Fresh, salt or brackish

[Dizzydea]

Have a 54 gallon fresh water tank that's doing quite well. I seen a 110 gallon for sale for a good price. I only have fresh water experience and I'd lie to move on from the beginning and intermediate fish to some more advanced ones. The take was originally a salt water tank it has a mechanical filter with a phosban reactor. This means nothing to me, I'm used to my fluval filters. So what type of water should I go with and can someone explain this filter to me pleeeeeaaase

 

[ktomminello]

I have had all 3 types of tanks, plus indoor pond and river simulated ecosystems. If you have interest in saltwater I would say it would be a good time to start SLOWLY- set up on saltwater FOWLRs and reef tanks take 3 or 4 times the length of a freshwater set up, the fish are much less hardy and start up cost and maintenance are tougher than freshwater, but the fish are much more colorful, the variety of symbiotic relationships (coral reef tanks especially) and if your bioload and your CUC match up (coral reef again) your filtration maintenance and water changes are way less frequent. Brackish is a good introduction to saltwater, but is very labor intensive and livestock tend to be aggressive and finicky. You have had success with freshwater- after you treat the tank with a vinegar mix you could always expand on the tank you have already built, that way you have about half the water cycled already, and you would have some substrate and filter media already with bb- If you're going freshwater DO NOT use the saltwater filter, it's just asking for trouble. Is there any particular type of tank build that you're interested in already?

 

[Dizzydea]

I don't know why but I enjoy fresh water, maybe because it's what I'm used to. Colorful fish are great but I like the strange and different stuff. I like the knife fish but I have danios and guppies so I'm pretty sure he would eat them. I like the zebra plecos and loaches, really any type of eel like fish. Then again I like rays and puffers and also sea horses. On another note I'd really like some axolotls as well. So I'm stuck on what to do.

 

[ktomminello]

So you're gonna have a large tank and you already have an established beginner schooling community fish and you're looking to delve a little into more unique and difficult fish, interesting fish... Here's my daydream for this circumstance. Keep your 54g set up for passive community fish. You should get some rope fish, bichirs, sydontis catfish- they will eat anything they can fit into their mouths, however you can keep them with semi aggressive cichlids, get ur knife fish, maybe a couple albino bristlenosed plecos, a few algae eaters, some snails... I could go on and on lol

 

[Dizzydea]

Ok I will tell you my stock I have 6 hot pink danios, 4 reg zebra danios, 4 fancy black guppies, 2 Orinoco plecos, 6 albino bristle nose babies, 2 glass fish, 1 black kuhli loach,

 

[Dizzydea]

Oh and 1 twig catfish or pleco. So what cool stuff could I add to this stock?

 

[Dizzydea]

http://mudskippers.org/brakishvid.htm

I also really like this tank because it has mud skippers and puffers and I think they are both pretty awesome!

 

[lamby]

I would stay away from brackish unless you want a speices only tank its to hard trying to source cool fish.

 

[BozziniINC]

If u want mudskippers do africans. Mine arent in brackish and they do fine. I have 2 in a 30 gallon with 2 cory cats. I was going to get a 55 in a month and a half and i was going to add 4 more cories and another mudskipper. Personally if i had a 110 i would do a oscar, bichir, a redtail botia and some other fish

 

[Dizzydea]

Could I add mudskippers to what I have?

 

[BozziniINC]

Some of the fish may get eaten like the danios or guppies

 

[Dizzydea]

Can I use a salt water filter for a brackish tank?

 

[phishfriend]

If u want mudskippers do africans. Mine arent in brackish and they do fine. I have 2 in a 30 gallon with 2 cory cats. I was going to get a 55 in a month and a half and i was going to add 4 more cories and another mudskipper. Personally if i had a 110 i would do a oscar, bichir, a redtail botia and some other fish

Omg! 110 would have a pair of red terrors and some eljd's

 

[ktomminello]

I don't think that I would add mudskippers to that mix, they do better in softwater and amphibian habitats. Go for a couple more kuhlis, you could try a few female crowntail betta. I have an obsession with oto cats. Skirted tetras, blind cave tetras, gourami are also pretty chill fish, dwarf that is, much like their betta relatives they sometimes have aggression problems toward their own species (including betta) but are usually peaceful and shy, especially sunset dwarf gourami, powder blue gourami and dwarf balloon pink kissers. Inverts and crustaceans can provide great amusement as well.

 

[ktomminello]

Omg! 110 would have a pair of red terrors and some eljd's

What kind of jack Dempsey?

 

[ktomminello]

Can I use a salt water filter for a brackish tank?

Yes, you can use a saltwater filter for high end brackish, however freshwater salts are different than saltwater salts, remember to stay away from reef crystals when going brackish.

 

[phishfriend]

What kind of jack Dempsey?

Electric blue's

 

[lamby]

Can I use a salt water filter for a brackish tank?

I used my freshwater on for mine. But im still using that for full salt

 

[lamby]

I used red sea seasalt mix worked good. And kept it at a constant 26 degrees and salinity of 1.008ppm I think in my 10g bucket it was 9-12 big tea spoons to get it around that.

 

[Dizzydea]

So I should convert it to a fresh tank? I mean I have only just mastered fresh in the last year. Am I ready to move to salt? I'm also pondering the idea of keeping my 54 gallon and using it as either a mud skipper/ puffer tank or a axolotl tank. I need to decide by the middle of next week hopefully I will get lots of comments to make my decision.