Yeah i was worried that any echidna or gymnothorax that I ever stumbled upon would make a meal of any inverts I had. Though there isn't any in yet. The reason I started this tank at such a high SG was so I could start with a few Clibanarius tricolor and slowly lower the SG to 1.015 or so- its pretty much marine right now- and then start adding fish. Archers are going to be a must, as I'm building a custom canopy that will sit 24" tall on the top of the tank to give the red mangroves room to grow but was also going to foam it (great stuff foam) like one would in a vivarium and add vines and plants to give the archers a place to target practice with insects.
Anyway, besides the archers I was wanting things that spend time in high end brackish estuaries, hence the blue legs and eel candidates. Thought about bat fish (orbic) but the tank isn't big enough (plus it's full of roots so not a lot of open swimming space). Scats are out ... I don't particularly like them and I don't really want them eating mangroves. Mono maybe, but again tank isn't really big enough to have a small school. I had heard that sgt majors and beau Gregory damsels would work, but I'm sure they'd end up ruling the tank. Targets get too big. Dats same (and I've heard too many opposing sides about which species of dat can handle which range of Sg). So that really leaves me with an extremely limited selection. Can anyone think of any "true" marine fish that can do high end brackish? Surely there's a goby or blenny (though yes I know it would be eel food) or wrasse that establishes coastal areas. Oh yeah so the whole point of that long winded list was that I figure I should start with the marine side first and lower it then add the archers. My lfss have no brackish section. They have marine and then they have fw ... Really sad that they just put Scats, archers, puffers, etc in straight up fresh. Once they even had a few anableps (four eyed fish) looking pretty out of place and uncomfortable in a tank with baby red tail cats and arowanas! I couldn't believed it! If I would have had a tank ready I would have grabbed them up, but oh well. It's kinda depressing when some of the guys at my local Petco know more than the owners of the lfs and then therefore do the best the can for the animals in their charge.
