Uh-oh I F**ed Up With The Brackish Tank Can I Fix It Now?

[Hdeuce]

Now im probably going to get eaten alive by all you fish enthusiasts ...but i have a really wierd tank. All my lfs's have said the same thing, "These fish are freshwater fish, but they require aquarium salt." they told me this about a silvertip shark , and a leopard puffer. Having done some of my own research i realize they are actually both brackish water fish. Now saying this i have a problem, ive got them both in a freswater tank with a powder blue gourami, a paradise gourami, a gold gourami, and a rubberlip pleco. Continuing i have added aquarium salt to a level where it will not urt any freshwater fish. Now will this create suitable conditions for all the fish to live in? Or will my fish die off . So far its been a few months and everything seems good. Also i know i should use marine salt hat levels can i use it at to keep all fish happy?

 

[catfish101]

Now im probably going to get eaten alive by all you fish enthusiasts ...but i have a really wierd tank. All my lfs's have said the same thing, "These fish are freshwater fish, but they require aquarium salt." they told me this about a silvertip shark , and a leopard puffer. Having done some of my own research i realize they are actually both brackish water fish. Now saying this i have a problem, ive got them both in a freswater tank with a powder blue gourami, a paradise gourami, a gold gourami, and a rubberlip pleco. Continuing i have added aquarium salt to a level where it will not urt any freshwater fish. Now will this create suitable conditions for all the fish to live in? Or will my fish die off . So far its been a few months and everything seems good. Also i know i should use marine salt hat levels can i use it at to keep all fish happy?

im not too familar with the lepprd puffers but iv kept the sharks for a while. First of all, with the sharks (catfish), They are very odd fish(but great fish too keep if u can care for them). How big is your aquarium? the sharks can get up to 17 or 18 inches long but 12 is much more likely. When they are young (I would say under 5 inches) they can live in perfectly fine in the average freshwater aquarium( they prefere a bit of aquarium salt as you mentioned) And they are very peaceful fish, just mind that the fish can fit in there mouths. They like to be kept in groups and they are great to watch. Once they get more then 5 inches you should move them to another aquarium, you will eventully need about a 6ft by2 ft by2f (180 gallons). First start the aquarium off at the same conditions the other one was at then ever water change and sea salt (differant then aquarium salt) keep addig it over the coarse of many monthes untill the sg is about 1.012. eventually when they are adults they can live in full marine conditions. Although challenging theses fish are very rewarding to keep!

 

[pica_nuttalli]

Now im probably going to get eaten alive by all you fish enthusiasts ...but i have a really wierd tank. All my lfs's have said the same thing, "These fish are freshwater fish, but they require aquarium salt." they told me this about a silvertip shark , and a leopard puffer. Having done some of my own research i realize they are actually both brackish water fish. Now saying this i have a problem, ive got them both in a freswater tank with a powder blue gourami, a paradise gourami, a gold gourami, and a rubberlip pleco. Continuing i have added aquarium salt to a level where it will not urt any freshwater fish. Now will this create suitable conditions for all the fish to live in? Or will my fish die off . So far its been a few months and everything seems good. Also i know i should use marine salt hat levels can i use it at to keep all fish happy?

Ah yes, the infamous tonic salt myth... it's cool; you aren't the first person mislead by their local "expert".

A good rule of thumb is that if you haven't added enough salt to hurt any freshwater fish, then you haven't added enough for a brackish tank. So yeah, you are going to need to separate the two types of fish. Sorry. The only reason that your gouramis haven't suffered already is that you've got a nice tank of hardy freshwater fish in there.

Now for the really bad news: silvertip sharks do indeed grow up to be lovely 15"+ fish. They also pretty much must be kept in groups due to their highly skittish nature. That said, they are really great fish to keep in a very large tank because they are very striking to look at, display very pronounced schooling behavior, don't like a ton of decor and are very active swimmers. So if you were thinking of doing a "super tank", then this would be a great fish to build your stocklist around.

The leopard puffer is probably what we call a Green Spotted Puffer (GSP, T. nigroviridis?) around here. That's just a guess! We'll need pictures to really know. The "true" leopard puffer, T. schoudenti, is incredibly rare and hasn't been seen in the trade for years. It's a pretty sought after fish, so it would be big news (in a sense) if your LFS had them. Anyways P) the GSP can sometimes work in a mixed-stock aquarium but that can also be a bit risky for your other fish. If you do decide to keep him in a brackish water tank, then he would need the same sort of salinity as the sharks, so that aspect would work out. Just be prepared to find him a separate tank if something terrible happens.

No puffer is compatible with gouramis. Gouramis are too slow and will wind up losing their fins, if not their eyes.

So! A summary:

• there is no salt level that *all* of your fish can share. they will wind up dying off.
  
• if you keep your shark, you will need a very big tank and more sharks
  
• you can try keeping your puffer with your sharks in your big tank
  
• if you return your brackish fish, then you can't get a freshwater puffer because he will chew on your gouramis

--EDIT--
while your freshwater fish might tolerate the salt for a few months, you are taking years off of their lives. high salt levels put a lot of extra stress on the internal organs of purely freshwater fish.

if you need a few months to set up your brackish tank, then you will be better off using no salt at all in the freshwater one.

if you need more than 4 months to set up a brackish tank, then you will be better off returning the brackish fish.

(a word to the wise: it's almost always much, much cheaper to set up the final tank for a big fish at the very start while it's small. fish grow very quickly, so there's little point in setting up a too small tank for just a couple of months.)