Sebae Mono Q.

[davidcalgary29]

I visited a LFS yesterday and spotted these interesting fish. The store owner advised that "all I needed to do was add 1tsp of salt/ 5 gallon of tank, once", and the fish would "convert" and be "happy" in a freshwater aquarium.

Needless to say, quick internet searches (and general logic) don't seem to back this up. Can anyone give me the "scoop" on keeping this fish?

 

[LadyMinion]

I visited a LFS yesterday and spotted these interesting fish. The store owner advised that "all I needed to do was add 1tsp of salt/ 5 gallon of tank, once", and the fish would "convert" and be "happy" in a freshwater aquarium.

Needless to say, quick internet searches (and general logic) don't seem to back this up. Can anyone give me the "scoop" on keeping this fish?

Gosh, you should definitely take that with a pinch of salt (no pun intended). If brackish fish only needed a one-off dose of salt to permanantly acclimatise them to fresh, I'd have my knight gobies!!

I'm afraid I don't have any info on this fish - sounds like the type of thing that CFC would know about. But I really am glad you didn't just take that lfs guy's "advice" and decided to ask questions elsewhere.

 

[Phantom Thief]

Sebae monos need (if i am not mistaken) hard brackish, a minimum salinity of 1.015. So your lfs's advice is certainly wrong.

EDIT: Forgot to say that the juveniles of this species can live in freshwater, but gradually move towards hard brackish/marine as they grow older.

P.T.

 

[CFC]

You were certainly given some duff information there, good job you decided to do some research before buying the fish. Sebae mono's breed in freshwater but adults live in costal areas of the sea and at the mouths of large rivers which empty into the sea, to keep adults you need to at the very least provide hard brackish conditions with a SG of around 1.015. By the time the young sebae mono's are large enough to be sold they should have already been moved up into mild brackish water with a SG of at least 1.005 which is a lot more salt than 1tsp per 5g, try more like 5 ounces of salt to 5 gallons (depending on the mineral content of the water).