# Buce Tank Journal



## Wiccandove (May 19, 2012)

I've gotten really into bucephalandra the last few months and have dedicated a tank to them. I just received a huge order of buce from SKA and am in the process of scaping the tank. Its not finished but heres where I'm at so far

*Specs - low tech*

40 gallon breeder
Marineland c-160 canister filter, stainless mesh over intake
Bubble wand powered by air pump
eheim 100 watt heater
2 current satellite led light strips. the back one is 36" - 48" and the front one is 24" - 36".

Substrate is about 1/2 inch (or less) of blasting sand. A little more the half the tank will have a pile of river rock for my gobys.

Malasian driftwood
______________________________________________________________

*Livestock*

1 pair Orange Flash Apistogramma
3 pairs Stiphodon percnopterygionus (yeah I copy/pasted that!) 
20 Galaxy Rasaboras
3 adolphoi corys
4 platys
2 vampire shrimp
Cherry shrimp

*Plants*
**All of these are bucephalandra unless otherwise noted:

Brownie Ghost
Brownie Phoenix
Brownie metallica
Brownie Pygmae
Brownie Helena
Brownie Phantom
Brownie Firebird
Brownie Red
Red Aphrodisiac
Red Cherry
Pink Lady
Wizard Oz
Arrogant blue
Hades
Red Shadow
Mini Coin
Kir Royal
Narcissus
nanga sepauk (mini purple?)
Deep Purple
Purple Rain
Chimaera
Gigant
Aridarum Caulecens Saber tooth
Aridarum Caulecens White Fang
Anubias Petite/nana
White anubias
Anubias nana 'Pangolino'
Crepidomanes cf. Malabaricum

*Added December 2 
Pithik Koprol
Lamandau Mini Red
Catherineae Red
Kedagang Original
Sherry
Isabelle

https://gyazo.com/1fa672f1faf3e60cce97f94336d8e5e1
https://gyazo.com/2044c1f0e1a3d66997a5503bb36b6e53

Quick Pic Dec 2nd after throwing in new buce, not scaped with the new plants
https://gyazo.com/5f530b0471b27bede2db45374f9b61d1


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## Wiccandove (May 19, 2012)

Plans - 
Add a second aquaclear filter
Move powerhead to other side of tank to increase flow
poss remove heater?
poss add airstones if dead spots after powerhead is moved


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## Scotmando (Jul 10, 2011)

Love your set-up! Where did you get all your bucephalandra? Local or what?

Here's a photo of your setup.

Instead of copying link, I right clicked on image & used 'open in a new tab or window' & copied url.


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## Cichlidrookie (Apr 6, 2014)

Wow beautiful tank. Can't wait to see what you do with the new pieces you got.


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## skylane (Sep 7, 2015)

Nice Buce tank!
I'm liking these plants more too, its going to look even nicer when it grows out!


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## Wiccandove (May 19, 2012)

Thank you Scotmando! I only put links because the "manage attachments" was giving me trouble 

Cichlidrookie - I put the new pieces in but the tank but I may still play around with the layout a bit. I'll need more crazyglue before I'm done!

I'm interested to see how the Chimaera and Gigant grow. They are supposed to get 10-12 inches. They were sent for free from my last order on the recommendation of SKA (because I ordered a gazillion dollars worth of plants)

I would say about 98 percent of the plants in the tank I got from SKA Shrimp and Natures Aquarium. You can find him on facebook. He has a huge selection and is in Calgary but ships. I got a few other plants from members qualityshrimpz and mossman and grabbed one lonely buce from shrimp fever 

Buce are very slow growers. I expect some melt from the new additions, and it will be a few months until some of them start showing their submersed leaf color. The first batch I got in February have only started growing new leaves with the classic buce colors in the last month or so. I suspect the real beauty of this tank won't be realized until 3-6 months from now.

I'm thinking I need to add some shrimp for algae control. Once I get everything in place I'll look into it


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## qualityshrimpz (Dec 15, 2009)

Thanks for the shout out! Great looking tank, i am jealous! Lol. I get all my Buce from Ska(Hung) really nice, helpful and generous guy! He sent a sample pack for each member of my shrimp group that easily was worth $50-$100 a piece! This Buce fad has really taken off.. I'm liking all the varieties now available!


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## Atom (Sep 17, 2014)

Gotta keep tabs with this tank  Gorgeous

You found that one aquaclear filter wasnt enough? I'm deciding whether I'll need 1 or 2 aquaclears for my own 40 gallon as well. Would love to hear your thoughts.


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## Reckon (Mar 6, 2013)

Love it. Pretty adducted to buces myself but haven't been able to commit to so many species. 

Are you using CO2?

Thanks for posting.


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## jumpsmasher (Oct 1, 2012)

Looks great! can't wait to see it progress as everything grows in and colour up!
With buce it is always to tricky balance between the need to "collect them all" and the need for a bit of harmony for scaping - looks like they got both down pretty good!


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## planter (Jun 9, 2008)

Looks great. You injecting co2? I don't really know much about these plants I can tell you they look great in that scape. Nice work.


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## Wiccandove (May 19, 2012)

Sorry everyone I was having abdominal surgery so I wasn't able to respond, but I'm back and doing well! Since I am restricted in activity I can't complete my aquascape as planned so it will have to sit for a while.

In answer to the questions about CO2 -, no I don't use CO2. In fact Buce prefer highly oxygenated water and grow best when there is a bit of a current. This works great for me because my gobys have the same requirements lol. The only thing I add is some flourish and flourish iron every second water change.

WHATS NEW:
I've added a second powerhead to the tank to increase the movement of water because.......
Gobys are here!!!

The last bit of livestock arrived yesterday (6 paskai blue eyes, 4 (well 3) Sicyopus zosterophorum and 10 cherry shrimp, which promptly disappeared into the river pebbles. Either they will get eaten or someday I will wake up to 1000 cherry shrimp staging a coup.

Unfortunately one of the male sicyopus zosterophorum died. He was more or less dead in the bag before I got him home and then died a few hours later. These fish are wild caught so there is a good chance that stress did him in. The other three are doing great. The male hasn't gotten his colors yet I suspect it will take a week or so for him to settle in.

Also my mini fissidens arrived but its still on mesh because I can't do anything with it right now. White anubias will be here next Sunday.

FEEDING
I do want to address feeding this tank because its so varied. I think moss is an essential part of this tank for several reasons, the biggest being that it provides an endless grazing of "no see ums" for the darios. Many of the species in here don't take flake food and everyone likes something different so heres my feeding plan. I usually feed a small amount of one or two of the foods listed below every other day or every third day but will do daily feedings for about a week instead to help the new fishes settle in.

Darios - eat mainly live food (microworms, blackworms, the occasional very small snail) I have a culture of microworms going mainly for them. As I said before they are constantly picking in the moss and buce hunting little creatures. They will sometimes eat freeze dried blackworms and frozen bloodworms, but microworms and frozen baby brine seem to be their favorite.

Stiphodons - These mainly eat biofilm and algae. I have also seen them eat microworms and earthworm pellets on occasion. I think its important to have rocks that are allowed to grow algae for these guys, they graze all day. While they will eat some algae off the glass and plants, rocks is really their preferred surface. I supplement them with Repashy Soilent Green and the occasional algae wafer when I'm to lazy to mix repashy 

Sicyopus - Mainly worms  Luckily they accept freeze dried and frozen. Microworms seem to be too small for them.

I feed earthworm pellets about once a week. The earthworm pellets are a big hit with the corys but can be fattening so I don't go nuts.

I tried to attach pictures but am not able too for some reason so here is a link to my gallery of pics taken today on Imjur


http://imgur.com/jdbUV


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## Wiccandove (May 19, 2012)

Atom said:


> Gotta keep tabs with this tank  Gorgeous
> 
> You found that one aquaclear filter wasnt enough? I'm deciding whether I'll need 1 or 2 aquaclears for my own 40 gallon as well. Would love to hear your thoughts.


Oops sorry I missed this! - Yes I find the one filter is enough, although I have 2 aquaclear 20 powerheads in there now and I put a chunk of poret foam 30 over the intake of each. The fish I keep are not particularly dirty tho so your filtration needs might differ depending on the fish you keep


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## Atom (Sep 17, 2014)

Wiccandove said:


> Oops sorry I missed this! - Yes I find the one filter is enough, although I have 2 aquaclear 20 powerheads in there now and I put a chunk of poret foam 30 over the intake of each. The fish I keep are not particularly dirty tho so your filtration needs might differ depending on the fish you keep


Thanks for the reply!

A fast moving stream-like tank is on my list of future projects so I'm following this thread for ideas  thanks again


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## Wiccandove (May 19, 2012)

Well it seems the Sicyopus are turning out to be to aggressive for this tank. They are eating shrimp when they can catch them, which was expected, but now they have also eaten 2 blue eyes. They also go after the darios and cpd's but haven't caught them yet.

I may decide to rehome these fish if I can't convince the BF to let me set up another tank just for them.


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## Wiccandove (May 19, 2012)

A little update on this tank - Been busy lately so its a little scraggly looking - things need to be trimmed and re-arranged before I post any more pictures but I made a few changes I'm going to update here:

HARDWARE:
Added Marineland c-160 canister filter, eventually I plan on removing the aquaclear. This is because of the noise factor not because I am unhappy with the HOB.

HARDSCAPE
Added some new pieces of wood to the tank that look great but have been releasing tannins. I'm sure the fish don't care but I want my clear water back soon!

FLORA
Ordered Crepidomanes cf. Malabaricum and Anubias pangolino to add to my rare small plant collection. White anubias has some growth going, going to see if I can split any of it. Saber Tooth Buce has 4 new leaves! Various Buce need to be trimmed and rearranged.

LIVESTOCK
Lost one male Dario Dario about a week ago, not sure why. Moved the aggressive gobys and the peacock gudgeons into my 110 where they are doing great. 
Today added 2 female Dario Dario, 2 vampire shrimp and 15 cherry shrimp.


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## bigfishy (Jun 19, 2009)

any more update?

did the brownies turned color?


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## Wiccandove (May 19, 2012)

No real updates as I've been dealing with my discus catastrophe and getting a handle on that. I will say I added some more male darios, and have a green hair algae issue. The algae seems to be mostly concentrated on some moss so I may do a trim back, or pull it all out I'm undecided . I'll post some pictures soon!


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## infolific (Apr 10, 2016)

If you've got the same kind of hair/thread algae I just had, I recommend API AlgaeFix. I posted about my recent experience here:

http://www.gtaaquaria.com/forum/showthread.php?t=251354


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## Wiccandove (May 19, 2012)

Just an update - I'm posting a picture of how the tank looks today. It's not as "scaped" looking as I would like but thats my own fault 

I decided to go a more natural route with my hair algae issue and added some platys (4) and mollies(5). 

I have to say the platys are like little hair algae cows and are always grazing on it, the mollies not so much. Because of the nature of hair algae when I manually try to remove it it brings plants with it and was tearing up some of the buce. I think the fish will do a better job over time and they don't disturb the buce. I've never been a big fan of live bearers but I have to say these platys are really growing on me 

I have a few odds and ends fish that weren't really planned (2 neon tetras I moved over from the big tank and an endler that I still don't know where the hell he came from). I am considering moving my darios into a 10 gallon to attempt breeding and adding a pair of apistos. Or I could just leave it alone and let it be overrun in platy and molly fry lol.

Anyone have opinions about adding apistos to this set up?


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## Maple (Sep 14, 2016)

Great looking tank - really like the scape and the clean natural look.


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## Darkside (Sep 14, 2009)

Apistos won't prevent your livebearers from recruiting.


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## Wiccandove (May 19, 2012)

Darkside said:


> Apistos won't prevent your livebearers from recruiting.


Recruiting?


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## Darkside (Sep 14, 2009)

Recruiting to the population.


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## bigfishy (Jun 19, 2009)

Wiccandove said:


> Recruiting?


making babies!


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## Wiccandove (May 19, 2012)

bigfishy said:


> making babies!


I figured it out lol


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## Wiccandove (May 19, 2012)

December 2nd Update!

Made a minor change and took out the powerheads and replaced them with a bubble bar/wall/wand. I don't really like the look of bubble bars in general but it does a great job helping with the tank circulation and surface agitation. I wasn't getting great surface agitation with the power heads, this seems to be working better.

Someone hit the buy one get one free Buce sale over at SKA! it was me, don't be suprised 

https://gyazo.com/3fe4f4c04349b4fdf312c1c6e49678c7

Thats a picture of my order after I unpacked it and before I threw the plants in the tank

https://gyazo.com/5f530b0471b27bede2db45374f9b61d1

Thats the tank after I threw the plants in 

I like to let the new plants sit in the tank for a week or 2 before I start gluing them down. I think this tank is about full tho!

I've updated my plant and fish stocking list on the front page. I put all my scarlet badis in a 10 gallon with hope that they will breed.

I added a pair of apistogramma. They are fast becoming my favorite fish. I wish I could keep more then one pair in the tank!

Here are a few photos of some of the older plants in my tank. In the water they have a more blue tinge to the leaves but it doesn't come across well in the pictures, maybe because I took them out of the water?

Also there are some pictures of new growth from an experiment I tried. There is a trick with anubias plants that if you make small nicks in the rhizome you will get new growth in that area. If you have the patience you can get some nice, full looking anubias this way. I decided to try it on one of my larger buce (gigantica) a few months ago. Sure enough, I'm (slowly) getting new growth where I made the nicks!

Also is a picture of growth from "leftover" rhizomes. I've mentioned before Don't Throw Away the Rhizome! Tuck it away somewhere and it will eventually grow. Buce are expensive plants (I easily have over $1000 worth of buce in this tank) so every little bit helps 

Forum won't let me upload images so here is a link to them on imgur


http://imgur.com/1tEgu


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## Darkside (Sep 14, 2009)

That is a lot of Bucephalandra.


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## Fisheye (Jan 13, 2015)

"I've gotten really into bucephalandra the last few months "...WOW! Nice inventory. I bet you had a blast ordering all of that! Your tank looks amazing.


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## Wiccandove (May 19, 2012)

I got a matt of monte carlo from a very generous forum member and decided to spruce the tank up a bit. I did keep a pile of river rocks in the back for the stiphodons, although they really seem to be enjoying the new carpet  And finaly got a nice shot of my white anubias!


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## Wiccandove (May 19, 2012)

oops forgot this pic lol


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## vincel892 (May 23, 2012)

Should have got some trimmings of Buce from you when you came by ! Darn it 

Sent from my SM-N920W8 using Tapatalk


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## Wiccandove (May 19, 2012)

This is what happens when you have to catch a fish in your planted tank lol. Oh well - I will rebuild!!


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## doubledouble (Jan 31, 2017)

I can grow everything but Buce for some reason. Looks great!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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