Setting Up A New Brackish Tank...

[Eclecticoldsod]

My LFS regularly has figure 8 puffers and bumble bee gobies for sale. “I want some of that..!” I thought. So [new to brackish] I did a lot of reading, bought a new 60 liter tank, sand, refractometer, and a tub of marine salt. I was planning to set it up at a specific gravity of 1.004, and cycle it for a couple of months before adding the puffer and 5 or 6 gobies.
But before starting I discovered that all the brackish fish my LFS get arrive in fresh water, and are kept in fresh water whilst in the shop.
So my question is: Would I not be much better off setting up and cycling the tank as fresh water [cloning much of it from with sand/gravel/filters from my existing tanks] add the fish, and then start gradually raising the SP with small daily water changes?
And what would be a good daily rate of exchange? I worry more about my bacteria than the fish.
Many thanks for reading what may be a dumb question, but asking a dumb question is better than doing a dumb thing..!

 

[bitteraspects]

if your lfs has them in fresh water, but you plan to keep them in brackish, your best bet is to set up your tank for brackish, and once its cycled, drip acclimate them to brackish

 

[nmonks]

So my question is: Would I not be much better off setting up and cycling the tank as fresh water [cloning much of it from with sand/gravel/filters from my existing tanks] add the fish, and then start gradually raising the SP with small daily water changes?

Nope. By definition, brackish water fish adapt to salinity changes.

And what would be a good daily rate of exchange? I worry more about my bacteria than the fish.

Set up and maintain at SG 1.004.

Many thanks for reading what may be a dumb question, but asking a dumb question is better than doing a dumb thing..!

There's really no need to drip acclimate brackish water fish. You literally can dump fully euryhaline species (like scats and monos) taken from a freshwater tank into a marine tank, or vice versa. So your regular process for acclimating newly purchased fish to your aquarium will be just fine.

Do stop by my FAQ, and maybe even buy or borrow my book!

Cheers, Neale

 

[jennybugs]

Buy Neale's book! It's a great read, and he and his book were a big help to me when I set up my (first) metre long 140L tank for 2 F8s and a swarm of BBG's

 

[nmonks]

I thank you! I should mention I'm mostly the editor, and most of the really good chapters were written by other people.

Cheers, Neale

Buy Neale's book! It's a great read, and he and his book were a big help to me when I set up my (first) metre long 140L tank for 2 F8s and a swarm of BBG's

 

[Eclecticoldsod]

Thanks for the input so far. I have now checked several other sites & forums, and found others who think slowly converting a freshwater tank to brackish is a better way to go – for speed, bacteria health, plant health, etc.
Gosh, we aquarists are use to differences of opinion, but 'brackish people' are in a class of their own! Getting agreement on brackish matters seems to be a regular pick-&-mix of differing opinions. Makes for some interesting [if confusing] reading.

On the question of books, I am sure that Neale's would be a great read – as is his FAQ page – but after 50 years as a zoologist I have a collection of some thousand books (at least 100 of them on fish keeping) and every one is largely out of date. Don't get me wrong, I love books and enjoy reading them, but you only get one opinion in a book, and this hobby is moving on so fast that a book can be out of date between writing and publishing. How far in time do you have to go back before 'fishless cycling' was unheard of?
I'll put my faith [and money] in the WWW now – and for an old-fashioned guy like me, it hurts saying that..!

 

[nmonks]

All fair comment. But let me say a little about the book, and why it was written.

It's not a single-author book but a collection of chapters each written by a different person. The idea was to get scientists, collectors and experienced fishkeepers all writing about what they know. For example, the goby chapter is written by Naomi Delventhal, a gobiologist. The Australian chapter is written by a very well respected collector, Bruce Hansen; and the mudskipper chapter by Richard Mleczko, probably the world expert on collecting and keeping mudskippers. All of the authors had been in communication with me for some 10 years previous to publication via the Brackish Water Aquarium mailing list, so I was comfortable having them work with me. It was actually terrific fun to pull together, and the good people at TFH did a pretty good job of producing what is, essentially, the first comprehensive book on the topic.

The Aqualog book has been around a little longer, but it's mostly about identifying fish, and says relatively little about setting up aquaria and the specific needs of each kind of fish, e.g., with regard to diet or social behaviour. The Aqualog book is also very specifically about brackish water as being half-strength seawater, whereas our book divides the subject into low-end and high-end salinity species.

In terms of quality of information, the book shouldn't date quickly at all. It's all tried-and-trusted stuff put down by people who've been keeping these fish a long time. The only aspect that (inevitably!) will date is the variety of species covered. Several fish have turned up in aquarium shops now that simply weren't about when we were writing the manuscript, for example Limia spp., butterfly-goby waspfish and some of the subtropical Takifugu species other than T. ocellatus. On the other hand, the chapters on Australian fish, gobies, and mudskippers are incredibly comprehensive, and for anyone interested in those the collection of species described will be invaluable.

The quality of info on the web is hugely variable and often very poor. I'd like to think my FAQ is a good first pass for anyone interested in brackish water fish -- and if all you're keeping is a few BBGs and a figure-8 puffer then it'll probably be all you'll ever need. But for those interested in the topic more broadly, or needing a bit of extra help setting up and maintaining a brackish water system, having the book to hand would probably be very useful.

Cheers, Neale
<Also trained as a zoologist, BSc, PhD no less!)

On the question of books, I am sure that Neale's would be a great read – as is his FAQ page – but after 50 years as a zoologist I have a collection of some thousand books (at least 100 of them on fish keeping) and every one is largely out of date. Don't get me wrong, I love books and enjoy reading them, but you only get one opinion in a book, and this hobby is moving on so fast that a book can be out of date between writing and publishing. How far in time do you have to go back before 'fishless cycling' was unheard of?
I'll put my faith [and money] in the WWW now – and for an old-fashioned guy like me, it hurts saying that..!

 

[Eclecticoldsod]

Thanks Neale – you tempter, you..! My trouble has always been 'read a good book – WANT it..!' So a trip to the library is always followed by a trip to the book store. I've bumped into you here and in other places before, and respect your opinions, so who knows what will happen now?
After the death of my partner last year there is no one to keep me in check any more and I have identified 25 places in the house where an additional fish tank could go – even if it means loosing some furniture... The small tank for one puffer and several BBG's will (I fear) be only the very start of my interest in brackish water fish! I may well need a book on the subject...
Regards, Sameer
[Also a PhD and a Fellow of the Zoological Society of London – even retired, a zoologist will always be a sucker for a nice piece of tail..!]

 

[nmonks]

My interest in "brackish" came about when I spent time collecting fish from estuaries and rock pools. It quickly became apparent from the books I read that the division between freshwater and saltwater is arbitrary.

This became very clear on one occasion when I bought a couple of mystery "spotted brown freshwater puffers" from a shop in Dundee for one of the two 200 gallon tanks in the zoology department I was looking after. Anyway, I couldn't find them in any aquarium book, or any freshwater fish book in the library. Eventually I found the puffers in a book of South African marine fish, if I recall correctly. Turned out these were juvenile Arothron hispidus, a species usually sold as a marine aquarium fish but able to tolerate freshwater conditions for extended periods. Juveniles are particularly common in rivers.

While at university I also got to play with some of their tilapia, and acclimated a couple of species to fully marine conditions. Again, this makes the point that ecologically there is lots of overlap, and many of the fish aquarists dump in one category or the other actually straddle them both (though often at different points in their life cycle, or only for temporary periods of time).

The fun part of brackish water fishkeeping is that diversity of species kept is extremely high. Most freshwater fish come from four main groups: characins, carps, cichlids and catfish. Brackish water fish come from freshwater and marine families, so the variety of options is much bigger. To give some of the more extreme examples, you have things like pike-conger eels, flounders, mudskippers, pipefish, waspfish, and sleeper gobies. Then you have stuff that is fun to keep, like archerfish (which really do spit) and pufferfish. Throw in showpiece predators like morays and shark catfish, and you've got quite an array!

Keeping "brackish" isn't for everyone, but it's an easy specialisation with a lot of potential.

Cheers, Neale

The small tank for one puffer and several BBG's will (I fear) be only the very start of my interest in brackish water fish! I may well need a book on the subject...

 

[Brackishdude]

"and so it begins. . ."


another brackish convert! As Neale said, the variety offered in brackish fishkeeping is suprising, with plenty of options to keep you interested for years!

 

[Eclecticoldsod]

LFS's should have a Government Heath Warning over the door, with a big picture of an ex-livingroom – no TV, no stereo, no sofa – just a throbbing, ever-growing mass of fish tanks..!