Brackish Water Plants

[Iliveinazoo]

We have 2 brackish water tanks; 1 is already established and the 2nd tank is cycling and waiting for a mudskipper.

I would like to add live plants to both of the tanks but our LFS doesn't seem to know too much about them, the only advice they can give me is 'i think a Java fern might be ok'. Does anyone know what (if any) species will survive in a brackish set-up?
The established tank will benefit from a broad leaved plant whereas the cycling tank would probably benefit from a narrow leaf/reed type plant.

 

[Garuf]

If you go onto Tropica's website I'm lead to believe they have a list, lillinopsis sees to be a good choice though.

 

[Lisa_Perry75]

Please could you let us know the specific gravity of your water to give us an idea. Also any other information about your tanks like the substrate, what light (eg T8) and how much (wattage). If you could let us know this would be good.

Have a read of this sticky from another forum:-
http://www.fishforums.net/content/Brackish-Forum/143235/Planting-Brackish-Aquaria/

Mods - if the direct link to another forum is not allowed please delete and I can pm it.

 

[Lisa_Perry75]

(Double post so cut out repeat)


So what do you have in your set-up? My fella has a brackish tank with a mudskipper, he is sooo funky. Apart from the time he bit me! Its handy having a snail infestation in a way as I feed them to the puffers. The puffers are a bit big for fully grown pouch snails now though.

 

[beeky]

Rather spookily I was juat about to post up a question asking if anyone knew if hairgrass (either type) would grow in a brackish tank. And then I saw this.....weird.

Anyway, the only brackish plants I know of are anubias, java fern (as you've been told) and I think vallis.

I'm thinking of setting up an amano, nerite tank and slowly turning it brackish to see what happens......

 

[Lisa_Perry75]

This must be done quite slowly to not kill off the filter bacteria I got a bit crazy about it and took it up to 1.005 over 5 months. I did have fish in there though. I realise brackish fish are hardier, but these were "rescues" from when I worked in the shop. They were covered in whitespot so didn't want to put them under too much stress.

 

[Ed Seeley]

Crinum thianum are supposed to be fine in brackish water too. Not so sure about the other Crinum spp.

 

[Iliveinazoo]

Thanks for the ideas.
What I have in my tanks are:
Tank 1: Substrate: river pebbles (we were going to do a tropical tank because the gf wanted a puffer fish like she used to have and 1/2 way through the cycling we discovered that they were brackish fish).
Lighting: T5 at around 6000KI believe and I can't remember the power but i think that it's 36Watt.
Salinity: 1.008.
Fish: 5 Bumblebee Gobies (1 large one that controls the centre ground)
1 Waspfish
1 Spotted Puffer (plans are already being made for if/when he decides to perform a hostile takeover).
Decor: 2 rocks with some hidey holes, 2 plastic plants, anubias barterri (not sure of spelling) and some freshwater floaters (no name unfortunately) that i got for free from the LFS because he couldn't help me too much. The anubias seems to be maintaining health rather than flourishing and we've only had the floaters a week and i presume they'll start to die soon.

Tank 2: Substrate: sand.
Lighting: 25 watt T8 at around 6500K.
Decor: 2 terrapin platforms, 2 plastic hanging vine style plants, log that penetrates the water's surface and 3 marine rocks ( we were thinking about setting up a marine tank but our lighting would have had to modified and probably would have been too expensive to run but the marine rocks have lots of places to hide so they weren't a complete waste of money :? ). Plus i think that we'll enjoy a mudskipper more than we would a marine tank (if he doesn't bite that is )

 

[Ed Seeley]

I should have added Phillipine Java Fern too. That was apparently collected at a location with brackish water so should do really well!