Transparent Tank

[Minjin]

Hey, I'm new to this whole fish thing but I've been reading for a couple days now, so please bear with me.

Anyways, I became interested in glass fish and after reading as much as I could about them, I discovered that there are other transparent 'fish' such as ghost shrimp and ghost/glass catfish. I thought it would be really neat to have a tank with nothing but transparent creatures in it. Then I finally discovered this site and its little blurb on glass fish and how they are actually brackish. Hmm. Does this throw my plans for a loop? Can it still be done? Stupid idea from the start?

Any comments would be appreciated.

Mark

 

[nmonks]

Hello Mark,

Glassfish (Parambassis spp.) are NOT brackish water fish. Several species need soft or neutral freshwater. These include the increasingly popular humphead glassfish and the highly predatory Wolff's glassfish.

The smaller species are things like Parambassis ranga. In the wild some of these species sometimes enter slightly brackish water, and you can keep Parambassis lala and Parambassis ranga in brackish water up to SG 1.005. Parambassis siamensis should not be kept in brackish water though. All three of these small glassfish do fine in freshwater without salt. I keep mine in soft, acid water (pH 6.5, ~ 3 degrees dH). They are growing fast, feeding greedily, very active, even slightly pushy.

http/homepage.mac.com/nmonks/aquaria/glassfish.html

Anyway, glassfish will work out fine with glass catfish and ghost shrimp, and also x-ray tetras, Pristella maxillaris which would work out nicely in such a tank.

In the past, glassfish were labelled as brackish water fish for reasons not entirely clear to me. But there is a history of this sort of thing. Spiny eels, for example, are often said to need salt in their water even though most species never live in brackish water.

If you can see this month's Practical Fishkeeping magazine, I have an article about glassfish that you might find interesting.

http/www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/pages/magazine.php

Cheers,

Neale

 

[Minjin]

Thank you for your excellent, detailed response!

Mark

 

[jkrekord]

cool i can just imagine that a tank with nothin but transparent fish amazing

 

[bogwood]

black out (emulsion paint or black card) the rear of the tank... and maybe a darker substrate... to 'push' the transparent fish forward... or you may find it hard to see them...