Reconsidering The Bees

[Stacey13]

I'm not sure what I want to do here..... my brackish tank is coming along nicely, everything except the bumblebee gobies. I have been bothering a couple of stores, trying to find them, one place doesn't seem to know when the shipment is coming in, the other guy said he won't order any more in, because they all die before he can sell them. There are other stores to bother, but I'm worried about how fragile they are.
I saw some cute little puffers.......... but I haven't done much reading on those yet. It would mean relocating several snails though....... unless I rename them 'food'.
Any suggestions on brackish fish (26 gallon tank) that I could read up on? Maybe something that can live with snails?

....I am anxiously awaiting delivery of Neale Monks' book, should be several good ideas in there too! B)

Thanks
Stacey

 

[nmonks]

Stacey --

Thanks for the kind words! Naomi Delventhal took care of the goby chapter, and she really knows her stuff.

BBGs aren't especially delicate. Aquarium shops have bad luck with them only if they have no clue about their basic needs. Mostly, the thing is they won't eat flake. A lot of aquarium shops operate on a "flake or starvation" methodology, and for them, any fish that doesn't eat flake is "delicate". If your retailer falls into that bracket, then there's not much you can do.

Once BBGs are eating, they're pretty robust animals.

For a 26 gallon tank, I'd be looking at things like figure-8 puffers, glassfish, wrestling halfbeaks, shortfin mollies, small sleeper gobies (such as Butis butis = the crazyfish), orange chromides, spaghetti eels, spiny eels, and so on. If you want to keep snails, then thinking about a "rock pool" arrangement with snails, shrimps, gobies, halfbeaks, and glassfish can work well. These will all largely ignore each other. At SG 1.003-1.005, most shrimps should be acceptable, though red-nose and Amano shrimps are the ideal. Nerite snails will work very well.

Cheers, Neale

 

[DarkEntity]

My Bumblebee Gobies went from 100% freshwater to 1.005 in about 5 hours using the drip method, even the little fellow who ended up on the floor due to one of the stupid Fig8's launching at my fingers and taking him also....are doing great, he seemed to sulk for a day then bounce rite back...if anything id say they are hardy little chaps. Nothing the Puffers do seems to phase them, even a "silly human arm waggling around the tank" seems to bother them little if at all.

 

[Stacey13]

Thanks guys........ that's good to hear. B) I will keep looking for the bees, for a while anyway.......

Did any of you guys have difficulty finding them in stores??

 

[DarkEntity]

Ive seen them 3 times this year, the last time i saw them id got the Puffer Brackish tank up and running so grabbed them

 

[Stacey13]

Too bad I don't live in Scotland then.......... B)
What the maximum salinity these fish should be kept at? I stopped at a fish store today, and asked what salinity they kept their brackish tanks at, they said 1.014. That's a bit high for bees isn't it?? Not that they had any.

 

[nmonks]

BBGs aren't fussy about salinity. 1.014 is a bit higher than I'd go for, but I'm sure they can adapt. But the ideal is around 1.003-1.005.

Cheers, Neale