Setting Up A River Tank - Littlefish

Long time no update here, so I thought I'd let you know what is happening at the moment.
All the fish in the temporary tank are doing well, are settled, and feeding well.
Over the past couple of days I've removed the rest of the sand from the main tank, and removed the river manifold. The manifold was hurled into the back garden in disgust, and the removal of the associated tubing & pump nearly made me sick. I've cleaned the tubing, and pump. It was all quite grim, and I found a dead assassin snail in the pump 
Although I had filter sponge on the intake, somehow the snail had got in, and probably explains the smell when I took everything apart. I don't know if this would have had any impact on the river tank disaster last year.
@Andy The Minion has been kind enough to provide some diagrams of a different set up for the pump/manifold, and now that the tank is empty I'm going to spend some time trying a simplified set up, based on a combination of the information AtM provided, and some ideas on how I can have it set up so I can remove the pump hoses/intake/etc. for cleaning on a regular basis. This means I won't be rebuilding the manifold I previously had, which sat under the sand, but it may take me a while to work out exactly what I can do. The ideas are floating around in my head, I just need to have a few practice sessions in the tank while it's empty. I plan to use the pump to create flow near the bottom of the tank, then 2 external filters for the middle and surface flow.
In the past few months I've been purchasing more of the yangste rock from Aquarium gardens. I saw it while the main tank was still set up, bought a couple of pieces and put them in. Unfortunately this made the other stones I had look quite dull and unnatural, so as part of my always steep learning curve I'm using the disaster last year as an opportunity to try to make the river tank better.
Without a manifold under the substrate I should also be able to get away with a lower level of sand, which should help to avoid any build up of anaerobic bacteria, which always concerned me.
I still have the bucephalandra attached to wood, and I'll probably just use root tabs of the echinodorus martii major when that goes back in.
Time for a glass of wine while I contemplate the pump/simplified manifold set up. 

It sounds like quite a project! I'm sure it will be super rewarding once you have it all up and running 

I'm trying to rack my brains for what could be used instead of an end cap... though the best I've come up with so far is to look through plumbing supplies shops or catalogues.

Keep those photos coming!!

It was a big day in the Littlefish household today - after several weeks rearranging decor, the fish have finally been transferred back to their main tank.
It took approximately 4 hours, and I was way more stressed than the fish, who all seem to have settled very quickly into their re-worked set up.
It will take a couple of months for the echnidorus martii major to grow in, so I've thrown some elodea into the tank for cover, and I may put some more bucephalandra in.
I still have a batch of rainbow shiners in a quarantine tank, as I only picked them up from Kesgrave Tropicals a few weeks ago, but they are doing well and should be ready to go into the main tank towards the end of the week.
Hopefully I should be able to post some pics tomorrow. 

When I set up the river tank for the first time last year I got a shoal of rainbow shiners, which I was happy with. At the time I described them as being like rather snazzy black neon tetras, as they were basically silver with a darker line, but showed lovely, shimmering colours when they moved and caught the light, which was very difficult to capture a picture of.
Well, I was wrong about them. After the disaster with the tank last year, the remaining shiners have matured to show the most amazing colours. They are still very active swimmers, hence the very blurred pictured attached, which I managed to get after moving them yesterday. As you can (kind of) see, they have turned into what can only be described as disco fish.
The new batch that I collected a couple of weeks ago, which are still in the quarantine tank, still look like black neons, so I'm expecting them to mature into technicoloured disco fish later this year.   

technicoloured disco fish

 

Pleased to read that the juveniles are shoaling with their elders.

Hope all goes well tomorrow with your new goby additions.

 

Hope all has gone well @Littlefish ?

The little Gobies are such lovely fish...   

I promise that I will be posting pics as soon as I get all the lights & hood sorted. Apologies for the delay, putting the hood onto the tank is a 2 person job. 

As for the gobies, I agree with everything said, and am also amazed that the annieae gobies, which are the smallest fish in the tank, are so forward. They have a lot of personality for their size, and I'm looking forward to the rest of them completing their quarantine period and getting them into the main tank with the others.