Potential Set Up Question

[Teelie]

How large would a tank need to hold 6-8 Bumblbees (xanthozona), 4 Knights (sadanunidio) and 3-4 Flounders (Achirus lineatus)? I'm guessing 50 gallons or more. It's just an idea of mine and nothing I plan to start too soon but a general idea for the future is always helpful.

 

[nmonks]

While the idea of mixing these fish is appealing, one problem you will encounter is that these fish have different requirements. The knight gobies want low salinity, a specific gravity around 1.003 to 1.005 being about right. They don't like high salinities, and cannot adapt to freshwater.

Bumblebees also do well at 1.003 to 1.005, though some would argue (including myself) that the species you're most likely to encounter are freshwater fish. Whether or not this means they do better in brackish water in captivity is another issue.

However, the sole (it's not a flounder) you mention is a brackish to marine species, and needs at least 1.005, and probably closer to 1.010, to do well long-term. There are low-salinity 'freshwater' soles, but Achirus lineatus isn't one of them.

On the other hand, a 50 gal. aquarium is quite big, and your idea of mixing soles with gobies is an excellent one. Soles are slow-moving, nocturnal fish, and do best when kept with relatively peaceful species. If you do adapt your sole to fully marine conditions (easily done, by the way) then you can opt for any of the hardy, easy to keep marine gobies, such as watchman gobies and the superb sulphur goby, Cryptocentrus cinctus. These substrate-sifting burrowers would be just the ticket in a relatively open, sandy aquarium with flatfish.

Cheers,

Neale

 

[Teelie]

Thanks, though the link you provided stated the Achirus lineatus prefer brackish (I referred to it as a flounder as it's common name is freshwater flounder, which obviously is false), and almost all of the bumblebees I've encountered are supposedly brackish species. In fact, I always hear all Bumblebees are brackish and the only true freshwater species is rarely in the trade. That keeping them in freshwater only shortens their lifespan and they would do better in brackish. I do plan eventually to expand into marine but that is a long ways off yet.

I've always liked flounders/soles as they're a strange looking but relatively laid back fish and the "Freshwater Flounder" was the first one I came across as readily avaliable. This all got started looking through info on Bumblebees actually. I keep wanting to get them but the information and space for them is too limited right now.

 

[CFC]

A word of warning is that Knight gobies will hunt and eat bumble bee gobies as i learnt from bitter experience so are best not mixed.

 

[nmonks]

Hello,

I'll have to go back and edit the Brackish FAQ to make the entry for Achirus lineatus a bit clearer. It's a brackish to marine species, and when I typed in "prefers brackish" I meant as opposed to freshwater. If you follow the FishBase link on the FAQ, you'll see the species inhabits fresh, brackish, and marine, and this combination almost always refers to species that migrate up and down estuaries. As with scats, monos, and other fish that live in this niche, the higher the salinity, the better.

Achirus lineatus is a member of the Achiridae, or American sole familiy. It's a sole, not a flounder, but since these common names are essentially useless scientifically, this isn't a big deal. But, very broadly, soles are flatfish that are round, whereas flounders are flatfish with a rhomboid shape. Moreover, flounders are members of the family Pleuronectidae, along with, for example, plaice. The Asian 'freshwater' soles are all members of two other families, the Soleidae and the Cynoglossidae. Both of these are correctly referred to as soles.

As for bumblebee gobies, here's the deal. Accordingly to the goby scientists I've spoken with and read, these fish occur primarily in freshwater. Furthermore, Schaefer, in the Aqualog book, insists that they are found not only in freshwater but even in soft, acid water. However, Schaefer does add that they can be kept in brackish water, and are easier to breed in freshwater. Where they live and where they breed need not be identical: monos, for example, live in the sea but spawn in freshwater, while candy stripe gobies live in freshwater but the fry float down river and grow up in the sea.

Most people fail with bumblebees because they don't keep them with the right companions or feed them properly. This includes retailers: I have seen so many half-starved bumblebee gobies in tropical fish stores that it is depressing to think about.

I keep my bumblebees in slightly soft, pH 6.5 water and they have been doing fine for over 9 months now. They live alongside cardinal tetras, halfbeaks, rams, and glassfish. As the pictures show, these fish are fat and happy.

Having said this, I have no objection to people keeping bumblebees in brackish water. Like glassfish, these fish will do well in slightly brackish water and are reliable choices for such aquaria. But, like glassfish, there's a huge amount of dogma in the aquarium literature, primarily from one author copying from another. Here's another example: virtually every aquarium book calls bumblebee gobies Brachygobius xanthozona. According to Helen Larson, who is the goby scientist revising this group of gobies, the commonest species sold is Brachygobius doriae, with Brachygobius nunus and Brachygobius sabanus following on. Brachygobius (Hypogymnogobius) xanthozona, on the other hand, is actually very rare in the wild, and has probably never been offered to aquarists. As one goby scientist I know puts it, most zoology museums don't have a single preserved specimen, let along tropical fish stores!

A useful summary on these gobies is provided by another goby scientist, Naomi Delventhal, at the Yahoo Goby Group

Cheers,

Neale

 

[Teelie]

Quite useful if contradictory to most of the claims but I'll give them a try in freshwater before attempting brackish, and I suspected Knights might be too aggressive for Bumblebees; no one has mentioned keeping them together.

On a related note, how well do you think Bumblebees would get along with Kuhlis?

 

[nmonks]

Bumblebees should get along fine with kuhli loaches. Assuming that your water isn't very soft and acidic (i.e., below pH 6.5) you won't need to add salt, so the loaches will be fine companions, as would small tetras, rasboras, Badis badis, and so on.

Establish what you plan to feed the gobies on before you buy them. They will not eat flake, and only take certain frozen foods. Mine enjoy lobster eggs, which you can buy from stores dealing with marine aquaria (they're used to feed clams and corals). They don't seem wild about frozen bloodworms, but relish live bloodworms and live daphnia.

You will find a lot of contradictory information about many types of fish. Many books are simply old and refer to techniques that made sense before we were able to maintain aquaria more efficiently. Adding salt to aquaria containing spiny eels is one such example.

Cheers,

Neale

 

[Teelie]

My pH is usually 7.4-6 so they should be fine. I usually feed frozen bloodworms to my fish but I can add brine or other frozen foods if necessary. My LFS has everything I'd need for any kind of fish, so I'm set. As to getting them, that may be tonight or it might be 6 months. I'll have to see what the stocks look like at the various stores here and see if my primary LFS can undercut them on the costs. Most fish I can find the truth behind and know what they need but for some reason, Bumblebees are hard to find a solid consensus on. It's annoying at times .