! Lovely axies!
I just had to remove one of my plants because my axie kept thinking its root was a worm. My axie isn't a scholar.
What wattage is your flourescent light? Is this an aquarium light? Thank you for posting the length of time you have the light on.
Is the rock you used special? or can it be purchased at an aquarium shop?
:happy:
 
nora said:
Thank you for a visual treat. Beautiful habitat! Lovely axies!
Click to expand...

Thanks! :)

nora said:
What wattage is your flourescent light? Is this an aquarium light?
Click to expand...


Good question, and right now I can't remember. 40watt I think, but I could be wrong. Will have to check it later. It's a specific aquarium tube but again I can't remember the exact specs at the minute.

nora said:
Is the rock you used special? or can it be purchased at an aquarium shop?
Click to expand...

It's just decorative river stones that can be purchased in a bag from hardware stores and landscaping suppliers for about $15 AUD
 
Please tell me you have a lot of experience with aquascaping, or at least tell me a white lie. I am absolutely horrible at it and the best i can do is just plant clumps here and there whereever there is space. You make it seem so natural and easy.
 
Heh... one lie coming right up (fries with that? lol)

"I have heaps of experience with aquascaping, been doing it for YEARS!"

Seriously though, I approach it in a sort of 'layered' manner. I put in the substrate and then choose interesting stones and driftwood. I then mess around with the arragement of these for an hour or so until I get something that looks good on its own. A bit of chaos is the rule here - lean driftwood on top of a stone as if it's fallen into the river and sunk there, trying to simulate a bit of nature's randomness. Carefully, of course, we wouldn't want it to come crashing down on an axie's head later...

Plants are next - I choose three different 'zones' of plant type - background (tall, leafy things like java fern and anubias afzelii), middle ground (Anubias nana, barteri etc) and foreground (lilaeopsis etc.)

I'll then spend another hour or so moving the arrangements of my plant choices around, not necessarily staying with the back/mid/fore rules - sometimes it's nice to put something taller in the middle as a 'feature' plant.

Once I've got the major plants in and working together with the stones and driftwood I put in all of the little grasses and stuff so that they give the effect of growing around everything else. I go a bit nuts here - fill up all the space 'cause substrate is a bit boring, really.

The final element is the river stones, they get scattered in amongst everything else, also a bit of randomness involved with this step.

I also stick to only having 'real' stuff in there, I think it works better that way and doesn't look artificial.
 
Whatever your way of doing it the effect is stunning! I would love to be able to replicate this in my tank! I don't know if this has been answered already (excuse me if so) but what size is your tank?

Just beautiful, beautiful.
 
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