Getting a Silver Scat

[labnjab]

We ordered a silver scat to eventually add to our 75 gallon reef for aiptasia control. We won't have him for a few weeks, but we want to set-up a qt/acclimation tank for him. He is being sold in brackish and over the course of a few weeks we will acclimate it to full saltwater conditions.

Currently we are in the process of setting up the qt tank. It will be a bare bottom 10 gallon with a HOB filter and heater. I had a few questions on setting up and cycling a brackish tank

1. What is a good starting Specific Gravity? I know ideal is what it is being sold at, but I won't know that for a few weeks and I want this tank cycled by the time we get it.
2. Can we use seeded filter media from either a freshwater tank or our saltwater tanks, or will we have to start from scratch?

Actually, I was thinking of starting it as freshwater, using media from one of our freshwater tanks, and adding a few black mollies to keep the cycle. Then over a few days start increasing the salinity until its to the desired starting brackish level. I'll leave the mollies in with scat and bring them up to full salt as well. I have plenty of room in our frag tank for the mollies once the qt/ acclimation period is done.


Thank you for any input and let us know what you think

[smaug]

The idea with the mollys is the perfect solution. When I sat up my brack tank I started at 1.003 and used media from a cycled fw tank. It did not go quite as quick as a straight fw but it fully cycled in a bit more then a week using mollys. I bumped the salinity up to 1.005 the week after . Brack fish are very easy to acclimate to most any condition,mollys could live in a puddle in an old cowboy hat.

[Sasquatch]

Why don't you ask your LFS what salinity the brackish fish (specifically scats) from that supplier are usually shipped at? I would doubt that the supplier keeps many different salinities, especially for the same variety of fish.

If the LFS receives other brackish fish, he'll be able to test it. He may also be able to call the supplies and ask what salinity it's being kept at.

[labnjab]

I never thought to ask him, lol, but he's not really a LFS. Its a guy who runs a tank cleaning service that also sells fish and dry goods out of his basement. He deals mainly is saltwater and he's working on opening a store.

So we will do the thing with the black mollys. I'm going to pick up a heater tonight and fill the tank and hopefully have a couple of mollies by the end of the week. Thank you for the input

[labnjab]

We set up the tank and picked up a pair of black mollies last night. They look pretty healthy too. I also mixed up a few gallons of brackish water in a 5 gallon bucket and will start switching out half a gallon a day or so until we get it to the desired level for the scat. I'll keep you updated on the progress