My Brackish Fishies

[smuttysy]

Just thought I'd share some photos of the brackish fishies I've kept, or am still keeping.
Breeding pair of Orange Chromides


Mono - Suicidally jumpy (ended up in the washing basket during a water change, discovered 2 days later)


Figure 8 Puffer - This is my little baby, I've got two now


Green Spotted Puffer - Still going strong several years on


Dwarf Puffer - now in a seperate tank for their own safety


Red Eyed Red Tailed Puffers - Thriving in these conditions


Other fish I'm currently keeping in the brackish tank are a Siamese Tiger, a handfull of Rainbows and a rather beligerant Target Puffer. I also used to have a Ceylon puffer in there but he passed on after eating a dwarf puffer, silly boy!

[KittyKat]

That's a bit of an odd selection! How easy are Brackish to keep? I don't have any at the moment, but will probably try some relatively soon.. just need to move into the new place

[smuttysy]

I'm finding them quite easy, so long as you're sensible with the fish selection. I've gone for relatively small puffers in a comparatively large(ish) tank. Puffers are pretty much fair game, mainly given to their tolerance to salted conditions, but selection care should be done with a little bit of knowledge behind them.
I started with a massive Ceylon puffer, which was the beginning of my affair with the bracks. Very emotive face and super friendly, I fell in love immediately. and began amassing others to fill out the tank. Having read up on a few websites I added a bunch of Bosemani Rainbows, with an acclimatisation period of several hours just to be careful. I've never seen these fish colour up so well as they do in brackish water!
Another tip I got was not to bother with the expensive marine hydrometers and just buy one of the brewers ones, which I found out was about one-sixth the price! The range is rather difficult to determine to a finite level but there are a couple of marker points that seem to work well on this one I have, so I don't know the exact sg level. But during water changes it varies in a small amount anyway, mimicking the natural estuarine type of brackish condition. Now I know some of you will probably never leave me alone for this one and will call me all sorts of names, but here goes. I use sea salt for grinders as my salt addative. I know, it's not supposed to be the done thing but so far I have kept all of my bracks in this stuff and have yet to lose one which I can attribute to this. I always add this to the bucket after adding the water treatment chems so I can only attribute their comfort to the fact that this treatment neautralizes anything that could do any harm.
Can't be doing that much wrong, the Chromides have been breeding like wildfire, but they're none too bright and take the fry on a wonder to the filter inlets, despite being surrounded by lava rock.

I have found that the majority of freshwater puffers will tolerate lower levels of brackish, and red eyed red tailed puffers seem to thrive in this water. That said, in order to make sure they don't get bored the decor needs to be as technically interesting as you can afford. (or fit in the tank) Avoid bogwood and fill the thing with wide open types of silk or plastic plants, some large shells or even plant pots and they'll be relatively happy.

I know I've been droning on about puffers a bit but I think they're amazingly good fun to keep and watch. If anyone wants to ask me about any of the other fish I mentioned in my first post please ask away and I'll try to answer as best I can.

[Silverstarr]

Pure rock sea salt intended for human consumption is mainly not suitable because it does not contain the minerals which marine mix and aquarium grade sea salt usually does. This will cause problems if RO water is used, but may not be a problem if tap water is used as that usually contains some minerals.