Brackish Advice.

[Mudjunkie]

I have "inherited" a 125 gal aquarium. Renters left it along with some of its dead occupants in my rental property when they moved out with no forwarding address, owing for rent. Nice.
I have 20 & 29 gal freshwater tanks and have been lusting after a larger tank for some time. I had an aquarium service come clean it out, and after a few more rinses and wipe downs it should be ready to transition into a viable, healthy tank. It has with it a canister pump the service said is in good shape and sufficient for filtration, but no canopy.
I am considering brackish as I really love some of the species that live in brackish water. I will probably follow the "river" biotrope as it seems the most forgiving as far as maintenance SG variations etc. 
Now then for the actual questions.
1) Most sites recommend sand substrate. Gravel seems so much easier to clean I am wondering what the benefits of sand are. Some sites are quite adamant about using only sand, never gravel in a brackish tank. Is there a reason other than personal preference? 
2) Can I use a fill/drain kit that connects to my faucet and gradually add the salted water as the fresh is going in? Dragging premixed buckets of water for a weekly 20% change will get old in a hurry. I do that for the other 2 tanks but on a 125 I think it will be prohibitive. I have looked at the pumps that fill uphill from a premixed container but that only eliminates the lifting. I would still be dragging containers to and fro. 
3) I know I must add the occupants slowly and that the SG they were living in at purchase must match what they will be living in afterward. What is the best way to do this when you are buying 1-3 new Iinhabitants at a time, often from different sources? I assume the tank would be cycled fishless as fresh then get converted to brackish as fish are added.
4) It is 72" long and 18 wide. Will 2 hoods 36" x 18" work to cover and light this tank?
I am sure I have much to learn and that more questions will arise. For now I thank you for any and all information you can give me on these, the most pressing issues! 
 
 

 

[maurizio]

Hello Mudjunkie,
and welcome! That's an interesting way of getting a full tank!!

 
I strictly answer what I'm able to...

 
2) In my case, I do the painful to & fro, but my 240 l tank is only at about 150 l. Still, it means two-three travels with a 20 l bucket to + from the bathroom... At the moment my tank is down to freshwater, so I could do with a Python (there are even so DYI ideas around), but I somehow got used to it. The possibility of adding salt on the way is a really

idea! Lemme know if you find a way!
 
3) What I did in my case, since I also bought my inhabitants in different steps, was the following:
 
1. Started fresh, and cycled
2. Got plants in, and painfully slowly increased to needed salinity (which in my case is low, it probably didn't matter: SG 1.002 at 25 C
3. Got first fishes in (T. Microlepis)
4. Before entering new fishes, if adapted to fresh, I went down to fresh or close to it again with water changes (in my case, it probably took me one water change only!
5. Once new fish were in and adapted, increase salinity again to final value. 
 
Obviously, everything becomes slower if the final salinity is quite high. Do remember however that these fish are quite able to stand significant and relatively fast changes of salinity, given where they live... I originally aimed too at a river environment, being it as you said potentially more forgiving.
 
Hope it helps
 
Cheers!
 
Maurizio

 

[Mudjunkie]

Maurizio,
Thanks for the answer. I did speak in person with a lfs employee who had good brackish knowledge. He said I could use the python method adding salt and conditioners as it fills as long as the salinity is not too high. That was very good news. I still have not found a good reason to use sand other than keeping flouder or other flat fish so will probably go with easy gravel unless someone on here  knows of a good reason to deal with the sand.
 
Thanks for the advice on adding new occupants. In your opinion how long does it take for a fish coming from fresh to adapt to brackish. Are we talking hours, days or weeks. Lfs guy suggested setting up a "drip" from the brackish tank into a bucket housing the new aquisition letting the salinity increase that way then do the transfer in the usual way. Your way sounds like more work but less stress on the newcomer. Makes more sense to me. But then can I bring the SG up over the next few hours or would it be days?
 
Now a 2nd round of questions. (I knew it would happen) As I have researched I have become intrigued with archer fish. Info on their compatible tank mates is muddled at best. I have read everything from: they will eat anything they can get their mouths around, to: they won't eat other fish at all. Do you have any experience with them or can you direct me to someone who does? 
 
Thanks again for your answers!

 

[iliveinazoo]

Maurizio,
Thanks for the answer. I did speak in person with a lfs employee who had good brackish knowledge. He said I could use the python method adding salt and conditioners as it fills as long as the salinity is not too high. That was very good news. I still have not found a good reason to use sand other than keeping flouder or other flat fish so will probably go with easy gravel unless someone on here  knows of a good reason to deal with the sand.
 
Thanks for the advice on adding new occupants. In your opinion how long does it take for a fish coming from fresh to adapt to brackish. Are we talking hours, days or weeks. Lfs guy suggested setting up a "drip" from the brackish tank into a bucket housing the new aquisition letting the salinity increase that way then do the transfer in the usual way. Your way sounds like more work but less stress on the newcomer. Makes more sense to me. But then can I bring the SG up over the next few hours or would it be days?
 
Now a 2nd round of questions. (I knew it would happen) As I have researched I have become intrigued with archer fish. Info on their compatible tank mates is muddled at best. I have read everything from: they will eat anything they can get their mouths around, to: they won't eat other fish at all. Do you have any experience with them or can you direct me to someone who does? 
 
Thanks again for your answers!

I suspect that the sand that people are referring to is aragonite or coral sand as they are essentially calclium carbonate and aid in buffering the water in the tank to keep it hard as brackish fish require hard alkaline water.  Gravel and silica sand is inert and doesn't contribute to water chemistry.  Silica sand doesn't provide any benefit over gravel unless you have fish that root or rest on or in the substrate.  If your source water is already really hard (approx. pH 8) and you will be carrying out regular water changes then you may not need aragonite or coral but it gives you peace of mind. 
Also bear in mind that the nitrification process makes the water more acidic therefore if you don't carry out water changes often your water will become more and more acidic which could lead to a tank crash.
 
Brackish fish generally move between varying degrees of salinity in the wild therefore large swings over a short period of time should not harm them and the drip acclimitisation method advised to you would work well.  The problem with large swings in salinity in your tank is to do with the nitrification bacteria that lives in your filter as they respond less well to changes, upping/reducing the salinity by no more than SG0.002 per week allows the bacteria to adapt/recover without too great a detriment to the water conditions.
 
There is another post about Archer Fish on the forum at the moment and I've listed my experiences there - it's probably the post immediately below this one.  Maurizio is more experienced with Archers than me though.

 

[maurizio]

Hello there, I believe iliveinazoo has covered all of it.
 
In my case I have quite hard tap water (actually one of the reasons I went brackish in the first place: I wanted an easy life, as a beginner), and sand suited perfectly my plans.
 
Archers are said to go fine with Scats, Monos, Butis Butis, .... All LARGE fish. I do have three T. Microlepis (the smallest species, doing well also in freshwater). For a short time I kept them with some Parambassis Ranga, which unfortunately never grew a single bit, and eventually ended up as snacks. At the moment I have the archers with a bunch of Rainbows, in flagrant violation of my original idea of a biotope...

Generally, anything big enough not to fit in their mouths is OK. They ARE voracious.