I am converting my FW tank to BW and would like to know if all of my fish will be okay. I have a well-planted 29 gallon tank with an Eclipse hood. Right now I have two killifish, 6 tiger barbs, one green tiger barb, three cory cats (various), a bumble bee goby, three mollies, two ghost glass shrimp, and an albino stubby-nose pleco. So far I've just been adding a tsp of marine salt per gallon when doing 5-gallon water changes each week and everyone seems to be doing fine. I know the mollies and goby will do well, and I've read that the killifish should be alright, but I was wondering about the cories and the barbs. I have a 55 gallon tank that's FW but it's mostly aggressive cichlids and sharks so I fear my barbs would become lunch in a hurry. Any input?
Will my fish live?
- Thread starter legbamel
- Start date
The plants will start do die off as well. You really will want to get a hydrometer and track the specific gravity--just adding it without testing will result in instabilities that may kill the fish. The barbs, cories and pleco won't do well much above 1.005. Really, you'd be better off setting up a BW tank specifically for those fish, rather than trying to make the FW ones adapt.
I moved a bunch of Corys, 2 plecos and an unfortunately high number of guppies into my brackish tank (it's mostly for my figure-eight puffer). The guppies were actually hopeful food for the puffer (too fast unfortunately), but everything has lived (thrived even).
Dangerdoll
Global Moderator
pleco's especially won't do well in that tank and I highly doubt he's "thriving"..... surviving, maybe, but not thriving.... pleco's aren't very tolerant of salt....
I don't know who's being referred to in August, since I've just joined, but I've had the tank over a year now. The large pleco has grown ~2 inches since I placed it, from 10" to 12", since before it was sharing a larger tank with 2 others. The second pleco is a clown dwarf, already full grown. Although I must correct myself and say I meant the guppies and puffer are doing quite well (good colors, good growth).
Your initial post, made in August, implies that you were beginning the conversion of your tank at that time--around 2 months ago. The effects of increasing salinity won't be noticable within this time frame, especially low levels.