TANK BUILD: low tech botanical scape for breeding licorice gourami

The first step of having a Anabantoid breeding shelf in the fish room was to move the current pair of licorice gourami, Parosphromenus sp., into a more attractive scape that better uses the space on the shelf.
The tank build features:
An AquaOne opticlear low profile 45 www.aquaone.co.uk/focus.php?p... kindly gifted to me by ‪@FishShopMatt‬
Aquascaping tools are the NTLabs pro care range www.ntlabs.co.uk/browse-produ...
Botanicals used were palm pod halves, Savu pods, land lotus pods and oak leaves. All of the pods were from Live Aquatic Food Online: www.liveaquaticfoodonline.co.uk
Plants used in this build Cryptocoryne wendtii ‘tropica’, willisii, albida brown, Bucephalandra kedegang, caterina and wavy green, and Java fern ‘narrow’
Information on other botanicals that can be used as caves in the aquarium can be found here: • Top 5 aquarium botanic...
Botanical prep guide is available here:
• How to prepare botanic...

[@GardenEvolution]

Love these gourami! Have a pair myself and they are always exciting to watch

[@alexb_aquatics]

That’s awesome! They are fascinating little fish right? Glad you’re enjoying yours

[@lorenzospina3174]

Great job and I love this fish ❤.

[@alexb_aquatics]

Thank you so much, they’re such an amazing group of fish! There’s so many I would like to keep which these changes should hopefully help me to do!

[@christophhurni1518]

You are very talented👍greetings from switzerland

[@alexb_aquatics]

That’s really kind of you, greetings!! 👋

[@AshleyArmondi]

Loved it! Subscribed not long ago and excited to catch up on your channel! I got sparkling gouramis not long ago, and I love the dwarf varieties of gourami! Also, great to see someone actually scaping a tank in that orientatio. Usually only see it for a breeding setup with no scape. I scaped a pathway in a 5.5 gallon in that orientation that turned out great!

[@alexb_aquatics]

Thanks for the positive feedback and for subbing! Sparkling gouramis are so lovely, they’re definitely on my mental shopping list for a future project! That’s awesome, they definitely are usually more breeding set ups, it was a bit challenging specially wanting to reuse hardscape I already had! Sounds like you’ve created something special that you love, that’s great ❤️🙌🏼

[@AshleyArmondi]

@@alexb_aquatics thank you 🤗 wish we could post pictures on KZbin comments lol. Licorice gouramis are on my mental shopping list 😅 but, sparkling gouramis have so much personality for such a little fish! I feel that, I’m always trying to use what I’ve collected over time and reuse everything. It’s so hard to not just go out and buy all the fancy stuff there is out there now. However, that’s where the good creativity and fun comes from! Loving your natural scapes, been wanting to do more of a botanical biotope build myself, so you’re inspiring me to do so soon