Freshwater flounder

[phoenixfire]

hey has anyone ever heard of these little guys...patnaudes (if anyone is familiar with them) sells them every now and then...they look really cool and do change to certain colors with that they are laying on...i know they are not truely freshwater but brackish. But i already had had salt in my tank. So i figuered ahh what the heck and got 3. They lasted about a week and then died for some reason or other. Has anyone successfully kept these cool looking guys. If so can you tell me what you did or give me any tips. Id really like to add them to my collection..Thanks!!

Jared

 

[Paul_MTS]

"already had salt in my tank" was it a brackish tank or do you just chuck in some tonic salt every now and then.

there's a big difference and if not using marine salt in the tank it wouldn be the reason why they died.

EDIT-opps spelling and gramma

 

[nmonks]

Hello,

There are truly freshwater species and there are brackish water species, but the safest option is to go for a specific gravity of 1.005 unless you can positively identify your fish as a freshwater one.

They are almost certainly soles rather than flounders offered for sale: members of the families Achiridae and Soleidae are most common, with the Cynoglossidae seemingly very rare in the hobby.

Personally, I think the major problem with this fish isn't salinity (the ones you're likely to see are euryhaline, so can tolerant "the wrong" salinity for months at a time). It's feeding. These fish are nocturnal predators and prefer live foods such as bloodworms, mosquito larvae, tubifex, river shrimp, or earthworms, depending on the size of your fish.

Once settled in they eat a wider range of foods. I kept a marine plaice for about six months while it was small enough to fit in the aquarium in my lab. It's favourite food was trout pellets.

I have one (Brachirus sp.) in my freshwater tank and have had it there since the start of May. It seems to be doing fine. I feed frozen bloodworms at night twice a week, and most other evenings chuck in some catfish pellets.

Other that this, remember they need sand, not gravel; are intolerant of low oxygen concentrations; and cannot compete for food with night time fish like catfish or loaches.

Basically not that difficult to keep once acclimated to you tank. Avoid the really small (coin-sized) ones -- they're difficult to feed. Specimens around 8-10 cm should be about the minimum if you want to make life easy.

Cheers,

Neale

 

[phoenixfire]

no no it was that doctor salt type deal...supposidly it keeps your fish from getting sick...its not like marine salt... http/www.pets-warehouse.com/Vpasp/shopdi...cts.asp?id=821#
is what it is..the first item.....but i thought that was good enough to hold them off..but i guess not?
thats what the people at patnuades said but they usually dont know what they are talking about...and they allso had these guys mixed in with freshwater fish and they were normal and everything...there where with like tetras...so i thought it was fine ebcause i had that type of salt in

and thank you i knew i wasnt going crazy...so its basically the feeding im going to have to look into..i tried feeding them like the pleco pellets and i thoguht they were eating those cause i fed them at night...but i could not find any sites about these creatures...so if u could supply some id appreciate it...thanks!
Jared

 

[nmonks]

Hello,

Tonic salt, etc., is of no real value with brackish water fish. It's marginally better than nothing insofar as it helps buffer the pH and hardness levels, but otherwise it's a waste of money. Marine salt, in the quantities you need, is very inexpensive. Remember, you basically want something about one-fifth the strength of normal sea water, so a $5 box that does 20 gallons of sea water will actually last you for 100 gallons of brackish at around 1.005.

The best web site for freshwater soles is in Japanese, but here it is anyway. The pictures will help you identify your fish. This guy seems to be successfully keeping a wide range of species to adult sizes. Note that some "brackish" species appear to be living with neon tetras. This reinforces my point that actually getting them to eat is perhaps more important than fussing over water chemistry, at least over the short term.

In the United States, species of Trinectes and Achirus are most commonly sold in pet stores, and they are almost always brackish (to marine) species.

You may also want to take a look at the Brackish FAQ. It has descriptions of the most commonly sold species as well as links to their FishBase pages.

Don't expect your fish to eat pellets at first. That takes a few weeks at least. You'll need to do frozen bloodworms and other things like that to begin with. Even once they're settled in and apparently feeding (i.e., if they're still fat and healthy after 1-2 months) you'll probably want to alternate between pellets and frozen foods. Even after 3-4 months I have never, ever seen my freshwater sole feed by day.

Frankly, only a very few people have kept these fish with success, and to the best of my knowledge none have been bred in captivity. Most specimens seem to die within a few weeks, probably through starvation. The golden rules seem to be feed them at night, and don't mix them with nocturnal feeders like catfish.

Cheers,

Neale