Hi all.
I didn't want to go the traditional "sloping sand"-route in creating a habitat for my mudskippers.
To start with, I had three Periophthalmodon septemradiatus males. This is not the most aggressive nor largest species of 'skippers, but it still wants to form and defend a small territory.
What I wanted was to create a habitat with multiple spots where the fish can hide from each other's sight.
I started with an old 140 gallon sump tank:
I disassembled the sump to replace the old, scratched front glass with a new one and painted the trims:
For hardscape I wanted to make a DIY root system with multiple little shallow pools and an inbuilt plumming to circulate water in the pools.
A sketch:
Platforms and volume of the scape:
Roots bent of pvc and added volume with foam:
A bit of shaping with a knife:
A stage after a few layers:
Hardscape pretty much finished:
Glued in and the first test was very succesfull. All the pools were filled up with just one pump feeding the plumming system in the scape:
The mudskippers are using the whole scape and seem happy with it:
FTS, early stages:
BOOOOO!
The tank is still maturing. Water is kept at 1.002-1.003. I'm trying to find plants that would co-operate with me, but haven' had too much luck yet.
There, thanks for looking!
I didn't want to go the traditional "sloping sand"-route in creating a habitat for my mudskippers.
To start with, I had three Periophthalmodon septemradiatus males. This is not the most aggressive nor largest species of 'skippers, but it still wants to form and defend a small territory.
What I wanted was to create a habitat with multiple spots where the fish can hide from each other's sight.
I started with an old 140 gallon sump tank:
I disassembled the sump to replace the old, scratched front glass with a new one and painted the trims:
For hardscape I wanted to make a DIY root system with multiple little shallow pools and an inbuilt plumming to circulate water in the pools.
A sketch:
Platforms and volume of the scape:
Roots bent of pvc and added volume with foam:
A bit of shaping with a knife:
A stage after a few layers:
Hardscape pretty much finished:
Glued in and the first test was very succesfull. All the pools were filled up with just one pump feeding the plumming system in the scape:
The mudskippers are using the whole scape and seem happy with it:
FTS, early stages:
BOOOOO!
The tank is still maturing. Water is kept at 1.002-1.003. I'm trying to find plants that would co-operate with me, but haven' had too much luck yet.
There, thanks for looking!
