Freshwater Stonefish AKA Freshwater Lionfish

[charles-n-charge]

Thats max size. Snookn was selling them a while back. I almost bought 3 or 4. They hide ALL the time too. Buried in the sand with only those little eyes poking out.

Yep. I've found they're cool or keep with bichirs though; only had one for a couple months before I sold him. It was more of an impulse buy than anything else lol

 

[charles-n-charge]

One thing I'd like to add; they have the best chance of living in freshwater for longer periods of time if the tank is very large, over filtered, and has plenty of water changes preformed on it.
Like most marine fish in freshwater, they put off a ton of ammonia to help cope with the lack of salt in the water. So having a larger, cleaner tank will definitely help

 

[kamikaziechameleon]

I'll step in here and say I keep brackish water fish exclusively in fresh. I had talked to many people who practice this dark art and have also done some experimentation... It is what it is. I have found they are durable if cared for properly compared to many other fresh water fishes. And to your point about growth in freshwater. It has been recorded in nature when brackish fish live in fresh exclusively they will still reproduce but for whatever reason they do grow about 30 percent or so smaller even after generations of freshwater exclusive life as with those rays in Florida. Perhaps this could explain the stunted growth of your lionfish in freshwater.

 

[kamikaziechameleon]

I have just acquired one of these. Mine is almost 6 inches, I'll post on here instead of my ID thread. It seems to poop like a terrestrial animal, lizard or something and not a fish. I know I keep posting this but it really amazes me for whatever reason, perhaps its the size my 6 inch fish drops 1" nuggets every day, don't know what to make of this besides the ammonia issues its creating in his 20 gallon QT tank. I expect from reading around these animals suffer the same fate as many brackish fish. Novice keepers get and kill them making them get the label... DIFFICULT TO KEEP. I have made an unnofficial carrer of keeping brackish fish in fresh water similar to fugupuff. I've found brackish fish seem to do very well in fresh, well as any of my fresh water fish if you do a few things.

1. pristine water, though the fish actually does well in poor water as they typically live in or near sounds where water quality and parameters vary drastically on a seasonal basis they don't have a strong immune system. It has been hypothesized that many brackish fish use the variable salinity levels to deal with parasites etc as such if you keep them in poor water conditions you crush what little immune system they have. Long term exposure in such a system will make them more vulnerable to fungus' etc. than other fish.

2. Hard water is preferred, again while they do well with swings from different ends of the spectrum their naturally base is hard water. Beware of overly high metal content in hard water if your tap is obscenely hard. many of these brackish beauties are scaleless and don't deal well with high levels of metals relative to other fish.

3. WARM WATER! Most of the brackish fish in question like monos, stone fish, freshwater morays, etc. come from extremely tropical waters and prefer a resting temp closer to 82 or so degrees and will stop eating and prolonged lower temps.

4. Varied diets, if you are feeding a G. tile or other live food heavy animal like a stone fish don't get stuck in the rut of feeding similar foods. They will get HITH or lateral line problems. I for a long time attributed this to fresh water but found that it was actually a dietary issue not a salinity one for my fish. Raising salinity didn't fix it but changing dietary things up regularly did immediately.

These are the tenants of my care that let me keep a G. tile for just over 3 years in fresh. Monos for a similar length of time and leaf fish etc. I hope to use them with this fish to good effect. I'm still learning because doing so is still not a well documented practice and is regularly frowned on. After conquering this fish i hope to do the same with orange chromides, a fish that always ends up in my possession at the worst of times in the past, as well as Colombian sharks.

here is the thread:

http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/f...-FRESHWATER-STONE-FISH!&p=5642580#post5642580

 

[charles-n-charge]

here is the thread:

http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/f...-FRESHWATER-STONE-FISH!&p=5642580#post5642580

So in this girls case, she could not keep stonefish with oscars happily.

And everything listed does make sense, and I believe he needs to keep doing what he's doing to learn more about this method of keeping brackish fish; but I think we can all agree that the best way to keep Brackish fish is still to keep them in brackish water, and same goes for FW and SW. Otherwise, no matter how good you are, you're asking for trouble

 

[kamikaziechameleon]

So in this girls case, she could not keep stonefish with oscars happily.

And everything listed does make sense, and I believe he needs to keep doing what he's doing to learn more about this method of keeping brackish fish; but I think we can all agree that the best way to keep Brackish fish is still to keep them in brackish water, and same goes for FW and SW. Otherwise, no matter how good you are, you're asking for trouble

Oh yeah without a doubt sorry for going so far off track. Perhaps I just have gotten away with too much but I just try to keep the animal looking good. If that requires... salt, soft water, whatever so be it. I'm just sayin to make a fish look good(my best all around indicator) and behave/feed normally I've been able to do that without salt... not done this for all the brackish that frequent the trade yet but most of the ones I've kept in the past 6 years it wasn't an issue. I've gone up and down in salinity to see if it made a difference and in the end I found the above mentioned items made a bigger difference for me. I haven't kept my new fella(lionfish) terribly long so I can't comment on him till he gets out of QT and into a community tank. I'm excited though, and quite optimistic I've even named him borborymos!

I have heard the same argument "don't keep it in fresh you'll kill it" used before for every single brackish fish I've kept. End of the day I was pig headed and accomplished some ground breaking fish keeping. I was the first documented person to keep G. tile in fresh successfully.

Didn't mean to push back just trying to encourage capable experienced aquarists out there. I personally wouldn't recommend any brackish fish to a beginner as their sizes are typically on the same scale as south americans and none of them fair well in a 55 gallon for life.(let alone a 75)

 

[DIDYSIS]

I have one, been in fresh water, guy I got it from has had it for 8 months full fresh water, its about 3.5 inches at this point. I hope it gets to 10 inches, they say can hit 12 I need large fish for my tank. He said he never saw it eat ever, I have not also I just put frozen food in the tank and hope he eats it, I do have some guppies I am going to try though also and see if those work good for him. I will take a pic and post it in a little, He likes to hide

 

[charles-n-charge]

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This is Leon, my toadfish.

The pics with him sitting on eggcrate are from when he was in brackish water. Currently he lives in the sump of my reef tank, he likes to sit under the UV sterilizer and he normally swims up to the front of the tank and swims at the top, popping his head slightly out of the water, waiting for me to feed him.
He's about 5.5-6" or so, extremely fat, and he seems to be a very happy fish.
Just a good example of how great they do in marine systems

 

[DIDYSIS]

here is mine, I could not get great pics as it is in my sump, not a good idea to throw it in with much larger fish, but it will get to go in the larger tank soon as the new tank is setup I think looking at yours mine is still adjusting to the new tank and not eating as good as he could yet. FYI I always do add some salt to my water with all my fish.

 

[DIDYSIS]

Threw in a couple feeder guppies last night and BAM, FAT FISH




Look at that belly. Ha ha ha. Good eating forsure.

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