Brackish Questions

[Chaos553]

I've been thinking about setting up an old 10g tank to put my guppies from my 20g into so I could change my 20g into a brackish tank. For starters, I was wondering what a need specifically to start out a brackish tank. I'm aware that I need marine salt and a hydrometer, but are there any specific parameters I need to meet? Also, are there any fish small enough to fit in this tank? I was thinking about going gobies but im still unsure on the idea since it could be a bad one. Help would be awesome.

[Chaos553]

Correction. I'm planning on setting up a 10g tank just to house bumblebee gobies in and leaving the guppies alone in the 20g. I'd still like to have those questions answered above me however.

[flamingo]

If your doing a 10 gallon for bumblebee gobies:

Raise the sg up to about 1.005. Although a few subspecies, etc. are commonly traded, a low "ish" brackish level usually suits most well.
Sand is usually the best substrate, but gravel can also be used.
If your willing to plant the tank, i'd suggest most species of vallisneria, java moss, java fern, cabomba, few types of aponogetons, etc. Java moss would help out with breeding, and java fern would be a good starter plant that they'd eventually "perch" on.
You could probably get away with about 5-8 gobies, really depends on aggression issues. I would really try about 6, with more than that being "cautious". Eventually, they'll form a sort of hierarchy, and may get aggressive to certain others.
Feeding, most bb gobies only accept frozen, or live foods. I've had some take flake food, but it's really rare to say the least. Chopped up worms, gammarus (scuds), nematodes, frozen and live bloodworms, frozen squid, live and frozen adult brine (live being gut-loaded), frozen mysis shrimp, etc. are all usually accepted. In the end, they're favorite food seems to be live blackworms, although it's expensive and usually hard to find.
Are you going to try breeding? If so, provide enough rock ledges, and empty pond snail shells. If parameters are met, and they're fed good enough, they'll usually pair up and lay eggs inside of the shells, under plants, etc. I've heard of a few people going through with this, but fry are very small and require a lot of work.

Need anything else?

[Chaos553]

Wow, very imformative. I haven't planned on breeding, but from reading this I really want to =P. I've had BB gobies a while back, but I was a noob and the tank wasn't suited for them since they barely got any food. They did however survive for a good 3 or 4 months. Live blackworms aren't a problem for me since I get them free from my friend's LFS. But yea bro, thanks a bunch for solving things out for me.

[frogman5]

yeh bumble bee gobies are cool little boogers also very interesting to watch in a group