Lake Tanganyika, is in the Great Rift Valley forming a rift valley between mountains. The Great Rift Valley is a great geological fracture and the lake is part of it.
Its origin is caused by the failure of the rock to expand the crust by tectonic processes at this point ( divergent edge). The process is reversed to the collision of tectonic plates forming mountain ranges like the Himalayas or Alps. It forms a long trench with steep slopes. The central rocky fragments and collapses periodically, creating normal faults where the rock blocks exert a vertical slide. In many places these movements are large steps where the central blocks sink forming a graben . Across the Rift Valley Earth's crust is heated by the molten magma rises to the surface through fissures and volcanic cones .
Maybe now understand that the Tanganyika Lake Malawi and Victoria are rocky lakes where plants are scarce and dominated by a rocky environment.
Its inhabitants are adapted to that environment, perhaps a little hostile, but whatever the species by either one or Cyprichromis Lamrpologuino One way or another are related to rocks, either because they find food, territory, or shelter. The lake
huge rock formations can be found both in the first few meters and in deeper areas, all as a whole is rock and sand, so that when setting up an aquarium we have to consider.
In the first few meters with abundant boulders piled one upon another to form caves and crevices where. The rocks are almost free of sediments due to the continuous waves, allowing the growth of algae in some places forming thick carpets of green. Because of this abundance of food, competition for living space is high, and species only the strongest and most aggressive are able to secure a territory. (Konings)
In this habitat, the first meters of depth is where we can find more movement and more aggressive species and Konings says that as competition for territory is constant, so in those early meters, we can find Tropheus , Petrochromis (these are the most) and various lamprologuinos as N. brichardi, leleupi , etc. .. cylindricus.
There are species that depend more on the rocks than others, for instance so-called petricolas, species that usually live in areas very rocky and have adapted to them so that their morphology is designed to swim through the cracks and crevices offering their environment. One well-known example is the Altolamprologus , highly compressed cichlid body which used to get into narrow cracks that form rocks.
Assuming that we will recreate a mini lake are the liters to be, our main decoration are the rocks, the truth that only decorate an aquarium with rocks for many and they would go through the head, some fall into the tempted to put some "green", but if we want to be 100% realistic or purists, the rocks have to be the decor of the aquarium.
Many think that an aquarium decorated only with natural rocks can not be nice or if, of course, then I will put some pictures so you can see how easy it can be, if we start from a number of bases:
- The rocks must be the same geological material, ie the same material and color, this is the most important, to give ease to the aquarium.
- The sand in this section decoration also plays an essential if not the rock protrude much or little the fair. Therefore the sand and rocks must be of a similar color.
- Choose carefully rocks, when they may not be volcanic or that style.
- always a big rock Better than many small, separate large rocks give the impression of height and breaks the homogeneity of the aquarium.
First of all, I am not stacking rocks on top of each other trying to form a rock fall, it only feels good in aquariums of at least 80cm base, 40cm or similar best not to try that look like a rock quarry. I prefer keeping with boulders the size of the aquarium and in the vicinity of the rocks falling boulders smaller in size as well as large rocks smaller naturally give the impression we want .... some examples.
As we have seen always dominated by a large rock surrounded by smaller rocks, creating small gaps between them, are the habitat of some of our cycle. This would be a small replica of a huge rock formation in the lake, we could say the intermediate habitat, habitats for my more "aesthetic" when setting up an aquarium, since it is not loaded with lots of rocks as in the case of recreate a rock fall, or that they "dull" with Little Rock, if not fair and according to the aquarium that we want to mount.
depends on the people that are going to go in the tank if the tank will be full of petricolas, the amount of rock will be greater, in order to create more territories .. etc caches. If the idea of \u200b\u200bputting a lot of rock in the aquarium we are not persuaded by the weight of these, we can always resort to the famous modules Back to Nature, which today funds create artificial rocks and elaborate.
BTN
With funds can recreate authentic rocky wonders can create high and low for the various species that inhabit the aquarium, for example those vertical walls, cracks that creates high background can be BTN very well used by Julidochromis or Paracyprichromis for instance, we could say we took the base or sides of the aquarium.
Another example would be the next-aquarium , Is no bottom but BTN modules, some stuck to the rear window creating caves, crevices and holes at different heights for different species
as decoration.
usually tends to fall into the trap of mounting the tank and still not know the species that will go El.En first things first we have to decide which species will inhabit the aquarium, once we clear that species will go into the aquarium can make us think how we structure the aquarium, ie placement of rocks and create territories.
I personally like large rocks, I prefer Place 2 or 3 really big rocks and a couple or three small by some that cramming tens of rocks.
First we start with the biggest as it is evident that we are going to emphasize more in the tank, so first of all you look the way we like looking and trying all of hand the rock. Once we have placed large rocks that start with the next largest and so on up to the smallest, all this by making a small drop to reach the smaller rocks.
Another of the mistakes we make is being too protective at the time of placing the rocks, some time we have the "pillars" other have to be a natural way.
as We the territories?
A basic rule is to separate the piles of rocks, according to the territories that we want, that at first seems easy but we have to play with some factors, one of the most important are measures of the aquarium, on this basis we will just have some species and a number of inhabitants according to the aquarium. This is another important issue that people often make the mistake beginner, perhaps accustomed to other aquariums as Amazon .. etc, the amount of fish that can be put in an Amazonian Tanganyika in 200l to 200l can vary widely, as being in a territorial cichlid aquarium 200l no metería mas de 3 especies y esta de un tamaño pequeño. Por lo cual si en un acuario de 1,50cm queremos crear 3 territorios , por ejemplo para una pareja de Julidochromis , Altolamprologus y leleupis yo lo distribuiría así ... tres montones de rocas y cada montón de rocas tiene que estar separado, mientras mas separados estén menos problemas de convivencia tendrán ya que donde acaba su montón de rocas ellos saben que acaba su territorio , si todo estuviese unido sin separación entre los montones lo tomarían como un solo territorio.
Esto es una "regla" que tenemos que tener en cuenta , sobre todo para las especies petricolas , pero aparte de ellas hay otras como los Paracyprichromis Cyprichromis ... etc or marking their territory like petricolas but in upland areas of the aquarium. So with this in mind we will save many conflicts of coexistence among our cichlids, they are smarter than we think and know where to begin and end their territory, so we just have to evenly distribute the rocks and they will do the rest .
When we give an environment more like the habitat then is when you really start to enjoy them ...
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---------- Sources: -------------------- http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gran_Valle_del_Rift
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Photo: Juan Molina and network .. Enjoying
Tanganyika
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