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Permalink Reply by ŦůRbö ۰ Ҏяѻ ۰ on November 29, 2012 at 3:12pm

 I can save you some time if you want. LOL.  I have done this. I find that most plants will survive in salt. You'll likely be surprised at how many common aquarium plants are, to some degree brackish. Most all do tolerate salts to some extent. All those that I listed can do well at the lower end of brackish range... near densities of 1.008-.010 The list below are the ones I have kept (and still keep) in such circumstances:

Anacharis, Anubias, Bacopa, Cabomba, Hornwort, Water Sprite, Cryptocoryne, Echinodorus Hairgrass, "E" type, Hygrophila polysperma, Java Fern, Foxtail, Banana Plant, Sagittaria, Vallisneria (Jungle Val).

I had two brackishwater tanks durring this experiment, one heated and one not. (Mostly cause I dropped and broke my heater, lol) the heated tank stayed at 76F, and the non-heated would be 72F in the day, and drop to 66F at night, in the winter it would drop to 57-60F (I like it very cool while I sleep lol). I didnt see any difference in the plant growth or anything. (Seeing that in nature the water temp changes, I figured that it would not affect the plants.)

I would suggest not to keep Cabomba with fig8 puffers. They like to pick on it, and it makes a HUGE mess in the tank. I found this out the hard way. haha

These plants were in dirted, sand capped tanks, 1.008 - 1.010 salt level, medium light, and dosed seachem flourish with the weekly water change. (1.005 is what is considered the "normal" for brackish water.) (1.025 is ocean water.)

Good luck and keep me posted on your experiment!

Oh one other thing, you have to acclimate the plants to the brackish water, just like fish. Going from freshwater to some salt will shock and kill the plants. (they quite literally melt. I mean melt, as in turn it a slimy film outline of a plant.)

 

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Permalink Reply by Alex on November 29, 2012 at 9:07pm

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Many thanks Turbo!  I'll try to keep my salinity around 1.008-.10.  I'm trying to balance keeping the water salty enough for the needs of my toadstool algae and at the same time fresh enough to successfully grow the freshwater plants.  Do you have any recommendations as to what I could safely keep as a clean-up crew with my green spotted puffer which as you probably is a predator of snails, etc.?

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Permalink Reply by ŦůRbö ۰ Ҏяѻ ۰ on November 30, 2012 at 12:47am

Oh man, youre kinda out of luck with a puffer since they attack everything. Mollies are brackish water fish and will nibble at algae, but the puffer will attack them, Amano shrimp can be acclimated to BW and are great algae eaters, but the puffer will eat them. Fiddler crabs are also good BW algae eaters but not just any tank can accomodate them as they require air access, and the puffer will eat them. (or sometimes the crabs will get ahold of the puffer and eat him.) Nerite snails are BW safe (and full on saltwater) and will control algae, but the puff will eat them... I think you can see were this is going. lol.

Adding fish will add to the "bio-load" and create more algae. If you learn how to control algae by not overfeeding, doing small (20%) water changes every week, and limit the amount of light. You can keep it almost aglae free.

Try a google search, but I personally havent seen many aglae eating BW fish. If someone tells you that you can acclimate a Pleco to BW they lied. lol.

All I had in my tanks were snails, and ghost shrimp. (Ghost shrimps do not like salt all that much lol) and with weekly water changes the algae was kept in check. Seachem Excell helps to keep BBA (Black Beard Algae) in check.

The main thing, I believe, is light control & water changes. I did 7.5 hours a day, and left the lights off one or two days a month. (I try to copy nature, a cloudy day is what I was doing. lol)

 

 

 

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