Saving Up For Brackish Tank/advice Please

[lisa_perry75]

Heya!
I have a rekord 96 with 5 young figure 8s, all getting on really well. I added a desert goby, which has been doing well for about a month. I have now added very young mono (1") and two knight gobies (2").

The SG is 1.005 and I do w/cs every 2-3 weeks and do about 60%. I have an aqua-glo in the tank but it looks really dark. I still get ridiculous amounts of brownish algae that comes off really easily. I also change the bogwood around everytime, so they always have something new to explore, this time I created loads of caves and shelter for the new fish.

I realise that this tank is not adequate in the long term, I actually "rescued" the puffers from freshwater and poor health. My fiance has kept puffers for a while so I knew what to expect. Clean water and a slow climb to the current SG has brought them to good health.

I am a student atm so getting a reeeally big tank is not a good idea. I have loads of my other tanks/fish and plants for sale (in the for sale section) to pay for one new tank though. I was thinking about 150 litres I could get without the fiance complaining tooooo much. Then after about a year I will be getting a permanent house so I'll be able to get a bigger tank.

I looove planted tanks, but always thought it would be impossible with the puffers.

Basically, I was thinking about an eheim professional II 2026 (£100 at maidenhead aquatics) I have a heater... I would probably get about 36 x 15 x 18 giving 150L tank.

Thing is I'm not sure what to do lighting wise. I want to go planted, and have some already that could be brought up, but I can't afford to spend a fortune and will struggle to do looooads of maintenance (uni is really crazy atm). For a substrate could I use something like flora-base and 2-3mm gravel on top? My water from the tap is liquid chalk, its like pH 8 so I just add salt (tropin atm but open to suggestions) and put it in. I have lots of bogwood as decor atm but have some bits of slate around. The SG will stay at 1.005. So some advice on planting/lighting would be really helpful.

I've found my old hydrometer seems a bit rubbish, can anyone give me some advice on a good one? Or info on refractometers, can you get good 2nd hand ones or do they have to be new? Maidenhead aquatics have one for £40...

I have tried several times to cultivate snails but they keep dying on me, what should I feed the snails? Any help on that would be good as my puffers really could do with some snails...

Oh and do you reckon I should buy a hood or make one...

 

[el_vulture619]

I cant help much on the pant questions as I have none. Except for some algae that I moved over from my nano-reef, it is actually going well. I forgot what it was called but Ill get that for you later.
As for those 60% water changes, I would to 10-20% every week or 2, you should have less of an algea problem, less nitrates to feed it.
Refractos are def the way to go! But since your a broke student like I am use a glass hydometer. The floating arm one suck so leave them alone.
As for the snails....maybe your getting the wrong kind, make sure they can handle the sal.
Make your own hood, it will be cheaper and you can also build it to suit your lighting needs. You can buy retro fit lighting when you save up some money.

 

[nmonks]

Heya!
I have a rekord 96 with 5 young figure 8s, all getting on really well. I added a desert goby, which has been doing well for about a month. I have now added very young mono (1") and two knight gobies (2").

There's a bit of mismatch here. Ideally, adult monos require about 50% seawater (SG 1.010) for optimal health, whereas the other fishes in your collection want rather less, about 25% seawater (1.005). So while these will all be fine for now, eventually the mono may need to be rehomed. I've seen monos is low-salinity and even freshwater tanks thrive, but there's no guarantees. Does depend to some degree on water quality as well as pH/hardness.

The SG is 1.005 and I do w/cs every 2-3 weeks and do about 60%. I have an aqua-glo in the tank but it looks really dark. I still get ridiculous amounts of brownish algae that comes off really easily. I also change the bogwood around everytime, so they always have something new to explore, this time I created loads of caves and shelter for the new fish.

I'd suggest 30% water changes every week rather than less frequent, bigger water changes. Brown algae (diatoms) are common in new aquaria and tend to persist in tanks with low levels of lighting. A practical minimum is two lights that run the full length of the tank. (Actually, the lights will be slightly shorter than the tank to allow for the caps at each end and to fit in the hood, but you know what I mean. In a 3 foot tank, you'd need two lights that were 2.5 feet long.)

I realise that this tank is not adequate in the long term, I actually "rescued" the puffers from freshwater and poor health. My fiance has kept puffers for a while so I knew what to expect. Clean water and a slow climb to the current SG has brought them to good health.

Very good.

I am a student atm so getting a reeeally big tank is not a good idea. I have loads of my other tanks/fish and plants for sale (in the for sale section) to pay for one new tank though. I was thinking about 150 litres I could get without the fiance complaining tooooo much. Then after about a year I will be getting a permanent house so I'll be able to get a bigger tank.

Sounds like a plan. I suspect you'll find an adult mono not really a good fit in even a 150 litre tank -- these are big fishes that need lots of swimming space. But otherwise seems fine.

I looove planted tanks, but always thought it would be impossible with the puffers.

Not at all. Most puffers ignore plants, and any damage they cause is incidental to snapping at snails. At SG 1.005 you have a nice variety of plants that would do well. Java fern, Java moss, Anubias, Vallisneria, Aponogeton, Crinum, Cryptocoryne wendtii are all worth trying. You do have to optimise everything else though, since the salt will be stressing the plants to some (small) degree. So proper lighting, regular use of fertilisers, and an appropriate substrate (for rooted plants) should be provided.

Basically, I was thinking about an eheim professional II 2026 (£100 at maidenhead aquatics) I have a heater... I would probably get about 36 x 15 x 18 giving 150L tank.

That's a good filter, I'm sure.

Thing is I'm not sure what to do lighting wise. I want to go planted, and have some already that could be brought up, but I can't afford to spend a fortune and will struggle to do looooads of maintenance (uni is really crazy atm). For a substrate could I use something like flora-base and 2-3mm gravel on top? My water from the tap is liquid chalk, its like pH 8 so I just add salt (tropin atm but open to suggestions) and put it in. I have lots of bogwood as decor atm but have some bits of slate around. The SG will stay at 1.005. So some advice on planting/lighting would be really helpful.

If money is tight, the "downgrading" to a Fluval filter and using the leftover cash on the lighting is what I'd do. I've almost always used Fluval filters and never had any problems with them. They might not be *quite* as good as the Eheim, but they're still good value. Maidenhead regularly do deals on them (I saw the 404 going for £80 the other day). There's no point skimping on the lighting, because without enough lighting, the plants simply won't grow. Even Java fern needs a couple of tubes to do well. You're aiming for about 1.5-2 watts per gallon, minimum. Adding reflectors behind the tubes is a cheap but effective way to squeeze out every bit of usefulness from a tube, but not to the extent that you can use one tube instead of two.

I've found my old hydrometer seems a bit rubbish, can anyone give me some advice on a good one? Or info on refractometers, can you get good 2nd hand ones or do they have to be new? Maidenhead aquatics have one for £40...

Waste of money, in my opinion. Floating glass hydrometers are perfectly adequate for brackish water aquaria that by definition don't need an exact salinity. Spend a little time reading over Reef Central and others like that and you'll see lots of reports of inaccurate refractometers. The truth is that used properly both work well, and used improperly, neither is reliable. I still use the same floating glass hydrometer I bought something like 20 years ago. The main thing is you understand how to use a glass hydrometer and look after it properly. The swing-arm plastic ones I don't much care for, I have to admit.

I have tried several times to cultivate snails but they keep dying on me, what should I feed the snails? Any help on that would be good as my puffers really could do with some snails...

Grow them in a pond is easiest. Even a bucket outdoors will do, so long as you clean the water periodically. But I use a plastic half-barrel pond filled with a bit of sand and some plants.

Oh and do you reckon I should buy a hood or make one...

Making one is fun, but the main thing is nothing should come between the lights and the water (glass cuts out some of the light energy). Fish do jump out (especially gobies) so a cover of some sort is useful.

Cheers, Neale

 

[lisa_perry75]

Thanks very much for all the amazing advice

I've been going through the mill this acedemic year and have been doing my two big tanks on alternate weeks. I am now selling my other tanks to pay for a bigger tank for the puffers, so I will step up the waterchanges to every week.

I will rehome the mono, I didn't realise they were schooling fish. I know my fiances one fought with the other two he had them with, so I just got one thinking he would be ok. Once the little guy is a bit bigger and has put a bit of weight on I will rehome him. He is only 1" atm and I wouldn't be happy rehoming him until hes bigger.

On the puffer forum they recommend 50 litres per figure 8, which if you had only one I would put it in more than 50 liters. Plus they recommend 50% waterchanges a week.

I believe this to be slightly excessive, but I will try to rehome two of the puffers. With the price of salt as well I don't think I could do 50% a week. I will do 30% a week, thats a good idea Neale.


On the subject of fertillisers: I was thinking about using florabase but that buffers at pH 6.5-7. What other rich bases could I use? Should I use sand or 2-3mm gravel on top? Also I don't really want to be doing a whole EI regime, if I got above 2 wpg wouldn't I have to add CO2? Or is excel an alternative in the brackish aquaria? I'm sorry I have tried to read up but many sources conflict each other and I cannot seem to find a consensus.

Also, where do you think the best place to get plants is? Should I approach a shop to stock the species I want, or order online? Does anyone have any experience on this front? I may start a thread in the planting section, they may be able to help.


Although I'm a girl I have done things like make my own set of shelves for tanks, so I may try making my own hood. I definately would use reflectors and paint the inside white. Apparently there is a type of waterproof wood called marine ply, should I use something like this?

 

[nmonks]

Monos are debateably schooling fish in home aquaria. In small groups they are often quite mean to one another. But when kept in larger groups, or mixed in equal numbers with scats, they seem to be fine. A single specimen can be a bit nervous, but keeping one like that isn't doomed to failure.

50 litres for one figure-8 makes sense, but scaling up by the same amount for each additional fish is probably overkill. After all, these fish are very small, and the more specimens you have the *less* aggression becomes a problem. Absolutely standard practise with, say, mbuna, to keep them in groups to diffuse aggression. Anyway, two or three specimens in a 100 litre tank should be fine, as would 5 or 6 in a 180 litre system.

50% water changes are a good idea, but hardly critical. It depends more on how much food goes into the tank. Fish excrete ammonia from protein in the food. The number of fish in the tank sets how much food you add to the tank, but if you add 10 grammes of food to one tank with a single puffer and 10 grammes to another tank with ten puffers, at the end of the day both tanks would have the amount of nitrate. Basic science. So, your job is to ensure that the nitrate levels stay below 50 mg/l. It doesn't really matter how you do this. More water changes or less food will work perfectly well, as will, to some degree, rapid plant and algae growth.

If you really are tight for cash and can't keep the nitrates as low as you want them, reduce the SG to 1.003 and see how things go. Apart from the mono, none of the fish you have will mind that too much. Even the mono will be fine, provided pH and hardness stay reasonably high. Doing things this way might let you stretch out the water changes to 50% weekly without ramping up the cost of salt.

Forget about buffering the water to 6.5. Your brackish water fish want pH 7.5 anyway, so hardening the water is more likely critical than lowering it. Yes, using a good substrate helps. Not essential, but helps. Relatively cheap, too. Worst case scenario use pond soil (sparingly). Big bags cost under a fiver. You can use the leftovers for pot plants or whatever. Don't need CO2 in a brackish water tank with hardy plants. Yes, it helps, but no, not critical. Lighting is more important. Start off with bullet-proof plants to begin with, like Cryptocoryne ciliata and C. wendtii, as these need only a good substrate and moderate lighting to do really well. Java fern and moss cannot be faulted, either. I've usually found Vallisneria reliable but not everyone has luck with it. It's cheap though, so worth a shot. Hygrophila is another cheap and cheerful plant that does well in slightly brackish water.

Marine plywood (which is what I think you mean) shoud work well for this sort of project. Humidity does tend to warp wood though, so I assume you'll need to use proper joints and struts to keep things in shape. Obviously, you also need salt-tolerant metal fitings, such as screws (maybe stainless steel or brass instead of cheap steel?). Salt water is incredibly corroding and most metals don't fare well getting splashed with it.

Cheers, Neale