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Our Brackish Aquarium

Brackish water is half way between salt water and freshwater. This occurs naturally in streams and rivers and swamps that are fed with fresh water but open up to the ocean which is salt water. This means there are areas that are a mix, and several species of fish thrive there.

Here is our new tank that is being setup:

Home to our Figure 8 Puffers and Bumble Bee Gobies.

Figure 8 Puffers

You can see his chompers.	This guy is the biggest of the three.	Notice my three all have different patterns. Take a look at the pattern arounf the 2nd spot from the tail.
Older pics when we first got them, approx. 1" long

A full belly.	The hole in the top of the anchor decoration.	Juveniles dont have as intricate of pattern.

We got 3 of these Puffers when we first setup our tank and they have done well. In the above photos they are only about 1.25" long (when we first got them), they are currently about 2" or so.

Anablep This cool fish swims along the top of the water with its two big bulging eyes sticking up through the waters surface. They can get very large ~12", and have a hefty appetite. Check out the video of the Anablep in the video section below! Very sad news... our Anablep passed away 2/18/06 at a size of 8.5". I was cleaning the tank and had the cover off. I filled the water to max hieght and forgot to finish cleaning and replace the glass top. The next morning the poor fella was found on the floor :.(

Mono Sebae Our Mono and a Puffer are comming around a piece of driftwood. Mono's are supposed to school, but we have just 1. They are taller than they are long.

Scatophagus Here is our Silver Scat. Like the Mono, Scats are supposed to school. But since our aquarium is only 40 gallons we have only 1 of each.

Here is our brackish tank. It is a 4' long 40 gallon tank that we first used with freshwater until we upgraded the freshwater to 75g. These pictures are when we first set the tank up, we have since added more driftwood and live plants. There is a filter on the front of the tank temporarily, it was the established filter from the smaller tank to help in establishing the new tank.

Here is our original brackish tank, a 20 gallon tank.

We also have 2 Knight Gobies, but they rarely show themselves and we have no pictures yet.

Video Clips - I moved the clips all on one page here.

Here are some fish that were in our brackish tank for a while but have passed away:

Kribensis Cichlid, not usually a brackish fish but after doing some online research, I found they enjoy light brackish conditions.

Here is the Krib with a Puffer. The Krib and Puffers seem to get along fine so far.

Peacock Spiney eel... also not usually brackish but we are acclimating two spiney eels to a light brackish environment.

The other Spiney Eel. Not sure which one, was just called a spiney eel. I have seen references to Tire Track and Zig Zag eels that look like this eel though.

Brackish Tank Info

Plants

Plants in a brackish tank? And with a Scat? Alot of plants wont fair well in a brackish tank and Scats are known to devour plants, but I have had some success with plants so far. I tried several plants at first and most died, some were also eaten by the scat. But when it was all said and done the plants that survived the ordeal were Java Ferns and Jungle Val. We also tried Bacopa, Anubias, Dwarf Sag, Amazon Sword, and Anacharis.

Also I must stress plants and fish must be properly acclimated to brackish conditions. This typically involves putting fish or plants bought from freshwater conditions into a small acclimating tank, and slowly over the course of a few weeks raise the salt level up to the level of the brackish tank.

Update: The scat and mono are gone, I have a new tank with puffers and gobies. I am trying to make a go of planting it, only time will tell.

Our Tank(new)

Tank: Glass 45 gallon Odyssea bowfront tank system

Filtration: Eheim 2026 Pro-II canister filter with inline Coralife Turbo Twist 3X Ultra Violet sterilizer (9W)

Lighting: Built in Odyssea twin 21" 65W compact flourescent, currently using one 50/50 (actinic/10,000K daylight) bulb and one Coralife Colormax/6700K daylight combo bulb.

Substrate: Aragonite - sugar sized

Our Tank(old)

Tank: Glass 40 gallon tank, 4 foot long

Filtration: Penguin 330 dual bio-wheel filter, plus power head for extra circulation

Lighting: Shoplight, twin tube, 4 foot long, 2 40W GE Plant and Aquarium bulbs

Substrate: Onyx sand and black gravel

What Fish are Brackish?

There is a lot of confusion with brackish tanks and brackish fish. The more research I did the more confusion I found. In natural brackish settings the water conditions can vary widely and on top of that some fish actually live in one water type and then move to the other. For example, some brackish fish go to freshwater to spawn or vice versa. In general however, I determined that many fish can be acclimated to light or normal brackish waters, and most are sold as freshwater in pet stores for simplicity. Some fish, like Mollies, are sold as freshwater but can actually be acclimated to full marine conditions.

Old information I havent updated in a while:

Here is a quick list I found searching the net of some fish that can be housed in brackish aquariums:

Commonly seen fish for mildly brackish water, SG of 1.005 or below

Mollie, Poecilla sphenops
Sailfin mollie, Poecilia velifera
Kribensis, Pelvicachromis pulcher
Glass fish, Chanda ranga
False tiger datnoid, Coius microlepis
Nandus, Nandus nandus
Celebes rainbowfish, Telmatherina ladigesi
Peacock spiney eel, Macrognathus aculeatus
Tyre track eel, Mastacembelus armatus
Fire eel, Mastacembelus erythrotaenia
Freshwater pipefish, Enneacampus asorgii
Figure eight puffer, Tetradon biocellattus
Violet/dragon goby, Gobioides broussonetii
Bumble bee goby, Brachygobius doriae

Commonly seen fish for strong brackish water, SG of above 1.005

Silver datnoid, Coius quadrifasciatus
Finger fish/mono, Mondactylus argenteus
Sebae mono, Psettus sebae
Scat, Scatophagus argus argus
Archer fish, Toxtes jaculatrix
Four eyes fish, Anablep anablep
Spotted goby, Dorminator maculatus
Knight goby, Stigmatogobius sadanundio
Boney snouted gudgeon, Butis butis
Giant freshwater pipefish, Microphis brachyurus aculeatus
Green spotted puffer, Tetradon nigriventris
Columbian shark catfish, Arius seemani
Berneys sharkcat, Hexanematichthys graeffei
Freshwater morray eel (goldspot and snowflake etc), Gymnothorax tile S