HI everyone,
I'm new to fish keeping, having bought a 4ft tank and setting up a 1ft tank underneith about a month and a half ago with a month of filtering in the main tank and 3 or 4 days in the 1ft tank and getting the ph, chlorine+all the NIT+ leveling chemicals(sry not gona name them lol but yous know what i mean) and the good bacteria growing i finally got to the fishy part yesterday lol. The 2 ghost knives and 2 silver dollars i put in are thriving after a bit of touch and go with the silver dollars who seemed stunned at the begining are now thriving on bloodworms and i can see the smaller of the 2 getting alot bigger fast and becoming dominant lol.

Just a few questions ive sort of come across over the last day or so of researching my fish. Although they seem quit happy and healthy i just want to make sure on a few things but i'm confident i've done everything right and their off to a good start .

First of all is regarding bumblebee gobies, i've read from a few sites i've looked at that they seem to thrive on brakish water with a ph of 8 or so. To anyone who may keep or know alot about bumblebee gobies a few query's have arisen for me.

1) currently they seem very happy and communal and im wondering if i add little hidie holes and a number of houses if this will cause them to loose their communal behaviour but i also want to know if this is more beneficial to have this behaviour for them or whether they will be just as happy hanging out together on the sides of the small tank? i ask this because the consensus on behaviour seems to be that they will dart around constantly claiming new territory as they are never happy with what they've got. I do think i will leave them as they are for now because they seem very happy hanging out on the side of the tank and on the blue gravel stones ive got in there.

2) As i mensioned i had read that bumblebee gobies prefer water of ph8+ and brakish in makeup, currently they are living in ph 7 water with freshwater treated with the same chemicals as my main tank to remove nitrates and chlorine just in lower quantities and they seem to be quit happy hopping around the tank, so should i change it to brakish or just continue them as they are? I only ask this because some sites mension that they won't last long in fresh non brakish water, but at the moment i dont see this to be a problem. I believe the sites may have been refering to a brother of the bumble bee gobi which i read thrives on the brakish water which is recomended.

3) if i was needing to make the water slightly brakish if problems arose due to death or sickly behavior, i am guessing that its just a matter of adding a small amount of aquarium salt, yes? If so do i need specialty equipment for such a small tank as you would for a salt water tank like protien skimmers and sumps etc. or will i be ok with my setup i currently have which is a typical tropical freshwater setup with a heater, air and hanging cannister filter?

Now onto my ghost knives, just one little thing i wish to check with anyone who may keep ghost knives or know a fair bit about.
1) I have noticed during feeding this morning that they seem content hanging around the suction caps or the heater and the filter. My question is are they feeding off the bacteria growing on those suction caps? and is it enough to supplement their feeding because as i noted the silver dollars chomped all the food down as they do with my cousins who are massive, and the ghosts just sat at the suction caps. Also is it ok that one of them seems to hang around the suction cap of the heater, this wont aris to any problems with him being burnt or over heating will it? as i cannot seem to stop him going back to the suction cap. i have no doubt they will come back to feeding on worms as they excelled in this department the first day i fed them while the dollars just sat there.

Thanks to anyone who replys and i look forward to a happy future and many more tanks to come ==

You really do need to put down the individual data for each chemical. Pet shops and some fish owners ideas of "perfectly normal" can make an experienced fishkeeper wince.




Brackish or freshwater, it doesn't really matter...



Lots of small territories for them to claim is very beneficial. Large snail shells like apple snails are ideal.



"Treated with the same chemicals". That has me concerned, there shouldn't be any need to add chemicals to a tank (short of dechlorinator) for fish to thrive. Using chemicals to treat imbalances is very difficult, and most often unnecessary. Like I say BBG's don't care if it's brackish or fresh, and thats not only my own experience, that's information I've obtained from one of the worlds leading gobiologists.



no no no no no! Aquarium salt will not make a brackish tank in the long term. You could use it in the very short term but the tank would lack the majority of minerals and nutrients necessary to make it successful. Use only Ocean mix style salt used for creating marine aquariums. You will need to measure this using one of 2 devices a REFRACTOMETER or HYDROMETER. Table spoons per gallon or any other measurement is very vague, the salt content in a tablespoon of salt will vary over time as the salt absorbs water.



I'm guessing these are E. viriscens, which I'm under the impression do best kept singularly due to their electric impulses used for navigation. Get a heater guard if you're worried about them burning themselves, maybe turn down the light and consider more hiding places. It's not clear in your post, but I hope they're not in the same tank as the BBG's....

you know alot of people say not to keep more than 1 knife fish in a tank, i've got a clown knife and a black ghost knife and to be honest i'll be surprised if they even knew they were in the same tank as each other lol.anyways, as with most knife fish they will hide under almost anything that provides a bit of shade, when i clean my tank my black ghost follows my hand everywhere when i'm lifting the ornaments out just to try and hide under it, eventually when everythings out he either hides behind the power head of the filter of under the heater, even if you think he's not eating he will be, they go about the gravel when hiding or when the lights ou picking up whatevers left. if it's a black ghost knife you have try hand feeding him, they tend to come up alot of the time if you have food.

Ok you don't need to worry about all these tests in the first paragraph. The only ones you need are ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH, and maybe hardness (though not really needed). I don't even know what half the ones you listed are.

You need a bigger group for your silver dollars, preferable around six. They are very skittish fish and not being in the safety of a shoal will only make them worse.

As fella said they can be kept in fresh or brackish. I personally keep mine is fresh and so does a leading gobiologist Naomi Deventhal, so no need to worry there.

I also don't know what a ghost knife is so I won't go too far into that, but every knife that I do know of would have bumbebee gobies for lunch.

hey guys thanks for the reply's.

First of all the gobies are in a 1ft tank underneith my 4ft tank, which has my 2 black ghost knifes and 2 silver dollars, so no need to worry there, you can put down your stress balls as you threat for the life of the poor lil bumblebees. This was already apparent to me as id read ghost knifes trying to consume pictus catfish which got stuck half way and killed both of them, poor lil thing!.

by chemicals all i meant was that i use 2 products one called PRIME(deals with chlorine+ the different parts of the nitrogen cycle) and one called STABILITY(kick starts good bacteria growth at like 100 000% or whatever) which my cousin has been using for the last 6 months with great success when he first started and of course i do my ph testing and balancing LOL.

As for the 2 silver dollars im currently saving to get about 6 or 7 discuss fish of which im hoping i will get atleast 1 breeding pair which im planning for next year. Of course i understand all the discusses needs and because of these fish and their large size, is one of the reasons i only got 2 silver dollars as opposed tp 6 or 7 as recommended above would create over crowding with the amount of discus im hoping to introduce next year over time. Discuss fish were one of the main reasons i decided to get into tropical aquaria and i can't wait for the first day that i add some in. Of course the reason im leaving it go till next year is so that i can make sure that the current fish are happy with the water so it only costs me like 9$AUD instead of 150+$AUD if a problem arises and so that when it comes close to time i can get the water checked and balance the hardness of the water and setup some breeding ceramic pots which im hoping to get soon so the ghost knifes, and soon to addition pictus and pleco's can live under.

Of course im aware of the problem of keeping pleco's and discuss fish as their skin secretion may tantelise the pleco's to try to attach themselves to the discuss. I will be monitoring this when the time comes and if a problem arises the pleco's will be put into the 6x2x2 tank i am planning to put into my garage befor hand. If no problems arise then the tank will become a 6x2x2 marine aquarium instead XD.

I may reconsider and add more silver dollars, but at the moment my cousins tank which has only 2 seems full enough although he also has 2 angels and 2 black ****** lol cant remember their name but theyr like an angel and 2 very large plec's and 2 large pictus im sure my own fish will grow into the tank as his did within the first month and as i said the discuss will fill the void next year. And of course this was only the first introduction of fish on saterday as money was an issue as im planning to go to the snow soon and of course more tank mates will be added soon, maybe 2 or 3 more sd's XD.

Morning everyone hehe. god i love exam study weeks sleeping in till 2pm. So anyway a couple of q's i need answered .

someone mensioned to me about hand feeding my ghost knifes in the other forum so im just wondering how to go about this? so fare i've tried wiggling the cube of bloodworm near him but he just sits there on the suction cap looking like he's eating whatever bacteria or growth is growing on the suction caps. Should i just let him go and presume hes getting all the nutrients and feeding from it? its been 3 days now and they dont see fine and healthy, just worries me because the first day they got into the bloodworms, but then they met suction cap and fell in love.

Im getting to the point where its probably time to start doing water changes as im half way through the first week so im just wondering my 14ft tank, what % and should it be done daily or weekly? ill find out for sure off my cousin who has the same setup when i speak to him soon but just thought i might ask here what yous recomend? taking in mind theres 2 small ghost knifes and 2 small silver dollars living in there at the moment.