New Rare Species Tank Setup

Finally I have a show tank set up that im actually happy with

This shall be my newest rare species show-tank (rather than the breeding, raising or holding tanks which aren't anything out of the ordinary)

It's a 38x15x15 setup with external filtration (1000lph), redmoor wood, broken slate substrate and hidden pipework, heater, etc. The upright slates at the back hides these, using the black background (plasticated cardboard painted by me with thick and sticky waterproof ink) to bring out the substrate and wood whilst hide the upright slate. There is one air pump, sending air through two 'Sander' wooden airstones, I love these things as they are silent at producing the bubbles and create much finer bubbles than your conventional airstone. These are both conceled under a piece of mopani which holds them in place, and acts as a cave entrance.

It's very minimalist, but if it's acceptable for the fish it's my preferred style.
(for others I do have planted and fake plants but I think this is often the way to really show off a fish)

When cycled this tank will hold the Channa Pulchra, plus a few other rare goodies yet to be named... keep your eyes on this spot.

(perhaps Tetraodon palembangensis... as I say, keep your eyes on this space)

Bearing in mind this was set up today and that the white dots are bubbles on the front of the tank... What do you think?

(also remember there are images as links below the first four...)

Cheers. You can buy crushed slate or slate chunks (very expensive from garden centers) that is normally used in gardens.

This stuff is actually roofing slate, I went to my local builders yard and asked if they had any smashed, wrongly sized or unwanted roofing tiles, they had a whole load so i took a few and used a stone to crack them into about 0.8"-3" (using a hammer would shatter them too much).

I then cleaned up the edges of each chunk to take away sharp edges and scrubbed them clean.

Therefore all the slate in this tank (normally vey expensive to buy) was totally free.

Thanks, it's a quite expensive wood called 'redmoor root'.
I managed to get some slightly down on what i would expect to be RRP but still...

The problem with it is that it floats, easily rectified with some lead weighting and a heavy slate substrate to anchor it to though!

On the slate front... I will be keeping a cleanup crew of assorted nerites in there, which is the reason I am not toooo sure about the Tetraodon palembangensis. As for cleaning, a gravel vac can just be run over the tops of it and any particles will just come right out instantly... I mean it's no different from keeping say an ornament in your tank, it has pretty much the same cleaning requirements. Obviously bacteria build-up in it would be negligable but the filter should be able to handle that side of things. (on a side note, terrapins are sometimes kept in tanks with this sort of substrate)

The wood... well im pretty sure it will always want to float. But it doesnt really bother me, i have just hidden the lead out of sight and made caves out of the slate that it is anchored to (win-win!)

To be honest I cant wait to see the fish either! The Pulchra is only ever out at night in the 5ft - annoyingly, as it still needs feeding, I have to place food just inside it's hiding place or it will not feed at normal feeding time - so I have only had about 3mins in all to study it in the tank. When it is moved to a more relaxed (in terms of other fish) tank I expect it to flourish.