20 Gallon Long Brackish Water Stock Ideas

[ShortyKiloGyrl]

I very unfortunately lost my GSP the other night. I am still heart broken over it. He was my by far all time favorite fish. :no:

I am not ready to get another one. I do like puffers and I am considering a figure 8 puffer instead. I have all the equipment for a brackish water tank and he was the only fish in the tank and I have snails I let take over in tank as well for food. So now I'm looking for brackish water fish ideas that will live well in a 20 long planted tank. I'm not going to rush into anything since I need to figure out if I need to get an RO/DI system. I have lost way too many fish since moving and I am in touch with the city to get reports. But once I get my water situation figured out then I will hopefully get my fish back up to where I would like them to be. I have considered as well not getting any more fish since I can't seem to get a healthy environment for them since my move.

For now, I'm just looking for ideas so I can research and decide if I want to keep this tank up in the future or if I will just remove it from the equation all together.

Thanks for any ideas!

 

[DMD123]

Sorry for your loss.

Puffers are very easy to get attached to with their interesting little personalities. Mine is as interactive as my big cichlids but takes up a lot less space. If I ever had to scale things down, likely my puffer would be the one I would keep.

 

[ShortyKiloGyrl]

Mine would have been one to keep as well if I had to scale down. I love the little bugger. I have pea puffers in my office but they just aren't the same. I was so sad to turn on the light and see him. I lost it yesterday morning. The rest of my day was crap after that and my co-workers just don't get it. "it's just a fish".

It sounds like I may have high copper coming from the tap. I'm waiting for the test results from when (ironically) our house was 1 of 10 chosen in the city to test in August. I guess my boyfriend got the results and tossed them and I never saw them. He thinks he remembers the copper readings being high. I wish I would have known in August. I could have saved multiple fish lives... I just need to confirm that's the problem and probably buy an RO/DI system.

 

[ShortyKiloGyrl]

Current options are:

Figure 8 puffer
Knight Goby
Bumblebee Goby (maybe)
Mollies (BIG maybe)

 

[DMD123]

Another thing to take into consideration is when you fill a tank after a water change. If you mix in any warm water, you can get stuff that is sitting in your water heater. It could be as simple as stuff from a corroded anode rod or dirt and sediment built up from years of use. I have a fairly new heater and do mix warm, but if you have not done so you may read up on how to flush out your water heater. You might then try smaller cold water only water changes and see if that helps.

 

[ShortyKiloGyrl]

I do cold water changes already, I as well do not have carbon in my tanks, use Prime at fill up, and nets are not shared between tanks. I lost two fish from a tank I was even treating with PraziPro. One went through the full week, not showing any symptoms to begin with but I wanted to treat the whole tank since it was a manageable size so not to transfer the disease. At the end of the treatment period she was acting the same as her mate was, I did the water change and added carbon to remove out the PraziPro and she died that night.

 

[DMD123]

High concentration of copper... so likely a home with copper pipe and possibly the use of a lead based solder.

I had lived in an old house that had galvanized pipe and I would have to pull off all the faucet screens and run the water to flush rust out of the system. I drank bottled water and was not keeping fish at the time. Im sure I would have had a ton of issues too.

 

[ShortyKiloGyrl]

It is an older house so I'm guessing copper is my issue. I have NEVER had this many problems in my 11 years of fish keeping until I moved here in december, about 3 months later I started having problems and I encountered my first fish with HITH and my tank parameters were well and this is my most established tank and healthiest of all of them. That was the tank I was treating with PraziPro. I had done the recommended large water change for adding the PraziPro and I think that added the large amount of copper to the tank that I had been doing 25-30% WC's on. Thus killing both fish in the tank.

 

[DMD123]

The RO water thing would remove the copper but it also would remove everything. I guess you can have crazy PH swings if you you do not re-mineralize the water. When doing salt, the salt mixes have all that but when using it fresh can be an issue.

 

[ShortyKiloGyrl]

I need to research but I'm in touch with a guy who breeds fish and is well known that Shawn introduced me to. He said dosing to add the correct minerals back in is pretty easy, like adding dechlorinator to water.