Fresh to brackish

[Angelfish56]

I want to change my freshwater 15 gallon to a brackish crab tank so it wouldn't that full how would I do that

 

[Rosenweiss]

Well, as far as I know there's no special thing you need to do to make the tank work for brackish instead of fresh. =] You do, of course, need to mix your own water, and as for telling if the salinity is correct, most people suggest getting a refractometer.

 

[siva]

For the SG you're going for, start with 1 1/2 tsp marine salt per gal water. For the first few days, test daily, at the same time every day, with a hydrometer. Do yourself a favor and get one that's easy to use if you can afford it. Then you can add more salt if you need to. Disolve the salt you want to add in some tank water and then add it to the tank. Remember salt doesn't evaporate, so don't add salt for top offs, only water changes. Make sure when you get the crabs, you know what kind of water the store has been keeping them in, because the vast majority are keeping them in FW, so acclimate slowly to BW.

 

[Mr. Limpet]

I want to change my freshwater 15 gallon to a brackish crab tank so it wouldn't that full how would I do that

Is the tank planted? if so, you can convert some plants to brackish, but you have to do it in small increments. Plantgeek.net can tell you what works for brackish.

Use marine salt, not aqua salt. A refractometer is much more accurate than a hydrometer. If you can find out what the SG your LFS is keeping the crabs at and match that with your tank, they'll do much better from my research with GSP.

 

[siva]

Very few stores keep them with any salt, that I've found, so it may be impossible to match. What I do, is start with SG of 1.004 and acclimate the crabs slowly to that. Then over the next month or so, I slowly increase it to 1.008. I wouldn't worry much about this process or their acclimation. In nature, salinity fluctuates and they really aren't very sensitive to it. The first time I set up a brackish tank, I took my fiddlers from a FW tank, and dumped them in the BW tank on the land part, I let them decide when they wanted to go in the water. I had no probs with the crabs. So with a SG of 1.004, you could probably do it that way as well if you wanted. I almost think it's better than way since they aren't really aquatic crabs..they prefer air a lot of the time.

As I said in the other thread they do well with java fern, which is a good option for brackish. I've only had them pick apart and eat one plant, a sort of lacey one, that I now know is not aquatic anyway so won't have that problem again. Otherwise, I've never had issues with them destroying plants.

 

[Mr. Limpet]

Very few stores keep them with any salt, that I've found, so it may be impossible to match. What I do, is start with SG of 1.004 and acclimate the crabs slowly to that. Then over the next month or so, I slowly increase it to 1.008. I wouldn't worry much about this process or their acclimation. In nature, salinity fluctuates and they really aren't very sensitive to it. The first time I set up a brackish tank, I took my fiddlers from a FW tank, and dumped them in the BW tank on the land part, I let them decide when they wanted to go in the water. I had no probs with the crabs. So with a SG of 1.004, you could probably do it that way as well if you wanted. I almost think it's better than way since they aren't really aquatic crabs..they prefer air a lot of the time.

As I said in the other thread they do well with java fern, which is a good option for brackish. I've only had them pick apart and eat one plant, a sort of lacey one, that I now know is not aquatic anyway so won't have that problem again. Otherwise, I've never had issues with them destroying plants.

I can believe that some LFS don't keep BW tanks, that's why I go 35 miles out of my way to a LFS that actually does do BW and I even know the SG I'll need to match my GSP too .

 

[siva]

My lfs definitely keeps their GSP's in BW, but I think their supplier keeps the crabs in FW so they do as well..they sell so fast anyway..and then tell the customer to acclimate to brackish. So far I have never come across fidders at a lfs or from any of the sites I've ordered from that are kept in BW. Sad..really.