Apparently I didn't think this through well enough *help*

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

Meredith

Aquarium Advice Addict
Joined
Aug 25, 2004
Messages
4,168
Location
Washington
This last week I got a dragon goby and I put him in my fw tank (he came from a fw tank) intending to convert it over to brackish. I have my hydrometer, I have my marine salt. I thought all I need to do now is move out the shrimp, the plec, and my hatchets, and slowly bring up the salinity of the water. I totally forgot about the few plants I have in there and what I will do with them (Probably just throw them out, they are half eaten anyway) and the loads of snails that are in there. And what about a cycle? Will changing from fw to brackish cause my tank to cycle again? Will the salt kill off all the snails right away and cause an ammonia spike? How should I go about this whole process? I only have a little salt at the moment so once I start adding it, daily water changes will be out of the question.
 
You need to get the snails and plants out of there IMO. Slow addition of salt should not cause a cycle.
 
Ok, good. I will try and get all the snails out that I can, but the majority of them are teeny little baby ones. And a bunch live in my filters. I rinse them all the time but I can never seem to get them all out. I guess the salt will take care of any I cant manually remove. I hope its not so many that ammonia will be a problem. :?
 
I can attest to never having been able to get rid of pesky snails. Testing once you get to 1.025 will prepare you just in case you have a significant die-off. I do doubt that you will see any spike, but it helps to be prepared.
 
Agreed, the Brackish biofilter bacteria are the same as the FW bacteria, but not the same as the SW bacteria. I have no idea how snails and plants would handle this, but would guess that it wouldn't work.
 
DO NOT raise your specific gravity more than .002SG over the course of 1 week. You need to give your biological filter enough time to adjust. If you've already raised the SG more than that you'll probably get a little NH3 or NO2 spike.

A majority of the commonly traded aquarium plants wont survive past 1.005SG, if they even make it that far. Java Fern will go as far as 1.005 but no further. If you go any higher you'll be pretty much limited to mangrove saplings which may or may not even be appropriate for your tank. I suggest getting SeaGarden Silk Synthetic Plants... very realistic

Your snails might make it depending on how high you go with the SG. If they don't and you do want snails you could get MTS or Olive Nerite Snails. Nerite Snails like to spend a lot of time above the tide line so they'll want to climb out of your tank all the time though, keep that in mind.
 
Cool. Thanks. I have not added salt yet. I just got the hatchets out yesterday. I am planning on doing the rest this weekend. And so far the goby is doing ok. he has made himself a little hole under the dw I have in there and he is eating very well.
 
You're doing a great job, Meredith. Sounds like this Violet Goby is gonna be a lot of fun for you. They're just too fugly for me. Haha. =)
 
Back
Top Bottom