Making a mudskipper island....

[Ami]

Goodmorning everyone! Rise and shine sleepy heads...

I've been thinking of how best to make an island for a possible mudskipper, without taking up a massive amount of space.

After a few suggestions from CFC & my hubby, I finally thought of using clay pipes in a pyramid formation, either in the centre or at the end of the tank.

I'm kinda leaning towards the end but have been completely unable to find new clay pipes that are small enough. I've found plastic downpipes (those ones that take the rainwater away from your gutter) that are 2m long and 5.3cm in diameter.

The idea is to put a thin layer of sand on the bottom of the tank, 5 pieces of pipe of 30cm in length coming out from the end, a layer of sand on top, then 4 pieces of pipe 20cm in length, another layer of sand, then 3 pieces of pipe 15cm in length, then another layer of sand.

I would then leave some of the ends open for use as caves, but block others off so the sand can be banked up against them. I would then plant in front of the pipes to hide them a bit more and give more security to any hiding fish and maybe encourage some java moss to grow over.

There'll be plenty of bog wood for the lil fella to climb up.

Questions are:
1) Is the above scenario a viable option?
2) Are plastic pipes safe if I scrub them thoroughly?
3) Will the fish fall for the plastic cave idea and is there anyway I could make the insides more realistic? I can only think of using sand on the base of the caves.
4) Where on earth can you buy mangroves / coconut palms in the UK???

On a tangent (although a related one!), would type of snails and inverts can I add to a brackish tank? I understand that Knight Gobies may well eat them all up, so is there any that they won't?

Thank you all!

 

[mbhw]

Hey Ami,

Mudskippers are cool! I might be able to make a few suggestions:

1) PVC pipe - cheap, safe, and easy to work with. To make it more realistic, I often would coat the PVC in aquarium safe silicon and roll it in gravel, sand, or wood chunks. You can coat the insides and drop in sand to coat it. I don't have any pics, as I have not done this in the past few years and sold almost all of my stuff.

2) Fish will adapt fine to plastic caves, they will use whatever is available to them.

I'm not in the UK so I can't tell you where to buy the other stuff.

Snails - most of the small snails that come in on FW plants will do OK if it's not too salty. Malaysian Trumpet snails will thrive, but might quickly overrun your tank and nothing can eat them, making them a hassle and a plague if you want them gone.

Let's see pics when you are done! Good luck

 

[Ami]

Thanks for the reply mbhw!

I haven't been able to find a massive amount on the forums about keeping mudskippers, although there's plenty of websites out there.

Your idea to roll the pipes in aquarium silicon and then sand is brilliant so I'm going to steal it I'm afraid. )
In fact, I've seen on a couple of websites that people do a similar thing with polystyrene and then stick it to the bottom of the tank - takes up a lot of space with no weight basically.

Will do some more research on the mangrove/coconut palms - unless someone else can help me out?

In the meantime, I'm desperate to order some snails for my FW tank so will double up the help post in inverts to see if there are any other suggestions for brackish. I was planning on adding trumpet snails to both tanks for the sand but now you've made me a tad unsure!

Sure will post pics as soon as I'm set up and will also let you know what else I've found out.

Cheers,
Ami

PS - for anyone in the UK interested in glass sliding covers, I've just discovered you can get them (along with pretty much everything else!) from aquatics-online