Archer Fish Info

Crazybob

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Hey guys,

I've been thinking about starting a new tank in the future (pretty far off still, as i just graduated from college and havent landed a job yet) and was thinking about making it an archer fish tank. I may be pretty bad at searching for it but i havent been able to find a lot of info about keeping them. what i have found has not been to concrete as one site says one thing and others have it fairly different. what i have determined however is that the tank should be at least 75g with room above the water for insects to crawl around a bit so the archer fish can hunt (which is the main reason i think theyre so cool!), and the SG needs to be between 1.005 and 1.010 or so, even tho ive read that theyre freshwater as well (which i believe to be false). i have never kept brackish fish before, just as a warning so anything specific i need to know about that would also be greatly appreciated :)

I guess id just like to know what it all is that i need to know to keep these guys. as you can see i know very little just yet. for the tank size, is it that there needs to be 75g of water, or a 4ft tank? cuz from what i see it looks like you dont want to fill the tank to the top really so how deep should the water be, and what dimensions of tank should i have? how often should they be fed and what exactly? sorry about all the questions, i just want to make sure i know everything i can about them before i get some.

At the moment im just designing a tank for them with a sump as well as the stand to house it all. as ive previously mentioned this project is pretty far down the line so i am in no hurry at all for anything. i just want to make sure when it does get rolling everything i need to know will be available to me so i keep them nice and happy.

Thank you all for your help, i really like this community :)

~Crazybob
 
Neale Monks FAQ page is very useful: http://homepage.mac.com/nmonks/Projects/FAQ/3c.html

They are said to be shoalers in the wild but I had 4 and 1 over-dominated the others, I don't know how many you would need for them to shoal together properly, maybe 6+?

If I had a room large enough I would try keeping around 8 T. Microlepsis in a planted 100(US)G tank at SG1.003. If I had even more space I'd go for a 200(US)G tank with 8 T. Jaculatrix and 5 Silver Scats at SG1.005+.

They will eat anything but will ignore anything that falls below midwater. I fed mine flake, frozen foods, live brine shrimp and the occassional insect that I managed to catch. You can stick any sort of food to the tank above the water line and they will shoot it down or leap up to grab it which is very cool.

I fed mine once daily but if you were feeding more high protein foods then maybe every other day.

The brackish fish Aqualog book has a good write-up on them but I don't think I've read anywhere any recommendations of how many gallons that there should be per fish.
 
Aiming for T. microlepis is a good idea. It gives you the option for either freshwater or low-end brackish conditions, and is also a much smaller species, so it's easier to house.

There's much to be said for keeping a single archer. In small groups bullying is not uncommon. They do look fantastic in schools of six or more though! On the other hand, singletons will live just fine with scats and monos, and in my experience mixing these three species does seem to minimise any aggression from either the archers or the monos (scats on the whole aren't bullies, just greedy!).

In freshwater systems you could keep T. microlepis with barbs, rainbowfish, etc. While predatory, they ignore things too large to eat, and can be excellent community fish. Their bold silver and black colours look amazing in deep tanks with dark green plants like Anubias and Java fern. A long, long time ago I even kept an archer like this with some angelfish!

Cheers, Neale
 
Thanks for the info guys :)right now i have an empty 75g that needs a bit of work to be water ready again, but would i be able to stock a shoal of them in that? i would prob keep it about half full, unless i decided to build a canopy opening the top for a feeding area.
 
Half a dozen T. microlepis should be fine in there. T. chatareus and T. jaculatrix are that bit bigger, so you'd probably have to stick with a singleton or a trio, simply because you want space for other types of fish as well, presumably, and water quality needs to be maintained.

Cheers, Neale

Thanks for the info guys :)right now i have an empty 75g that needs a bit of work to be water ready again, but would i be able to stock a shoal of them in that? i would prob keep it about half full, unless i decided to build a canopy opening the top for a feeding area.
 

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