Where to start?? Is there such thing as "mildly brackish"??

[sandypants]

So I have a 16 g freshwater... among my peaceful little community is a mature Pea Puffer (I am pretty sure a male) that I have had for about 4 months. He is for the most part, pretty peaceful and as long as I do one feeding of frozen blood worms a day. I do flakes in the morning but of course he doesn't touch those then a small piece of FBW in the evening and when I swish the FBW out I leave some in the net and he (PeaTree) will swim in and eat the rest while I hold the net- combination cute and time consuming :) Anyway if I miss a day or so of FBW I may notice a couple nips out of my Glo-Lite tetra tail fins. He doesn't touch the golds for some reason (too fast?) anyway I did loads of research before getting him and found contrasting "they are brackish" vs. "completely freshwater" information as well as how agressive they can be- again I keep a close eye on him and the other fish.

Anway FF to a couple of weeks ago when at my LFS I purchased a BumbleBee Goby. I had seen these before, thought they were cute and did a little research. Again contrasting information- brackish/FW. Since my LFS had them in at the time, I caved and got one. He seems to be doing alright although he doesn't like my current at all (and it's set on low) and I have to make special arangments for him as well with the FBW feeding.... make sure to drop some in his area then chase off other fish who go after it.

SOOO to make him happy and (I am guessing) my other fish less stressed, I purchased a used 5 g Eclipse hex yesterday and have plans to make it a "slight/mild" brackish tank.. is this possible? I figured to not add a lot of salt, just a little and the two of them seem fine, I have never seen nips on the goby and the BBG's and DPF are in the same tank generally at the LFS.

I'm aware I prob. shouldn't have gotten the goby if he is brackish but I couldn't resist and now I've gotten attached.

Is a mini-brack tank okay? Any experience with these two together?

I figured once it's set up and cycled (can I just use some of my current media and water to get it started) then I will start SLOWLY adding some (pre-mixed with water of course) aquarium salt.

Suggestions? Thoughts? Please be nice (blush) I AM trying to research before-hand now.

[robnepper]

Do not use aquarium salt!!! Use marine salt. Unless that's what you meant, of course. Get a book. I highly recommend the one that I got only days ago. It's called Brackish water fishes, by Neale Monks. It's extremely comprehensive and will answer all of your questions. It's been specifically written to adress the problem of confusing brackish info and also because brackish is becoming more and more popular.

Yes there is such a thing as mildly brackish. Brackish water is considered to be .002 - .018. So .002 would be on the very mild end and .018 is at the high end.

Most brackish fish are able to tolerate quite a variance in salinity since there environment changes hour by hour in the wild. So while it is true that your SG only has to be close, most fish do have an ideal range.

But really, invest the money and buy that book. It's really good and you will be astonished at what species are able to thrive in low end brackish and how many fishes there are to choose from.

To my knowledge, Pea Tree is not a brackish fishy, but I found the same thing when I researched for my Malabar puffer. It's irritating how much conflicting info there is out there.

[annageckos]

Pea puffers are freshwater fish. The bubblebee gobie is brackish and you should be able to use the 5 gallon hex for it.

[Amazon]

i have the same tank, yes it will be better for them.
pics of them?