Newbie To Brackish Some Help Would Be Grand!

[Dibbs123]

Hi all,

I have been looking in this forum for a couple of days but havent got all the answers i need at the moment so some advice would be great

I currently have a 200 ltr fresh water tank. I want to keep Green Spotted Puffer fish. Tank has been set up since before Xmas and is fully cycled for fresh water. I understand I need to change this to Brackish. I havent got any marine salt as yet so have not had a chance to read the instructions for dosage etc. Is it easy to change from Fresh Water to Brackish?? I understand this will kill my good bacteria what can I do about this?? should I do a cycle once the water has changed to Brackish or if I do it slowly will the bacteria grow back?? Dont really undersatnd why it will kill the bacs and different ones grow back can anyone explain??

Currently have gravel but will change to sand. can you clean sand with a normal vac or will it all get sucked up??

what happens if you get the salineity wrong is it easy to change by changing the water??

do you have to add salt at every water change??

is my tank big enough for 2 GSP??

I have seen these fish and I am totally hooked on getting some. I am new to the hobby but I am happy that I can mainatain the tank as required as I actually enjoy cleaning it!!

Some help would be great thank you. may have more questions once I have some answers so please be paitent!!

 

[iliveinazoo]

Hi all,

I have been looking in this forum for a couple of days but havent got all the answers i need at the moment so some advice would be great

I currently have a 200 ltr fresh water tank. I want to keep Green Spotted Puffer fish. Tank has been set up since before Xmas and is fully cycled for fresh water. I understand I need to change this to Brackish. I havent got any marine salt as yet so have not had a chance to read the instructions for dosage etc. Is it easy to change from Fresh Water to Brackish?? I understand this will kill my good bacteria what can I do about this?? should I do a cycle once the water has changed to Brackish or if I do it slowly will the bacteria grow back?? Dont really undersatnd why it will kill the bacs and different ones grow back can anyone explain??

Currently have gravel but will change to sand. can you clean sand with a normal vac or will it all get sucked up??

what happens if you get the salineity wrong is it easy to change by changing the water??

do you have to add salt at every water change??

is my tank big enough for 2 GSP??

I have seen these fish and I am totally hooked on getting some. I am new to the hobby but I am happy that I can mainatain the tank as required as I actually enjoy cleaning it!!

Some help would be great thank you. may have more questions once I have some answers so please be paitent!!

i think that the recommendation is 1 GSP per 30 USG.

A very small amount of the sand will be sucked up but no too much to worry about - all of my tanks have sand as a substrate.

you can raise your SG 1.002 a week with each water change to stop all of your bacteria dying off, remember to maintain a source of ammonia to feed the bacteria if the tank is going to be empty during your transition. what SG are your LFS keeping the GSP's at because you could just pop him in at SG1.002 if it is currently low and continue with the rise slowly.

Yes add salt every water change and buy a refractometer or hydrometer that reads down to 1.001.

 

[el_vulture619]

Is there anything in the tank now? If not just add the salt to the tank per instructions on the mix. Raising it to 1.002-5 shouldn't kill off to much bacteria, and if you plan on adding sand the bacteria will have to start growing in that anyways.

Letting a peice of cocktail shrimp rot away will help the tank to cycle faster.

And

 

[nmonks]

Your tank should be fine for one adult, possibly two, GSPs assuming you take care with the filtration. I assume you're buying juveniles around 5 cm or so in length. These will do perfectly well in freshwater for months, even a year, so there's no rush to raise the salinity. Instead, get them settled into the aquarium first, and make sure that the water is clean (zero ammonia, zero nitrite, and less than 20 mg/l nitrate). Keep the water hard (10+ degrees dH) and basic (pH 7.5 to 8).

Over the next few months you can gradually raise the salinity. Running the tank at SG 1.001 for one month, 1.002 for the next, 1.003 for the one after that, and so on will do the trick nicely. Juveniles can be maintained at SG 1.005 for the first year or two without any problems at all. Adults will do well at that salinity as well, though SG 1.008 to 1.010 is probably the ideal. If you download Brack Calc from my web site, you can find out how salinity, specific gravity and temperature are interconnected, and this makes it easy to estimate how much marine salt mix to add per litre or gallon of water. It's a Mac and Windows program, and free!

Bacteria adapt to different salinities, but like other organisms, sudden environmental changes can kill them. Therefore it's a good idea to make small changes, and to use your nitrite test kit periodically to make sure everything is working properly.

Cheers, Neale

I currently have a 200 ltr fresh water tank. I want to keep Green Spotted Puffer fish. Tank has been set up since before Xmas and is fully cycled for fresh water. I understand I need to change this to Brackish. I havent got any marine salt as yet so have not had a chance to read the instructions for dosage etc. Is it easy to change from Fresh Water to Brackish?? I understand this will kill my good bacteria what can I do about this?? should I do a cycle once the water has changed to Brackish or if I do it slowly will the bacteria grow back?? Dont really undersatnd why it will kill the bacs and different ones grow back can anyone explain??

 

[lilacamy931]

I am going to leap in and say all the information on here is really informative. As I am in the same situation but a 160 litre that I will be cycling end of August and purchasing a GSP for in September hopefully (depending on the cycle). I know the GSP I will be getting is in fresh anyways but it is good to know that don't need to raise the salinity right away!

I will have a go at that Brackish calculator thing also as the thing that boggles my mind is you don't follow the instructions on the tub of marine salt as that is for full marine and you need to figure out what the salinity is but you are mixing partial water changes?! So with a 160 litre, say doing a large % change say 50 litres, the 50 litres will read at the right salinity you want but obviously this will change when adding to the tank (make salinity weaker). I didn't want to start my own thread as you had the exact same questions as me! (hope don't mind ) I will be only getting the one GSP as not big enough for two.