Shallow water fish

[Drayven]

I'm working on a plan to make a 20 gallon aquarium for fiddler crabs that will essentially exist of 2 levels. the ground level will be about an inch of sand covered by 2-3" of brackish water. There will then be some sort of ramp that will allow the crabs to get up on to a raised sandbox that will be about half the length of the tank or more. This should give them plenty of water/land room to play on. I was wondering though if there are any brackish type fish that could actually live happily in 2-3" of water in a 20 gallon tank. Essentially it would be about 3 gallons of water but spread out over 12x24". I can't think of anything that'd work but thought I'd ask.

 

[JohnPaul]

Can't think of any fish that would do okay in that little water. However, if you acclimated them carefully you could probably put some ghost shrimp in there. I've kept ghost shrimp in brackish conditions before (after slow acclimation) and they seemed to thrive, and I've talked to people who live in estuarine areas who say they see these shrimps all the time in the brackish water there.

Another option in terms of shrimp would be to put in a few Opae Ula (Hawaiin Red Shrimp). Those are a native brackish species would probably do well for you, presuming you were able to keep the water reasonably clean and had enough light (and enough rocks or similar "hardscape" in the water) to be able to grow a little algae and biofilm.

 

[Drayven]

Yeah I'll be installing a filter of some sort to keep the water clean and doing frequent changes. Lucky for me I have a healthy colony of ghost shrimp in one of my other tanks I can steal from Any idea if cherry shrimp can go brackish? I'm really thinking I need to find a way to fortify the shelf I want to put this thing on to hold more weight so I can put in more water

 

[JohnPaul]

Any idea if cherry shrimp can go brackish?

Well, I've personally never heard of anyone keeping RCS or any other common freshwater dwarf shrimp in brackish conditions. If you can find some for cheap it might be worth a shot trying. But you'd really have to acclimate them over the course of several weeks, I would think. i.e set up a small tank (buy a cheap 2.5g or something like that) and slowly increase the salinity every 4-5 days by a little bit, until you have the salinity the same as the water in your crabitat. Neocaridinas (especially Red Cherry and Yellow shrimp) are tough little buggers, so you just might be able to pull it off. That being said, they aren't as bulletproof as ghost shrimp (once ghost shrimp are established). Opae Ula's are still the best choice for a brackish tank, if you can find them from a hobbyist who currently keeps & breeds them.