Brackish Fish Lovers

[kennyman]

I am curious to see how many people that come to these forums have involvement with this aspect of aquarium keeping. I would love to know what kind of creatures you have kept or are keeping and what challenges they posed. I know there are more of us out there somewhere, share your experience with us please 


I have kept a small brackish tank with Bumblebee Gobies, Amano Shrimp and an Asian Red Claw Crab since last Sept(15months). I have tired to keep it planted and found some plants that will do ok in a salinity of 1.005 but my crab goes on periodic rampages ripping out and shredding every leafy thing she can find. I had kept Indian Glassfish for a while but they were very fragile and the last of them gave up a few weeks ago. I love the gobies. They are so cute with a mouth the size of their whole head and a tiny little body. The way they bounce from place to place is so much like a bee hopping around on the flowers.

I added a few guppies when I lost the glassfish and they seem to like the low salinity environment. They have bread three times in the tank and my BBG's had very fat tummys for a few days each time. No guppy fry have every escaped from the clutches of my mini killer gobies.

[Melody]

Always wanted to do some P. Velifera, maybe a few P. Sphenops, in a Brackish tank... nothing too exciting  .

[beowulf]

One of my next projects is such a tank.  Depending on the size I was debating between bumble bee gobies and orange chromides in a smaller tank or archer fish and some smaller mudskippers in a larger tank.

[Mettle]

I think it was here on OVAS that a picture was posted or linked to dealing with a brackish archer fish tank that had another tank stacked on top with branches and crickets... It was pretty awesome looking and I would love to do that, too.

I think the pic was in relation to tanks posted that had plants and corals in the same tanks. Wish I would've bookmarked it.

[kennyman]

Yea I saw that too. It was a way to extend the glass up high so that you could get the archers to spit at food. My dad had a pair of them when I was about 12. They were cool but he didn't understand what brackish really meant and they didn't last a year.

You can stick hamburger or Beefheart on the glass and they will knock it down to get it. Ultimately mangroves growing above the waterline with insects crawling on the leaves would be the ultimate feeding for archers.

[bitterman]

PFG was trying to get me to go brackish with my 65 Gallon corner diamond tank... I just didn't want to mess with water changes since I have the automatic water change system (I know I am getting lazy). I would love to go SW, but that is cost prohibitive right now and light woudl cost a mint for that tank.

Bruce

[dannypd]

PFG was trying to get me to go brackish with my 65 Gallon corner diamond tank... I just didn't want to mess with water changes since I have the automatic water change system (I know I am getting lazy). I would love to go SW, but that is cost prohibitive right now and light woudl cost a mint for that tank.

Bruce

You can still go brackish.

Guppied, gobies, (most) puffers, can handle changes in salinity.  It just means you have to manually add salt to the water every now and then....

Considering the breeding patterns of most brackish fish, the cycle of salt could get you some unexpected spawning

[kennyman]

Hey Danny is your big brackish tank for the puffer in your icon? What else do you have in there?

[daniel]

my brackish tank is mostly filled with mollies (sail fin,sphenops)