MissMTS

I may be converting one of my 29 gallons into a brackish water tank. Was thinking of doing one of the following stocking schemes. Any feedback would be great because I am not familiar with many brackish water fish. I am not sure exactly which species are compatible.

2 Green Spotted Puffers or Figure Eight Puffers
5 Bumble Bee Gobies

5 Mollies
2 Knight Gobies
4 Bumble Bee Gobies

2 Orange Chromides
2 Dragon Knight Gobies

For those of you who have experience with brackish tanks, could you please tell me what you think the most interesting combinations would be? If you have any personal recomendations, I would love to hear them.

Oddball_lover101

Knight gobies cannot live with bumble bee gobies because they are predatory, they will eat things smaller than it, mollies, puffers and the orange chromides are able to live with the knight goby.If you like gobies i would recommend some bumble bee gobies, and one dragon goby. If you would like an interesting one try orange chromides, figure eight puffers and knight gobbies. Here is a good website http://badmanstropicalfish.com/brackish/brackish.html. Since you are converting your freshwater tank into a brackish tank, do it slowly:

week 1: 20% (remember you can even do a 50% water change but just make 20% or the replacement water brackish)

week 2: you can do another water change but just make sure 20% of it is brackish

week 3: Increase the brackish percentage going into the tank by 20% more making it 40% brackish

week 4: make another water change but keep the salinity at just 40% brackish

week 5: increase the brackish water to 50%

week 6: keep the brackish water at 50%

week 7: make the tank 60% brackish

week 8: keep it at 60% brackish

week 9: raise it 20% more to make it 80% brackish (almost there!)

week 10: keep it at 80% brackish

week 11: increase by 20% more and make it 100% brackish (of course)

sirdarksol

http://www.fishlore.com/aquariummaga...tank-setup.htm

This is an article I wrote on the topic.

There's no reason to stage it up if there are no living inhabitants in the tank. You can simply change out the water for brackish water.
If there are living critters in the water already, then do the staged water changes as described above.

2 puffers together will likely not work. In fact, a puffer and almost anything else is a problem waiting to happen. They don't get along with much of anything. It's something that some owners try, and a few have success with (puffers are like bettas, each has his/her own personality, and some are less aggressive than others)
The exception seems to be bumblebee gobies. At least one aquarium owner I've read about has had success keeping the bumblebees with the puffers.

A 29g tank is not large enough for a dragon goby, in my opinion. They get to be pretty long, and need a decent amount of space on the bottom to hide themselves, especially when dealing with other bottom-dwelling fish like bumblebees.

Knight gobies can tolerate brackish water, but they prefer freshwater.

So, a half-dozen or so bumblebees and a single puffer would likely do very well in your tank.

Mollies and bumblebees might do well together, but bumblebees have a habit of biting at anything that enters their territory, which could very well include the mollies (who like to swim up and down the height of the tank).

MissMTS

Thanks for all of the advice you guys. I hope to try a brackish tank one day, but I went to the store and priced the marine salts, and they are a little over my budget at the moment......maybe in a couple of months. Thanks for all of the help though and I appreciate your responses

sirdarksol

Sounds like a good plan. Keep us posted.

LilMollieBreeder

good luck with that!

DarkRevoultions

You can always try archer fishes, and some other types of fishes that can go with brackish puffers.

Flat fish

Gar

Siamese Tiger fish

and some cichlids such as chromides black-chin tilapia

pinkfloydpuffer

I believe MissMTS has made her decision about this quite a while ago.

And, for the record, archer fish will need much more than a 29 gallon tank.

sirdarksol

Not to mention, they likely wouldn't do well with puffers (in the long run). If you stock a tank with puffers and mollies, and the puffers eventually get belligerent, it's pretty easy to rehome the mollies. On the other hand, an archerfish needs a pretty specific setup (as do the puffers), so you'd need two large tanks for them.

Gars tend to be really large, and the Siamese tiger fish gets absolutely huge, and would not fit in a 29g tank.

MissMTS

Lol. I forgot about this thread. I am going to set up a brackish tank around Christmas time, so I will remember to use this thread as a reference

sirdarksol

Any ideas on what you plan on putting in there?

Now that my wife pretty much ignores the brackish tank and has fallen in love with the betta tank (though I'm still the sole caretaker), I wish I could go back and restock it.
There's such a limited range of creatures that can go with each brackish inhabitant that it's really important to know what you want before you stock (moreso than with freshwater communities).

MissMTS

I was planning on the following:
(This is only a tentative list, so feel free to give suggestions)
2 Young Figure 8 Puffers
5 Bumble Bee Gobies
2 Lyretail Mollies (either black or platinum)

Obviously, I will have to see how the individual fish get along. I read an article on a puffer forum and the girl had a setup similar to this and it worked really well for her. The figure 8 puffers are supposed to be a lot less aggressive than other species of puffers, so hopefully they will do allright with the other fish. I know you said that you have mollies in your brackish tank. If you were to re-stock it, what would you put in there? That is sad that your wife doesn't like the tank very much. I think that brackish fish are fascinating

sirdarksol

She's not a fish person, and I think the mollies just weren't bright enough and personable enough for her. She also gets along really well with Miyamoto, our platinum butterfly koi.

If I didn't have the mollies, I'd probably have a more shallow, wider tank with bumblebee and dragon gobies.

The puffers will do great at first. Eventually, they might decide that the tank is theirs (and even fight each other). Lots of hiding places will help with this.
If worse comes to worst, the puffers probably won't bother the gobies (since they operate in opposite heights in the tank), so you'd just have to rehome a couple of mollies, which would be easily done.

MissMTS

Your koi sounds really pretty. She sounds like my husband. He loves my African Tank because of the colors, but he doesn't really understand why I love my loaches, plecos, and rainbowfish so much.

I know it is a trial and error kind of deal when it comes to stocking a tank with potentially aggressive fish. If needed, I can acclimate the mollies back to freshwater and put them in my 80 gallon community tank. If aggression starts to be a problem with the other fish, I will take them back to the LFS for credit. They are good about taking back fish. The tank will be heavily planted with a lot of rocks and other decor to create obsticles in the tank. We'll see how it works out. I saw in you aquarium info that you have a single "murderous" mollie. I didn't know that they could be aggressive...

sirdarksol

Yeah. The whole concept of time outs for fish started with mollies (at least on Fishlore). They are apparently prone to fits of violence. I wasn't paying enough attention during feeding time, and by the time I figured out that she was keeping her tankmates from eating, they were far too close to dead to save.

My wife kind of enjoys all of the tanks, but she is only really in love with the betta and the koi, so I can play with the others as I wish.

pinkfloydpuffer

Yeah, my platinum molly basically killed my dalmation molly. They were more trouble than the puffers were, lol.

sirdarksol

I think that's probably because we expect problems from the puffers, not from the cute little vegetarian mollies. So we watch our puffers and prepare to pull them from a tank if necessary. Meanwhile, we ignore the mollies, and they harass each other to death.

pinkfloydpuffer

Yeah, poor fishes. My remaining mollies have since been rehomed in a 150 gallon community of a guy who lives in my area.