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Hi everyone

I am considering a brackish setup in the future but I want to be well read on the topic prior to setting up the tank. My main question is what would be the minimum tank size for 3-4 archerfish considering that the tank will have to have some sand banks for the mudskippers. The setup that I am considering wil be setup in the following way

48x14x24
3-4 Archerfish
3-4 African Mudskippers
Eheim 2213

Any opinions would be great.
Thanks
Trav

Mudskippers really need a tank to themselves. The tank would have to be REALLY big to accommodate both archers and mudskippers. That size of tank would work for just archers, though it still might be better to get a wider tank. Fourteen inches wide is a little narrow for archers in my opinion.

You would probably be ok with either the archers or the mudskippers in that set up. You may want to keep it at 3 archers though, just to be safe.

If you wanted to house both, you could go with something larger, such as 72x24. The biggest concern with the mudskippers, as you said, is making sure they have a bank and area to get out of the water. This makes it difficult to house other fish with them, especially larger fish, like archers.

HTH

You'd need a much larger tank if you planned on keeping archers and skippers together, even then it might be a bit tricky. A very wide surface area is a must to allow the archers swimming room while still providing some kind of surface for the skippers to bask in. Archers can get nearly a foot long in captivity, even larger in the wild, a group of them alone would require a wider tank than what you have listed. Although smaller species of archerfish exist (ex. T. microlepis), they can be hard to find and discriminate from their larger size relatives.
The skippers may also be a bit to boisterous for the archers as far as feeding and general aggression go. Needless to say, raise young specimens together and hope that they learn to get along.

Thanks everyone

definately something to think about. COnsidering a tank with a larger footrpint like a 6'x2'x2.5' or an 8'x2'x2'

Noddy

Last edited by noddy at 19-Nov-2004 18:40