My 180 Gal Brackish Tank

brackishdude

brackishdude

Candiru
MFK Member
Mar 14, 2006
294
2
48
54
insideout
I keep the sg between 1.003 and 1.007, with some pretty wild swings in that range with water changes. pH ~ 8.0-8.2

I've owned two fire eels, the first for 8 yrs, and my current one for nearly four years. Always in light brackish. Here's Neale Monk's take on it:


(He has a great site, BTW, with brackish-centric summaries on most any such fish you'll ever find available commercially. He also wrote/edited the book on brackish tanks, though for a quick and thorough summary of any given fish, his website is the place to go.)

http://homepage.mac.com/nmonks/aquaria/brackishfaqindex.html

Whether or not these fish are really suitable for brackish water is a debatable point. In the wild most species are strictly freshwater animals. As a group they are ’primary freshwater fish’ like carps and characins having evolved in freshwater and possessing none of the adaptations to salt water that ’secondary freshwater fish’ like cichlids and mollies have. So on paper at least, there is no need to keep these fish in a brackish water system.

However, a few of the Asian species are found in very slightly brackish water habitats along with other hardy but not truly brackish water fish such as Mystus spp. catfish and the climbing perch Anabas. Confusing the matter still further, older aquarium books generally recommend keeping spiny eels in slightly salty water (a specific gravity of 1.002 to 1.005), but this is probably not neccessary and perhaps harmful to the fish in the long term. The addition of salt may be more about suppressing the skin infections that these fish can be prone to in aquaria without a soft substrate to burrow into. In an aquarium set up properly for these fishes, such a therapeutic dosing of the water with salt is not necessary.
Click to expand...
So I guess you have a point. This has kept me on the low end of the hydrometer, though.

To further show my contrariness, the scats and morays are more commonly kept at greater salinity (up to full marine). They've always done well for me in this range. Good water conditions go a long way. "Understock and overfilter" I always say.

The archers are microleptis, and do best in this range.

Several moves, equipment failures, and tank upgrades have brought many iterations to my tanks and the inhabitants , but since my first tank in 1993, I've always kept a low sg brackish tank and dabbled in brackish fish. The internet really focused my efforts and helped me avoid a lot of unhappy learning-curve moments.

I've only had a digiital camera for about 5 yrs, so here's some more "recent" stuff (including the second pic I ever took with my first digital!)

Yes, a orange morphology and natural morphology orange/red chromide can make babies! this was fun:)











This eel is over two feet long in this pic, and twas no bigger than a pencil when I got her!! She died in a moving accident a few months later:cry:










Butis butis Crazy fish






















Two of my mroays




and if you really want a fix, go to rarefish's pinned thread in the photo lounge!!! :jaw:
 
J

jayne

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Nov 11, 2007
14
0
0
UK
Really great to see a large beautifully aquascaped brackish tank,fantastic job.
 
M

malawi haps

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jun 20, 2007
891
1
0
south carolina
Phenominal tank and aquascape!!! Keep up the good work.
 
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