Brackish Questions

[Chaos553]

So I took down my 10g today since it was going nowhere and I'm starting to plan for my next project, a brackish tank. I have no knowledge of how to start a brackish tank other than the types of fish I could use, the fact that need some salt and something to check the salinity. Live plants are also something I'm confused about since I remember JustOneMore20 mentioned to me that a few varieties of freshwater plants could last in a brackish environment. If I did happen to start this tank, it would be in a 10g and I'd probably have a couple mollies just to see the difficulty of maintaining it. After a while I plan on making it a straight up bumblebee goby tank since I haven't had them in quite a while. I'm probably not going to start this until after Christmas, but I'd still like to know sometime in advance.

[Chaos553]

Help anyone?

[Daeorn]

Basically, adding marine salt to a freshwater tank = brackish tank.

Live plants are existent, if not somewhat limited.

The list JustOneMore gave are perfect examples of aquatic brackish plants.


There aren't a ton of fish though that you can get for a 10gallon tank, however smaller gobies would work really well as well as mollies and or smaller brackish fish.

[flamingo]

Start the tank up at a full salinity of 1.005, and let it cycle from there.
I suggest going over to wetwebmedia and looking around at the articles.
In a ten gallon, you should be able to pull off a few bbg's, a small school, if it turns out perfectly. I would keep a close eye on them though, and add all of them at once, to further lessen the aggression. They're small and cute, but easily single off other fish and harass them.

Driftwood, rocks, some pond snail shells, java fern, aponogetons... java moss, vallisneria, indian fern, and you have yourself a nice little tank

[fishbguy]

DYLAN!!! YOUR NOT DEAD!!!

Sorry bout that...

[flamingo]

LIEK OMG REALLY?!

Hehe, yes, i'm alive, thank god for chicken biscuits n_n

Sorry to derail!

[Chaos553]

haha its alright

thanks for the info, but i was wondering really about the maintenance. im aware that ill need to keep the tank's salinity to 1.005 from what you told me, but i wouldn't need some kind of skimmer or something will i? bbg's also look better over sand than gravel i assume because of their size, so i was thinking about maybe plain white or maybe a brownish color. i thought about black but that would take away from their color, right?

[flamingo]

taking care of a brackish tank is similar to that of a freshwater tank, but with the added troubles of salt creep, etc. Just take it slow, do regular water changes, and it should be similar to the tanks you already have going.
And no, you don't need a skimmer. People do use them on brackish tanks, but in the higher levels (1.014, etc.) but it wouldn't work in the range that BBG's do best in.

And IMHO, they do look better when kept on sand. I tend to use black sand in most of my set-ups, and if kept regularly stirred and vaccumed, looks pretty nice. It brings out more colors than if the fish were on white sand, etc. But then again, it's all personal prefererce.

Also, check out aqualandpetsplus.com's page on BBG's. It's simple, and to the point, but helpful .

[Chaos553]

yep i used to use that site all the time for every question i had

what would be a good amount to get for 10g, about 6-8?

[flamingo]

Try about 6 to begin with, see how they fare in that number.
They might co-exist, or they might start a pecking line.

[TheOldSalt]

I'd avoid white sand at all cost. It washes out the colors of the fish and lets the unattractiveness of algae and detritus stand out all the more.

[Chaos553]

yea im planning on getting black sand instead because it seems to look good in absolutely any tank. ill start with 6 since its an even number and if im lucky ill get 3:3 male/female ratio. highly doubt it, but its still a shot

[Chaos553]

ok so ive came to a decision on what im going to do for this brackish tank, however, i wont be able to set it up until late january probably. this is what i have so far:

10g Tank
Hood with a medium wattage bulb
Black Sand
A few abstract rocks for caves
Whisper filter(unless theres a definite better)
Anubias plants(preferably a few small and my medium one)
Fake plants to cover up anything else
Bumblebee Gobies(obviously...)
Heater


sorry for being a little vague, but im kind of tired and a little unaware of a few of the names. let me know if i should change anything, thanks!

[predator]

one thing to watch when doin BW is that most BW fish are sold from FW tanks (atleast around here)... so when i bought my eels i had a cycled FW tank and then took the sg up slowly to let them acclimate...

-me

[Chaos553]

hm, so start it as FW then slowly raise the salinity to around 1.004 to fully acclimate them?

[predator]

Thats what i had to deal with... i had a cycled BW tank, but when i started looking i realized that all the LFS's keep the animals i wanted in FW... so i had to empty the tank and cycle it a a FW as not to shock the fish to badly by going from FW to BW...

I suppose it all depends on how your available fish are kept in the LFS.

i kept my tank at like 1.011 i think its been a while though...

-me

[Chaos553]

haha thats pretty cool. what did you keep in it? and how big was the tank?

[predator]

55 gallon with a couple of G Tile eels...

-me

[Chaos553]

wow thats pretty nice. well, thanks for the info, ill be sure to throw any other questions out if i have any. good luck with that mantis shrimp tank btw, that sounds like itll be lots of fun

[Daeorn]

You don't have to recycle it, just acclimate it using a drip method over a period of a couple hours. Should do the trick depending on how high your salinity is at.