Brackish 90g Stock Suggestions?

[Arget]

I've been thinking about doing something new with my 90g. It's currently freshwater, but I'll be doing something new once I rehome it's current occupants. I've been thinking about a brackish tank.



My current ideas are either Puffers, Mollies, or Mudskippers.



The Puffer would likely be the only fish in the tank, the mollies would be a community, and the Mudskippers I'm not sure of since they need a Paludarium. Gobies are awesome fish, which is why I'd have them in the Molly or Mudskipper options, Mudskippers being the coolest Goby there is!

[Andy Sager]

Originally Posted by Arget

I've been thinking about doing something new with my 90g. It's currently freshwater, but I'll be doing something new once I rehome it's current occupants. I've been thinking about a brackish tank.



My current ideas are either Puffers, Mollies, or Mudskippers.



The Puffer would likely be the only fish in the tank, the mollies would be a community, and the Mudskippers I'm not sure of since they need a Paludarium. Gobies are awesome fish, which is why I'd have them in the Molly or Mudskipper options, Mudskippers being the coolest Goby there is!

Have you considered Archerfish or Scats? Monos will eventually need to be in a larger tank as adults but if you are okay with that, you have the choice of Monodactylus argenteus or M. sebae.

[Arget]

Originally Posted by Andy Sager

Have you considered Archerfish or Scats? Monos will eventually need to be in a larger tank as adults but if you are okay with that, you have the choice of Monodactylus argenteus or M. sebae.

I've seen all three in my lfs. I'd like to get more peaceful fish, or ones that don't get too big. I've even seen leaf fish! The puffer option would be the biggest, since I can't have one on my reef tank and I've heard that they've got plenty of personality!

[Andy Sager]

Originally Posted by Arget

I've seen all three in my lfs. I'd like to get more peaceful fish, or ones that don't get too big. I've even seen leaf fish! The puffer option would be the biggest, since I can't have one on my reef tank and I've heard that they've got plenty of personality!

Just a suggestion.

[Colin_T]

What are the tank dimensions (length x width x height)?

What is the GH (general hardness), KH (carbonate hardness) and pH of your water supply?
This information can usually be obtained from your water supply company's website or by telephoning them. If they can't help you, take a glass full of tap water to the local pet shop and get them to test it for you. Write the results down (in numbers) when they do the tests. And ask them what the results are in (eg: ppm, dGH, or something else).

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Mudskippers come in 2 sizes.
King mudskippers grow to about a foot long and will bite your finger off if they get a chance. They have big teeth and are quite intimidating.

Normal mudskippers grow to about 4-5 inches and are much nicer and really cool. These little guys tame down incredibly quickly and learn to take food from your hand or fingers and don't normally bite the hand that feeds them, although sometimes they miss.

Mollies come in a range of species, colours and sizes. Sailfin mollies (Poecilia velifera) are the biggest and can reach 5-6 inches long and the males have huge dorsal (top) fins. P. sphenops being one of the smaller species and grows to about 3-4 inches long and have smaller fins. They all come in black, white, gold, green and a few other colour forms. A word of caution with common livebearers like mollies that come from Asia or any fish farm. They usually have intestinal worms and gill flukes so should be treated for these before being added to a display tank.

There are a couple of small blue-eye rainbowfish (Pseudomugil signifer and P. cyanodorsalis) that do well in backish water. P. signifer come from a range of waterways including fresh, so you need to get ones that have been caught in brackish water for your tank. P. cyanodorsalis naturally occur in estuaries and the ocean in sheltered bays and harbours. They are quite stunning fish when mature and kept in brackish or sea water.

Celebes rainbowfish would be alright in a brackish tank and actually need hard water with a bit of salt to survive. You could keep them with P. signifer and mollies.

As a general rule, marine/ brackish water pufferfish should be kept on their own or in breeding pairs. They eat anything and if they get stressed, they release poison into the water and kill everything in the tank. If you keep marine pufferfish, it's a good idea to have a carbon filter running in the tank and to replace the carbon regularly (every 2-4 weeks). If the pufferfish don't get stressed, they don't release the poison, but if they do get stressed, the carbon will hopefully remove most of the poison and give you time to do a huge water change and find out what is stressing the fish.

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Mudskippers need some land to hop about on. You can make floating platforms for them or have part of the tank with a glass panel and shelf, which can be covered in sand and the mudskippers can hop about on that.

Some people have 2 tanks for mudskippers. The top tank contains the fish and has a couple of drain pipes in it. One drain pipe is high and sits about an inch from the top of the tank. The other drain pipe sits about 6 inches above the bottom. The water from the top tank drains into the bottom tank and a couple of pumps push the water back up to the top tank. It's basically a trickle filter/ sump set up.

Several times a day one of the pumps turns off and the second pump keeps going. The water in the top tank slowly drops down to the height of the second drain pipe. The water remains here for several hours and the mudskippers can come out of the water and hop about on the land for a few hours. Then the second pump turns back on and the top tank fills back up.

Mudskippers generally do best in their own tank, and in fact most of the fish mentioned do best in single species tanks. You can mix the blue-eye rainbowfish together and P. signifer would probably be ok with mollies. P. cyanodorsalis are small fish and would get eaten by mudskippers and probably be stressed out by mollies.

The following link has information on all the known species of Australia and New Guinea rainbowfish and includes Pseudomugil signifer and P. cyanodorsalis, and might interest you.
Melanotaeniidae and Pseudomugilidae

[Arget]

Captive bred options always have priority, unless they're so finicky that they can't be successfully bred in captivity and raised to the point that captive bred is more readily available to the hobby.



I've kept Sailfin Mollies before in a reef tank, occasionally my LFS get some with wild type coloring, and basically any mollies you see in a store are hybrids, mostly P.scphenops/P.latipinna. My LFS has two different types, the smaller lyretail, which technically have sailfins, and the true Sailfins that are about 1/3-2x larger, and don't have lyre tails. I've had better luck with keeping any mollies in full saltwater than in full freshwater. My tapwater comes out perfect for Tanganyika cichlids.



I'd already planned on the pufferfish option being a species only tank.



I'd planned on the Mudskipper option to have both land any water, sand on one side with a piece of acrylic holding it up, water on the other, with some driftwood to help them reach the sand. Maybe halfway full or so? I very much doubt I'd be able to do anything fancy with sumps for the Mudskippers, the tank isn't drilled and I'm not going to risk it...


I'm unfamiliar with Australian and New Guinea fish.

[Arget]

Originally Posted by Colin_T

What are the tank dimensions (length x width x height)?
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Mudskippers come in 2 sizes.
King mudskippers grow to about a foot long and will bite your finger off if they get a chance. They have big teeth and are quite intimidating.

Normal mudskippers grow to about 4-5 inches and are much nicer and really cool. These little guys tame down incredibly quickly and learn to take food from your hand or fingers and don't normally bite the hand that feeds them, although sometimes they miss.

The tank is a 90g. It's 48″ x 18″ x 24″, and weighs over 1,000lbs when fully setup...


What exact species of Mudskipper? I think there's 2-3 in the hobby.

[Colin_T]

Mud skippers are all wild caught, you won't find captive bred stock.

I don't know what the species were/ are. Some years ago back in the shop we got these mudskippers in that were about 10-12 inches long and overly boisterous. They were terrifying to feed. I have delt with lots of fish over the years including big cichlids, but these king mudskippers scared the hell out of me. I would rather work in a tank with big cichlids or even marine sharks than stick my hand in a king mudskipper tank. They were seriously scary when it came to feeding, and they ate any time the coverglass was opened, even when food wasn't offered.

We also got in a couple of smaller species that only got to 4-5 inches and they were the nice ones. I think we got them from a marine fish supplier in Karratha (Western Australia). We had them in a 3 foot tank that was half full of water and had smooth rocks sticking out of the water. We would feed them on top of the rocks and these things would tame down within a week of being in captivity. You could literally put your hand in the tank just above the water and they would hop on it and eat any food on your hand. Then go over your hand cleaning it looking for more food. We used half sea water and half tap water for their tank and did a complete water change each week.

A couple of the smaller species got out once and were hopping around the floor of the shop. It was like trying to catch a wet frog. It was hilarious and the customers and staff were busy wetting themselves laughing at these things hopping across the floor and the staff trying to catch them. But the small mudskippers definitely had character and are wonderful fish to keep.

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Rainbowfish (blue-eyes) are easy to keep. Pseudomugil signifer has to be one of the easiest fish to keep and breed. They eat just about anything, grow to about 2 inches long, spend most of the day displaying and showing off to each other, and live in water with a pH around 7.0 or higher, and a GH above 100ppm. Do a water change and gravel clean their tank once a week. Drain the water into a white bucket and check it for eggs or leave it in a plastic storage container for a week and scoop any babies out. They are almost like livebearers except without the inbreeding issues. Have a group of 10 of them and they would be fine in the tank. You could have more if you like but they need to be in groups of 10 or more.

Celebes rainbows are not as easy to keep and need water with a pH above 7.0 and a GH above 200ppm, and some salt. They should be kept in groups of 10 or more. If you get some, make sure they have been in the shop tank for at least 2 weeks before you get them, and make sure they haven't lost any. Celebes rainbows either come in good and do really well, or they come in bad and die. If the shop has them for 2 weeks and don't lose any, then grab a group of them. But if the shop is losing them, don't touch them. Once Celebes rainbows have settled into a tank, they do well and are nice fish.

[Arget]

Were the smaller Mudskippers more social? As in, would they be okay in larger group if they were in a 90g?

[Colin_T]

The little mudskippers are territorial but we would have 4 or 5 in the 3 ft tank. The males are the ones that set up territories that are around 2 feet square. If they are well fed there are less arguments. You could have 4-6 in your tank, (2 males and a group of females).