Wood In Brackish Tanks?

[crackmonkey]

I've set up my new tank for freshwater puffers, sand & wood, but i've decided to go for Brackish Figure Eights and I heard that you can't have wood in Brackish conditions? Is it because wood brings down the Ph & figure eights need it around 8? Tested my tap water and its Ph is 7.0, tested the tank water with the wood in there and its 6.8 would this be acceptable for figure eights? Also how long roughly would 8kg of marine salt last if I did a weekly water change of 40 - 50%??. I was talking to someone in my local fish store and he said you can use cooking salt, is that true?

 

[Joviella]

I don't havee a brackish tank as yet.......but I know from researching that there is no way that you can use cooking salt.

 

[Little Fish]

I've set up my new tank for freshwater puffers, sand & wood, but i've decided to go for Brackish Figure Eights and I heard that you can't have wood in Brackish conditions? Is it because wood brings down the Ph & figure eights need it around 8? Tested my tap water and its Ph is 7.0, tested the tank water with the wood in there and its 6.8 would this be acceptable for figure eights? Also how long roughly would 8kg of marine salt last if I did a weekly water change of 40 - 50%??. I was talking to someone in my local fish store and he said you can use cooking salt, is that true?

I'm not 100% certain you cannot have driftwood in a brackish water tank. I saw brackish water tanks in aquariums and zoos decorated with real wood. Tannic acid leaching out does lower the PH but I think it will eventually stop. My freshwater tank's PH was around 6.5 and water was brownish when I use a new piece of driftwood for decoration. Back then I kept Cardinal Tetras in the tank and they love it. Eventually, the water became clear and PH was back to 7, same as my tap water (it took quite a while though). May be you can boil the driftwood to help accelerate the process and use agaronite substrate to neutralize it? Anyway, when you use marine salt mix to prepare your brackish water, it will raise the PH of your tank. Depending on the amount of salt you use and the size/cure level of your driftwood, it might not have enough tannic acid to drop the PH. Nonetheless, don't use driftwood if you have doubts.

I think F8s likes PH around 7.8, however, I did not do anything special to keep any specific PH for my F8s. The only PH control is from the marine salt mix when I do water changes. 8kg might last forever...just kidding You forgot to let us know the size of your tank It also depends on the brand of salt mix and the SG level you want to attain. I use Crystal Sea salt mix and keep SG around 1.005. With a 5 gallon water change it takes about 1/4 cup, I estimate less than 60g.

When he said cooking salt I presume he meant table salt. Table salt has anti-clumping agent in it and doesn't have trace elements. I would not use it at all. If what he meant is the fancy natural sea salt used for cooking, it is totally acceptable. Most fancy natural sea salt for cooking is sun dried and harvested from salt fields without any addictives (so they advertised ) I don't think you can beat the real thing. However, at $3 per lb (454g) or more, they cost 3 times more than what I paid for my marine salt mix.

 

[consp]

No No to the cooking salt! Make sure you don't get your brackish fish from that shop if thats the advice they're giving... Who knows what they'd be keeping theirs in!

I had a piece drift wood in one of my old brackish tanks and PH was fine. Maybe it was the amount of wood to the amount of water who knows.

What about mangrove root? I know mangrove is found in brackish areas so maybe this could be an idea. I've never personally had any but I know someone who had a mangrove in their mudskip tank and it looked fab! I have never found one available to purchase though...

http/members.ozemail.com.au/~thebobo/afm.htm I guess this article explains why

harming or removing mangrove trees is illegal, so I am not proposing that you go out and get a tree. The seeds of mangroves, however, are plentiful, and it is legal to gather them.

Who knows, maybe there is someone out there that rears them you might be able to find.

 

[crackmonkey]

Tank is 180 Litres (40 Gallons) how long would that salt last?

I Heard you add 7.5-11 TSP. of salt to every 10 gallons (10-15 g/10 L)

That would be 44 Table spoons?? The salt won't last long.

 

[Little Fish]

What about mangrove root? I know mangrove is found in brackish areas so maybe this could be an idea. I've never personally had any but I know someone who had a mangrove in their mudskip tank and it looked fab! I have never found one available to purchase though...

http/members.ozemail.com.au/~thebobo/afm.htm I guess this article explains why

harming or removing mangrove trees is illegal, so I am not proposing that you go out and get a tree. The seeds of mangroves, however, are plentiful, and it is legal to gather them.

Who knows, maybe there is someone out there that rears them you might be able to find.

Unfortunately, if it is the tannic acid we are trying to avoid, mangrove bark contains a very high amount of tannin also. However, it will take years for a pod to grow to something remotely resembling a tree with bark

Very nice article on mangroves. I have a large number of mangrove pods growing in my brackish tank. I got them from eBay by someone in Hawaii 3 months ago. He was selling them cheap too. I got 25 pods for less than $25, including shipping. The LFS sells pods in bad condition for $9.99 each

 

[Little Fish]

Tank is 180 Litres (40 Gallons) how long would that salt last?

I Heard you add 7.5-11 TSP. of salt to every 10 gallons (10-15 g/10 L)

That would be 44 Table spoons?? The salt won't last long.

Hmm, a 20 gallon water change would consume almost a cup of salt at SG between 1.005 and 1.006. If you do it every week it will become kind of expensive. How many F8s are you preparing to keep in the tank (10 gallon per fish is what most people recommend) and will you add any other compatible fish also? If the fish density is low and with over filtration you may be able to get by without weekly 50% water change.

I read posts from a lot of experience puffer owners who said a 30-40% weekly change is needed to keep the puffers healthy. They have photos of brilliant puffers to back their claims too. I'm going to tell you what I do with my tank but I'm not going to recommend it. It seems to work for me so far but it is against what I've heard and I don't know if it is going to work in the long run; only time will tell. I have 3 F8s in a 29 gallon tank. I do 1/4 water change every 2 weeks. However, I use a canister filter rated for twice the capacity of my tank. My tank is also heavily planted. I mean very heavily planted. I have 25 mangrove pods which occupy half of my tank. The recommendation is 1 per 15 gallon. I'm actually 1250% over the recommendation. Cockscrew vail covers another 1/4 of the tank. My avatar picture is actually taken from my brackish tank. The corkscrew vail on the right of the picture sends out runners and new plants everywhere. On the left side of the picture, you can see reflections of the red mangrove pods and how densely they are planted. I keep my 10,000K light running 6 hours per day and Actinic for 7 hours. I don't think my plants actually benefit from the Actinic lamp's spectrum but the blue hue looks cool The red mangroves grow at an alarming rate once they settle down. They need trimming almost every week. I feed my F8s everyday until their bellies are slightly round but the water is crystal clear. I think I might have reach the level of nutrient export that keeps my tank from crashing even without frequent and substantial water changes. My F8s enjoy swimming in the "mangrove forest" and hunting ghost shrimps hiding at the cockscrew vails. There is no sign of stress and everything seems fine. Eventually I will need to remove some red mangroves from my tank when they grow bigger and require more nutrients from the water.

 

[crackmonkey]

Ill be getting 4 -5 of them.

Im guessing the 50% water change is a little over the top? People said you should do 50% weekly for my discus tank but i dont and they have been fine for a year with great water quality, i do it about every 1 1/2 weeksto 2 weeks. I have the Eheim Professional 2028 in my 50 Gallon Discus tank along with the internal Juwel filter.

I have an external with over filtration and the internal juwel filter in the puffer tank also.

Ill take out all of the wood in the puffer tank exept for one really nice arched piece, but I think rocks don't look as good as wood, they cant hide in them. Any suggestions as to what I could put in there that is natural and not those tacky 'gone fishing' type crap.

I was told I should use a mix of gravel & aragonite to steady the ph at 8.0 but I have sand, so could I use an arognite rock or would that take it way over 8.0 http/cgi.ebay.co.uk/Aragonite-Flourite-P...1QQcmdZViewItem

Could I put Crushed Coral inside the external filter and it would have the same effect as it would on the sand/gravel? Should you only use a certain amount or does it not matter how much, the bag im looking at has 10lb.

Does the bacteria in a brackish tank act different, or is it the same as fresh?

 

[penguinpimp1990]

Ill be getting 4 -5 of them.

Im guessing the 50% water change is a little over the top? People said you should do 50% weekly for my discus tank but i dont and they have been fine for a year with great water quality, i do it about every 1 1/2 weeksto 2 weeks. I have the Eheim Professional 2028 in my 50 Gallon Discus tank along with the internal Juwel filter.

I have an external with over filtration and the internal juwel filter in the puffer tank also.

Ill take out all of the wood in the puffer tank exept for one really nice arched piece, but I think rocks don't look as good as wood, they cant hide in them. Any suggestions as to what I could put in there that is natural and not those tacky 'gone fishing' type crap.

I was told I should use a mix of gravel & aragonite to steady the ph at 8.0 but I have sand, so could I use an arognite rock or would that take it way over 8.0 http/cgi.ebay.co.uk/Aragonite-Flourite-P...1QQcmdZViewItem

Could I put Crushed Coral inside the external filter and it would have the same effect as it would on the sand/gravel? Should you only use a certain amount or does it not matter how much, the bag im looking at has 10lb.

Does the bacteria in a brackish tank act different, or is it the same as fresh?

brackish bacteria is different than freshwater, and as for the wood ive used wood in my brackish tanks for years and never had a problem, yes it will lower your pH but i use coral chips and a couple seashells to bring the pH up to about 8. yes you can put the crushed coral in your filter, actually i use it as my bio filtration media in my ten gallon brackish tank(in a mesh bag of course), it has a huge surface area for bacteria growth. but the only drawback is that when you shut off your filter for any reason you must take the mesh bag out of the filter and in a bucket of brackish aquarium water because rocks dont hold water like bio rings and sponges

 

[crackmonkey]

Does it matter how much crushed coral arognite you use, if you put too much in could it take the Ph over 8.0 or will it always make the Ph around 8.0 no matter how much you use?

 

[nmonks]

Hello,

I wrote a small program called Brack Calc that should help you figure out salt consumption -- but remember that the weight of the salt seems to increase* once you open the box, because water is absorbed from the air. If you use Brack Calc and draw the slider to the specific gravity you want, you'll see a certain value returned for specific gravity, % seawater, and salinity as grammes of salt per litre.

For an SG of 1.005, assuming normal salt water contains 35 g/litre, 1.005 SG is equivalent to about 8 grammes per litre. An 8 kg box of salt = 8000 grammes. Divide the 8000 grammes by 8 grammes, and you get 1000, i.e., your box of salt will make 1000 litres of brackish water at 8g/litre of salt. So if you have a 100 litre aquarium, you could change the water completely 10 times, or do twice that number of 50% water changes, or forty 25% water changes, etc. Simple.

You can use Brack Calc on a Macintosh or a Windows computer. There is a screenshot below, and the download link is:

http/homepage.mac.com/nmonks/software/software.html

As for bogwod in a brackish aquarium, even if it doesn't affect the acidity of the water, it will change the colour. Personally, I'm fine with that, and think brackish water tanks look more natural when they are slightly tea-coloured. Whether or not the wood will affect the pH and hardness depends on the hardness of the aquarium to begin with. If there's lots of coral sand in the tank as part of the undergravel filter, it should be fine. But I'd watch the pH carefully, and regular water changes should help as well.

I've never been a fan of huge water changes, but lots of people keeping these pufferfish consider them to be useful, even essential, and I bow to their better knowledge. What is important is that you shouldn't expose most fish to sudden changes in pH and hardness. Brackish water fish tend to be quite reslient though, they have evolved especially to be so.

Cheers,

Neale

* A given weight of salt from the box actually contains less salt than you think, because it contains a small percentage of water now.

 

[crackmonkey]

Does it matter how much crushed coral arognite you use, if you put too much in could it take the Ph over 8.0 or will it always make the Ph around 8.0 no matter how much you use?

Thanks for the response on this topic

 

[penguinpimp1990]

Does it matter how much crushed coral arognite you use, if you put too much in could it take the Ph over 8.0 or will it always make the Ph around 8.0 no matter how much you use?

Thanks for the response on this topic

depends on how much you use

 

[crackmonkey]

What about this one 10lb of it, or how much would be advisable. This one looks okay...

Crushed Coral
It’s the only crushed coral with aragonite, which provides up to 25 times the buffering power of other crushed corals, dolomite or oyster shell. Eliminate chronic pH problems and provide maximum surface area for water purifying bacteria. CaribSea’s Florida Crushed Coral with aragonite allows an increase in bioload by up to 50% and it never needs replacement! Approx 2-5mm diameter (1/8 - 1/4”).

http/www.atlantisaquatics.co.uk/acatalog/caribsea.html


Also, when I first get my Figure Eights they will probably have been kept in freshwater in the shop so should I keep them in fresh to start with then gradually raise the salt level, or keep them in totally freshwater untill they get older?

 

[nmonks]

It's unlikely that crushed coral or coral sand are going to raise the pH above 8.5. Even in marine tanks the pH stays at about this level (in fact the problem is usually a drop in pH).

I'm not sure the bit about CaribSea’s Florida Crushed Coral is good science. All corals are made of aragonite, in contrast to most (but not all) molluscs that have shells made of calcite. So why their coral sand is better than other coral sands eludes me. What I'm guessing is being cofused is corals and coralline algae. Coralline algae have calcite, not aragonite, in their 'skeletons', so sands rich in broken up coralline algae may be relatively aragonite poor.

Aragonite and calcite are 'morphs' if you like of calcium carbonate (CaCO3), and both will dissolve gradually in sea water, and the dissolved CaCO3 that buffers the water. What aragonite has going for it is that it is less stable than calcite, i.e., it dissolved more quickly. But the dissolution rate is variable with acidity, so if there's a pH drop, the calcite will dissolve more quickly than normal. While the dissolution rates may be critical in marine reef tanks, where you need very stable conditions, in a brackish water tank I can't imagine it'll make any difference what brand of coral sand you use.

Really all you need to do is check the pH periodically, and provided you do regular water changes, it's unlikely the bogwood is going to make any difference. It will colour the water, yes, but it's unlikely to take the pH below 7.5 provided you maintain a specific gravity of 1.005 or more and change 10 to 20% of the water once or twice a week. Brackish water fish are amazingly tolerant of changes in water chemistry, especially if you at least give them the right salinity.

Cheers,

Neale