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Hello all, Was working in the fishroom a bit and listening to some old Aquarium Co-Op live streams, and heard Cory talking about how important documenting his hobby has been. While I take some pictures here and there (and even have a DSLR!) lately I've been slacking on the documentation. In the past six months I've moved (although just down the street), gone through several jobs, gotten a couple new puppies, and have just in general been too busy to expand the fishroom, let alone document it much. I want that to change! This is just going to be a journal detailing what I've got going on in my fishroom and whatever maintenance/changes I might have made on a daily/weekly basis. Might be something as interesting as breeding fish and setting up tanks or something as boring as just light tank maintenance. Either way, I'd love for it to be documented. To start, here's what I did today: First, I decided to vacuum some of the poop and mulm off the bottom of my Flowerhorn tank. It's a 40B filtered by a single sponge filter, which takes care of the biological needs of the tank easily, but leaves a lot to be desired with mechanical filtration. I'll eventually add a canister or something to help keep some of this mulm sucked up, but for now, weekly siphonings are the way to go. Before: After: Here's a nice picture of my FH: I also scraped a little bit of algae in my 55 Green Spotted Puffer tank. Added in another 5 gallons of water to keep bubbles from the HOB down to a minimum. Before: After: The mission for this week is to move a 36 bowfront out of my fishroom and to build a cinderblock stand for a 37 XH and 20 tall for some guppies, mollies, and shrimp. The 36 is going to be an upgrade for my Eastern Musk Turtle, who currently lives in a 20 long. Until next time!

Hello! I recently decided to try keeping mudskippers (thanks, @Zenzo!). I got a 29g and put in a special order for dwarf Indian mudskippers at my local fish store. I have no idea when they'll arrive, but I want to make sure their home is ready when they do. I could really use some feedback on the current setup. I have about 5g of water in here, a sponge filter, and a small pump to make sure the filtered water fully circulates around the tank. I'll put a heater in there, too. And I'm planning to add some more sand. I've also order some red mangroves to go into the terracotta pots. The goal is brackish, but I believe the local fish store keeps mudskippers in freshwater, so I plan to start there and slowly acclimate them up. Does this seem like a reasonable tank design? Should I add more land and less water? Any advice is very welcome! Also, I'd like to get 3-4, but I'm not sure the tank is big enough. No other tank mates planned, maybe some nerite snails. Thank you!

Alright as some of you are already aware I am creating a brackish mudskipper paludarium in my school! No live stock yet but mangrove and dwarf hair grass!

examples: live stock (they theoretically could live), habits, equipment and it could be fresh-> salt dont limit your self, these sorts of hypotheticals help exercise creativity and can give others ideas for setups!

So I was thinking about hydrometers and would it be possible to cut the face with all the numbers and floaty army thingy (very scientific!) and put that in the aquarium similar to having a thermometer in the aquarium? Idk could be interesting if any one wants to do it be sure to post it!

Its me again! So a red mangrove seed we ordered for the school tank arrived today! I was wondering if easy green is okay to use in brackish water (I assume it is.) Also my specific gravity is 1.004 is that to low? (planning on Indian mudskipers, ghost shrimp, bumble bee gobies (or any small goby, maybe) and maybe even a green tree frog)

So recently, I've started my hunt for the elusive Indian Mudskipper. I've signed up for all the websites I could find online and plan on talking to my local fish store about it. Does anyone have any suggestions on what to do if the store can't order other than wait patiently? Also, any websites that have worked or just general ways to coax stores to order some are also very helpful. Thanks in advance!

So I’m making a brackish mudskipper paludarium for my school and my marine bio teacher was supposed to buy dwarf hair grass, mangrove seeds, and marimo algae; he instead bought the scam carpeting plant seeds! I told him how they were a scam and told him to return them (he bought them from Amazon.) The next day we had a bomb threat at school (yah fun!) so I didn’t have that class, the very next day in ap bio I saw weird specks so I asked the marine bio teacher and he said he put them in! Are they going to be able to grow in brackish water because I really don’t want to have to deal with them, I’m pretty pissed at the teacher for not listening to me.

Hello again! This forum has been really helpful before so I'm giving it another go! So I'm setting up my 20 gallon brackish paledarium and haven't given up on plants yet with some duckweed and hornwort currently acclimating to freshwater. I know mangroves, Java fern, hornwort and Java moss work but what other freshwater plants could I acclimate really slowly to see if it will live in brackish water? @Zenzo I saw your video on the Java moss and Anubis trees, have they worked or is that still pending? Also, if anyone can suggest some nice fake plants, that would also help a lot. Thanks for reading!

I've recently re-setup my 20 tall when I discovered the wonderful world of brackish water fish. Now, after looking at some FishTube, forums, and websites, I have a good understanding on how to setup and keep a brackish tank. The real question is what are the option I have for a 20 tall tank? I was thinking a single figure 8 puffer but I am interested in an Indian mudskipper tank as well. If anyone has any info for stocking ideas for a brackish 20 tall or more information on Indian mudskippers (such as if I need a group or having one solo would work), please let me know. Any and all help is appreciated and thanks!

Hello! I set up a 36 gallon bowfront for a Figure 8 Puffer around 3 months ago. Initially, I planned on just doing the puffer, but found that the tank was far too similar to my Green Spotted Puffer tank. I put in a small female guppy to see how he'd react to her, and he paid no attention, even when she was stealing his food. So, I decided that a lightly-brackish planted community tank was the way to go. I chose a coarse sand for the puffer, since they like to blow the substrate around while looking for food. I went with black to highlight the green on the puffer’s back, and the green/black combo with the plants is always nice too. I used two pieces of Mopani to “scape” the tank - I stuck them in there in a position I found pleasing and called it quits. I’ve never been much of a scaper, lol. Once I found that the guppy did well with the puffer, I added a male and a second female. Then, a week or two later, I added a trio of platies. The tank was still freshwater, as I figured I’d just acclimate the whole tank to low-end brackish once it was stocked to make it easier on everyone. At this point, I noticed that the puffer had come down with a little bit of ich, and one of the platies had some spots as well. So, I went ahead and began increasing the salinity of the tank, and that took care of the ich after around 8 days. After the ich was taken care of, I introduced a trio of balloon mollies as well as around 8 ghost shrimp. I expected the shrimp to be hunted down in a few days, but the puffer doesn’t really hunt them. He ate one when I dumped them into the tank, but I think he figured out they’re hard to catch, and I keep him well-fed enough that he doesn’t have a chance to get hungry enough to try too hard. The shrimp still give him a wide berth, but spend plenty of time out in the open. They make great additions to the tank. Then, I added 4 black racer nerites, since I was getting some pretty intense diatoms on the glass. Nerites are one of the few snails that I know of that’ll do well in brackish and have a small enough foot that they can protect it while they’re stuck to something. One of the snails didn’t make the acclimation, unfortunately, but the other three have done well. The puffer pays a lot of attention to them, but I haven’t seen him pester them too much. A few days after that, I added in some Limia Nigrofasciata, the Humpback Limia. They’re roughly as brackish-tolerant as platies, and I was surprised to find them at my LFS. They’re a common Limia, but definitely still pretty rare in your average LFS, I’d say. I ordered 8 bumbebee gobies at my LFS that same day, and picked them up last Thursday. They ordered 12 and had 11 make it, so I took home all 11. I've since lost 1, that I know of. I probably went heavy on stocking, but with how I tend to maintenance my tanks, I think it'll be okay. I’ve got a pretty wide variety of plants, including: Crypt Wendtii Crypt Wendtii Red Crypt Tropica Flame Sword Jungle Vallisneria Marimo Moss Anubias Nana Anubias Golden El Nino Fern Java Fern Windelov Golden Pothos (growing out of the top of the tank) Everything except for the Pothos is doing well so far, although I may get rid of the Anacharis. I like the plant, but it’s just so hard to keep planted! It’s almost more trouble than it’s worth. I’m always looking for more brackish-tolerant plants, too, so if anyone has suggestions, hit me up! I especially love Crypts, but am finding them to be incredibly slow growing under brackish conditions. All the plants are growing slower than they do in freshwater, but the Crypts are especially slow - I did start with small plants, but still. The tank is filtered by an Aquarium Co-Op sponge filter and an Aquaclear 50, but I plan to remove the HOB once the tank is more established with a few more plants. Don’t need the HOB sucking up babies! I just have a generic Top Fin heater in the tank right now - I’d like to get a nice Fluval or Aqueon heater, once I can find the models I want in stock. For lighting, I’m using a 30” Finnex Stingray, and plan to stick with that light. I love it! It’s perfect for that low-medium light range in this tank. Maintenance in this tank consists of weekly 50% water changes, and the occasional glass scraping. Frequent re-plantings of the Anacharis have been a requirement, too, and I need to whip out the super glue and attach some Anubias to the driftwood more permanently - I’ve just been lazy. I have some sponge and cuttlebone in the HOB, but haven’t been running any chemical/physical media. I may add some carbon to help with the tannins, but I’m undecided. I don’t especially hate the tannined look, but I’m not necessarily a fan, either. So far, this tank is just fun for me. I love seeing how organisms react in situations we may not necessarily expect them to be in - plants and the common livebearers in salty water, for example. I bred some guppies in full saltwater, and had a blast with that. I just kinda play with this tank, and of course love the Figure 8 Puffer, the reason the tank even exists. This one is actually fairly brave, even compared to my larger GSP who tends to flip out if I approach the tank too quickly. I do a lot of saltwater tanks, and have several breeding projects going that tend to be a bit higher pressure, in a way. Plus, I work at a pet store, so I’m around tanks 24/7. Having a tank I can just enjoy is a nice change of pace!

Anyone successful with plant in brackish with figure 8 pufferfish

The latest video on Tazawa's Tanks with Dean inspired me to try a brackish tank, and in particular mudskippers. However, it appears they are very difficult to find right now. Does anyone know of a source for mudskippers at the moment?

I want to create a brackish aquarium. I would use a 20 gallon tank, and am interested in figure eight puffers. I would like to know how to execute one properly, and what plants are good choices. Thanks!

So we know salt is bad for plants. We know that salt is a good way to treat disease. We know that keeping fish in their familiar environment is less stressful... My betta had a touch of fin rot that did not seem to respond to a combo of maracyn and ichX. So I devised this... The giant pickle jar is floating freely in his tank. It is at his familar temperature, and I am feedinng very lightly and changing the salted water 50% daily. He looks better and seems pretty happy honestly. I vote big win.