Anyone trying brackish?

[JeanR]

Hi all!!

Been a reefer for 7 years now and continue to enjoy it - though I think I've passed through my "must build an acro-dominant paradise" phase and have decided an easy SPS and LPS mixed reef is just fine.

I have a second tank that is 40g cube I have just converted to brackish (SG = 1.005ish) after my kids saw some mudskippers at Tropic Isle. Figure it will be a fun adventure for the winter.

I didn't really bother to cycle it again. I just sucked out to old saltwater, filled it with RODI, set the salinity and hooked up a cheap canister filter. We just added a few fancy guppies to test the waters and they seem to be happy and fine. Also, my kids caught some asian shore crabs by Castle Island in Southie and we tossed them into the system (and they also seems to be just fine w/ brackish).

I'm curious if others are doing brackish (or have tried it in the past) and have any advice. Would be interested to hear what you kept and any LFS you would recommend for livestock.

Thanks
Jean

 

[thrillreefer]

In high school I had a brackish tank with an archerfish and it was glorious fun. A screened/plexi enclosure above the tank with sticks and a few potted plants. Any bug I could catch in the house would go in and get attacked and usually eaten. (Or buy crickets.) And they’re not picky, would eat frozen or pellets too.

I’d love to revisit this biotope again someday. Mangroves, mono sebae, probably some inverts, mollies etc. But highly recommend an archer-centric tank. 40 is probably enough, mine was a 75 but not totally full and the archer was up to like 6” when I had to shut the tank down for college.

Only downside was it was near my bed and the top was screened so more than once I was awakened in the morning by a hungry fish spitting water up and over onto my face!

 

[DylanCameron]

Older thread, I know - Jean, is this tank still up and running? Definitely interested to see how this progressed.

Anyone else have a brackish tank set up right now?

 

[BiGGiePauls33]

Older thread, I know - Jean, is this tank still up and running? Definitely interested to see how this progressed.

Anyone else have a brackish tank set up right now?

Thanks for bumping this @DylanCameron, I'm interested as well.

 

[JeanR]

 

[BiGGiePauls33]

View attachment 190209View attachment 190210View attachment 190211

Is the first pic, a mudskipper? I was just telling my kids we should get one.

 

[JeanR]

The brackish tank is doing great! No water changes, super low maintenance which is a pretty nice change. I have 3 mud skippers, a handful of local shore crabs and started w/ 5 fancy guppies but now have probably 40 or 50. Nerite snails provide a pretty decent CUC.

The mangroves are growing pretty slowly, I only have cheap lights on the system so suspect the output is not enough for them.
We just got back from exploring the mangrove forests of the Florida Keys and clearly they like and can handle huge amounts of light. I bet if I put some metal halides on them they would grow much better (but I'm not going to).

My kids love the fancy guppies, the females are always pregnant and are constantly pushing out live babies.

The mudskippers are great fun and will eat just about anything (aside from flake). And they go completely nuts for live foods. I've had them eating white worms and tiny crickets out of my hand.

The one downside is that, after enjoying the diversity available for reef tanks, the numbers of fish/critters available for a brackish system is pretty limited. And many of the coolest brackish fish are not compatible. I would have loved to have gotten a brackish puffer fish but most of the reading says they are really not compatible with the rest of my fishies. oh well.

 

[JeanR]

Is the first pic, a mudskipper? I was just telling my kids we should get one.

yes, they are good fun and easy to keep in a brackish system. Tropic Isle usually has them in stock. I bought a couple cheap plastic lily pads online and use them as feeding spots (and just place frozen mysis on them).

The mudskipper's spend most of the day out of the water and don't seem to be particularly scared of humans. My kids have hand fed them.

 

[thrillreefer]

Looks dope! I was about to be very surprised lilies grew in brackish. That was my complaint too — not a ton of variety. But some cool species tank options. I wouldn’t be able to do brackish again without another archer