Keeping A Mudskipper With Mollies

[frube]

I currently have a 20G tank containing several mollies. Since i keep my mollies in brackish water i had the idea to add a piece of floating drift wood and a mudskipper. I'm sure there is flaws in my idea and I would greatly appreciate any advice on this subject.
thanks.

 

[nmonks]

Mollies, and indeed most livebearers, mix fine with mudskippers of suitable size. You have to take care not to use any fish in the water that are the same size or larger than the mudskippers that you are keeping though. Mudskippers avoid going into the water when they see big fish because they are frightened of being attacked. Mudskippers can't swim well, so feel vulnerable. So use a smaller species of livebearer than the mudskippers; e.g., if you were keeping a mudskippers that gets to 6-8 cm in length, then guppies or Poecilia picta would be ideal. Mollies would combine better with the larger species of mudskipper.

On the flip side, mudskippers can and will eat very small fish including fry. The tails of fancy guppies may be nipped too.

You only real problem is this: 20 gallons isn't much space. Given that most of this needs to be land, only about 5 gallons, if that, would be left for the fish. You can't possibly keep mollies in 5 gallons of water.

Floating driftwood isn't acceptable for mudskippers. They need large areas of land, partly for feeding and partly for exercise. They are territorial animals as well, so a complex habitat helps them avoid one another.

The best thing is to create a mudskipper tank, and then see if there's enough water in the tank for fish, and if there is, add a few fish. Trying to convert a regular aquarium into one that accommodates mudskippers just won't work. If nothing else, the mudskippers will get bored and escape.

Cheers, Neale

Below is picture of a mudskipper vivarium taken from my FAQ.

 

[frube]

Wow, just what i was looking for. Thanks a lot (especially for the picture), I really do like mudskippers so I probably will end up making a tank to house a few
really great info, thanks again.

 

[frube]

So I did some more thinking about this and decided to make a little diagram of my own

Assuming I would probably have a nicely planted tank, maybe with a few lilly pads (can they survive in brackish water?) and probably a few stones, the mudskipper would have plenty to climb on.
The only problem i could find with this idea is that the surface of the driftwood may not be suitable for a mudskipper.
Any criticism? or should i just forget the idea altogether?

 

[nmonks]

Looks nice. Had something similar when I kept terrapins.

Instead of wood though I'd recommend you use glass to make a shelf, and then another piece of glass at the front of the shelf so that it has a "rim", allowing you to fill the shelf with coral/silica sand. This will let the mudskippers do a bit of digging, which will make them much happier. Glass is much easier to work with (a local glazier will cut precisely to size, so all you need do is glue the stuff in). You may want to put another bit of glass under the shelf like a prop, just to keep the whole thing stable, but I think it should be fine without.

Lily pads don't like brackish water at all. Use the plastic or nylon ones for this. Stick bogwood in the water so there are land areas away from the shelf; because these fish are territorial, sometimes its helpful for the weaker fish to have places they can "haul out" away from the more aggressive fish.

Cheers, Neale

 

[frube]

Wow, thanks for all your help, some really great advice. I'm definitely going to try this.

 

[Soaup]

Hey Nmonks,

Great FAQ on the mudskippers. Did you write the FAQ? Anyways if so i believe i found an error if you care to correct.

Heating is more of a problem because mudskippers like to clamber over solid objects and can easily be scaled by standard aquarium heaters. Either choose a filter that fits inside the filter, use a standard heater protected with a plastic guard, or use an undertank heating mat of the type used to keep reptile and amphibian enclosures warm.

Either way, Great article! Learned something new today.

Cheers

 

[nmonks]

Ah, good catch. Will fix! Thanks for spotting this!

Cheers, Neale

Did you write the FAQ? Anyways if so i believe i found an error if you care to correct.

 

[nemirn]

How is the tank coming along?
The diagram looks really cool.
I like the idea of having the water flowing onto the land area.
Is this a requirement for a mudskipper home?

I am constructing a 55g brackish biotope for my classroom (I'm a high school science teacher)
using PVC piping to support the land area.
It will have an Eheim 2236 (80 gallon) canister filter.
Substrate will be Red Sea reef base (the bird-seed stuff).
I'm not sure about tankmates.

 

[joshua969]

I've had my muskipper tank going about 2 months and everything seems fine. I currently have 2 P. Barbarus in a 75 gallon tank, and will probably add a 3rd. They mostly 'play' around rather than fight....some fin flaring and chasing, but that's about it. My tank is has a built up sandy beach area as well as numerous pieces of emergent driftwood.

One word of caution....add fiddler crabs with care. Mine have killed/eaten any I've put into the tank. I was even mindful of this and got a large size one, but they still killed him.

Mine don't pay attention to the mollies....they just go about their merry skipper business.