Brackish Delayed...

ianp123

Registered Member
Jul 16, 2006
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Hi All,

Been lurking for a little while and thought I'd jump in to tell a small story.

I was getting my old 10gal ready to be a small brackish tank. Got the substrate in, decorations, got it going in freshwater (since it seems that most LFS sell brackish fish as freshwater fish) and then get some tough looking mollies and some moss to begin the cycling. Everything I've seen tells me that the mollies are tough and can handle both fresh and brackish conditions.

Take it all home, release the fish get ready to put the moss in (the LFS had it labelled as java moss... it's not, not really sure what it is... figure that out later). As the moss sinks to the bottom I see something else... a frog. My LFS keeps their moss in the frog tank and it seems I got an African Dwarf Frog out of the deal... so much for brackish water here... we'll see how this goes. So far I'm feeding it bloodworms and it's thriving.

Ian
 
have you considered taking the frog back and just continuing your brackish plans. If anyhthing, you can get a small desktop type tank for the frog?
 
I suppose I could... my son has already named him though (froggy... how original). I may need to get a nano for him. Don't know if I can justify a _third_ tank though.
 
ianp123 said:
Don't know if I can justify a _third_ tank though.
What! Only a third. We'll have you on MTS in no time :laugh:

An easier way to kickstart your cycle would have been to use ammonia to culture the bacteria. It's all in the cycle sticky. This way you prepare your tank for the livestock and don't end up with any unwanted fish. What fish was you planning to keep? I'm assuming not mollies.
 
Since this is my first experiment with brackish water and it's a small tank (10G) I was thinking of bumbleboo gobies and maybe a shrimp or two (need to reseatch that one). Eventually I'd like a larger setup with Figure-Eight Puffers or similar.

I've heard about the fishless cycle technique but haven't tried it before. I have been dosing the water with Bio-spiura (or similar to kickstart things). We're about 1/2 way through now. 0 Ammonia, plenty of Nitrite (decreasing daily) and almost no Nitrate. Maybe I'll fishless cycle next time.
 
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