Jake, Funny how you don't like being criticized for your setups on forums. Having been following Reefbuilders for years I know how well and frequently you are able to dish it out. It appears you can't seem to take it though. I know exactly how much water an MP40 pushes out. I also run just about th...

I thought red lizard cats were a captive bred strain and all of them are captive bred - am I missing something? Are you talking about a different fish?

interopercular and pectoral fin spin odondotes are highly variable within a single fish. I have two 30cm true P. cochliodon which have been aquarium veterans for over a decade. Their odondotes grow out, get large and showy like a "male" and other times both types of odondotes can fall out ...

Nice fish and blue eyes 't call it but personally I wouldn't call it paradise. I don't see any hiding places, it's to open. Panaque like to hide. And you'd better use fine sand; it;s better for the cory's and geo's but the blue eyes are wonderful I used to have a huge custom made wood cave in there...

I agree that sand is probably better for the Geo's and cory's than the gravel you have. But I understand your point. I have two 120's setup and one is very similar to yours. I use some powerful circulation pumps on one end of the tank blowing lengthwise and both tanks have overflows. Getting sand i...

Thanks Darrel for quickly reminding me why I don't like posting on forums where critics like you are quick to reinforce aquarium bulletin board dogma. Apparently these cories didn't get the memo that they should be living over sand, this natural habitat substrate is just a wee but bigger than mine h...

The gravel is finer than it looks and the Geos have no problem sifting through it. A closer pic so you can see the gravel size, this is the smallest size i could get away with while having a lot of water flow

The wood is all pulled from my yard here in Colorado, I don't know what species they are though. There is one log in there of Aspen that I pulled from the local creek and they've mowed down about 1/4 inch around the whole thing. The tank is 30 inches deep and it helps with the super dramatic display...

Besides the occasional decent fish store, Aquabid is the only place i ever see some cool woodcats popping up for sale.

I like to upload my images to FlickR and as bassgenie mentioned, use the image url ending in ".jpg" and insert that in between the tags.

They are Geophagus altifrons that I've had since they were barely half an inch long - you could just tell that they were cichlids at that size, but not that they were Geos

One more look at the overall simple aquascape

Here's a rare close up of the two Panaques next to each other

You can see the larger blue eye completely dwarfs this four inch male bristlenose pleco

I haven't posted in a little while and thought I'd share an update of the 150 gallon Blue Eye Pleco tank The "pair" of blue eyes are doing well, they rarely fight and the two fish have seemingly divided the tank between them. http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8481/8237788621_1f39bb7537_c.jpg I...

tomr wrote:i think they are Angelicus/eupterus

Agreed, I've seen this fish labeled as such - beautiful looking fish, even if it is a hybrid

I've always really liked L. triactis but yesterday I finally got rid of my six incher with a semi-dragon fin pattern because he's just a grump and like most 3-beacons, really shy and rarely seen. They make zebra plecos seem outgoing. Cool score on the dragonfins Saul, I hope to see them grow up into...

Aw crap! I put the log-cave in the tank and it's been vacant for three days now, which I expected. But just this afternoon the 'male' was checking it out when he got cock-blocked by a grumpy 6" triactis pleco who just found the cave to his liking. Gonna make a different cave for the tractis ple...

Yours are both about 12" Long? The "male" is 13 and the "female" is 11". The smaller specimen with the feminine behavior has been in captivity for a documented 15 yrs, at which time it was only 3-4". I gather that my "pair" is going on about 20 yrs old, ...

If a panaque should spawn in a hole they would be very big. I don't believe that they spawn in holes. The uncertainty of what Panaques spawn in is why I am going to build the log-cave into a hybrid gazebo-cave. The far-end of the log will be placed against the internal overflow box to close off one...

ElTofi wrote: is it a conifer ?

No it isn't, I definitely avoid pine trees for aquariums. On a side note, I wonder how much the type of wood may affect the conditioning and breeding stimulus of the fish. I wouldn't be surprised if a particular type of wood was more suitable for use a spawning medium.

My man-sized arm easily fits in and through the entire log, big enough for one fish, but nor sure about both http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7271/7097132867_3b04fd6d49_c.jpg Now the two halves of the log-cave are jammed in a bucket and will be soaking in water for a while before i add it to the tank h...

After working it for a while with a hatchet and a butter knife I widened the center cavity http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7187/7097131937_38e10381bd_c.jpg This is the 'far end' of the cave, which will be a little taller since i plan on sandwiching something in between the sides http://farm8.staticfli...

The log split precisely how I was hoping

The center piece came out easily giving me a nice starting point to work with

SO I went out and picked a log that was splitting in a favorable way, then cut off the piece of appropriate length

Measured the diameter, precisely what I was aiming for

In nearly ten years as a moderator here, that has to be about the rudest response I have received from someone asking for help. OH NOES! Less then 20 posts and I'm already making trouble. I swear I didn't mean to come across that way and I am extremely grateful for the feedback I have already recei...

So the otto started becoming a little more persistent at riding the larger blue eye and began trying to pick at the other one too. Since it was clear that the otto was grazing a little more actively, I just removed him from the 150 gallon, sunken forrest dream Loricariidae aquarium with wet dry and ...

There we go, that's the kind of information I was fishing for you guys. I know that large Panaques have never been spawned in captivity and we know nothing, so I was using the word 'cave' loosely for whatever kind of spawning substrate they actually need.

While they are several factors involved when spawning loricariids, one thing we do know is that very, very few of them will spawn unless provided with a suitable spawning site. That is precisely the purpose of this thread, hence the title, and you are pointing out the obvious. Of course they need s...

Another view of the Symbiosis, strangely it's only with one of the blue eyes and not the other.

Here is a pic of the "pair" - their body color looks different because I have narrow angle LEDs in the front that are bluer than in the back.