Mudskippers & Co.

Hello all,
my plan:

240 l tank (120x40x50cm), SG 1.008, T 28 deg C. Mudskippers will be the main attraction, but since I would like to have a bit more, I'll need to make the best out of the volume. So, I'm planning as shown in the attachment, with some 30 cm of substrate (silver sand and crushed coral) on one side, and barely a 2-3 cm on the other. Artificial mangroves for now, I read very contradictory stories about Java fern in brackish water.

Starring:
- 2 (3?) periophtalmus novemradiatus (I believe it's the smallest species, indian mudskipper)
- a few (2? 3?) crabs of the Uca sp. (fiddler crab)
- 1 Toxotes jaculator (archer fish), AND/OR
- 1 Tetraodon biocellatus (figure-8 pufferfish).

The main problem: I'm a total beginner! I spent about a year now reading all the readable, and I believe I can make it (provided I can get the mudskippers in this little danish town where I live...). So, here we go:

- MAIN question: can a tank like Eheim (MP) withstand such a disomogeneity in weight distribution?
- Any weak point in terms of choice of fish vs. environment your more experienced eyes see? I know very well about the territoriality of the F8P, and also that water quality is a must for it, so it will definitely come LAST (if ever), once everything is well settled. I also know these fish GROW, would that environment be OK, provided I get them all in?
- I understand algae are going to be a problem, without plants and eaters. How much can reducing lighting time help? Fish alone don't need it as much as plants, right?

Many thanks!

Maurizio

Mixing mudskippers with fish is a very bad idea. Bigger fish scare them, making them nervous, and if the mudskippers stay out of the water too much, that can cause problems. Smaller fish will simply be viewed as food. You also have problems with water volume. Most mudskipper tanks contain just enough water to cover the mudskippers; after all, the mudskippers spend 90% of their time on land, and only need water to wet their skin periodically. This means that in all likelihood only about 10% of the volume of the tank will be water, so a 240 litre tank will have 24 litres of water -- which isn't much! So while you could add a few small fish like guppies, these will simply be viewed as live food by the mudskippers. Indeed, small crabs eventually get eaten by the larger mudskipper species too.

Algae control will be best done with nerite snails, of which several true brackish water species are on sale, e.g., olive nerites.

Cheers, Neale

nmonks said:

Mixing mudskippers with fish is a very bad idea. Bigger fish scare them, making them nervous, and if the mudskippers stay out of the water too much, that can cause problems. Smaller fish will simply be viewed as food.

the mudskippers spend 90% of their time on land, and only need water to wet their skin periodically. This means that in all likelihood only about 10% of the volume of the tank will be water, so a 240 litre tank will have 24 litres of water -- which isn't much! So while you could add a few small fish like guppies, these will simply be viewed as live food by the mudskippers. Indeed, small crabs eventually get eaten by the larger mudskipper species too.

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Hello Neal,
great hearing JUST from you!

OK, I was aware of the interaction problem, I thought I could manage having them in all more or less the same size, so that they could grow up together... ) Not the case, I understand?

The second statement I understand less: you mean a 240 l is too small even for a few skippers only? What is your recommendation for a healthy environment?

Thanks a lot!
Maurizio

240 litres is a great mudskipper aquarium! No problems with that. What I mean is by the time you have 10-15 cm depth of water -- all you need really, just enough to cover the sponge filter -- you will only have a very small volume of water for other fish. Some people do keep them with mollies, guppies, gobies, etc. But this does assume the fish are about the same size as the mudskipper. Too small, they get eaten; too big, they frighten the mudskippers.

Hope that helps. Cheers, Neale

nmonks said:

240 litres is a great mudskipper aquarium! No problems with that. What I mean is by the time you have 10-15 cm depth of water -- all you need really, just enough to cover the sponge filter -- you will only have a very small volume of water for other fish. Some people do keep them with mollies, guppies, gobies, etc. But this does assume the fish are about the same size as the mudskipper. Too small, they get eaten; too big, they frighten the mudskippers.

Hope that helps. Cheers, Neale

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Hi again,
and thanks a lot, Neal. Hope this doesn't bother, but to clarify: my plan was a ~40x40 cm of land (I thought that would make it for 2 indian skippers: perhaps more if you believe it's necessary), the slope (linear length again 40 cm), and the remaining 40x40 cm would be water surface. Having read of the interaction problem skippers-fish, the plan was to have the FRONTAL part of the land actually sloping onto a small corridor of a few cm of shallow water, thus allowing the skippers (I never thought they might be going for deep waters) safe bathing. Does this make more sense to you, or is it still too risky? If so, I'll entirely review my plans (after all, there's a lot more problems with the specific requirements of skippers).

Cheers

Maurizio

I would keep more than two mudskippers. Try to keep at least 5 specimens, and ideally more males than females. In smaller groups males become more territorial ands can be bullies, so like cichlids, you will do well overcrowding them a bit.

As for designing the layout, I would try your plan, but be prepared to make changes if needs be. Put some bogwood or mangrove roots in the *deep* part of the water, so the mudskippers can use that part as well.

Cheers, Neale