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i want to set-up a brackish water tank. i want to have archers. um. where do i start. also can someone answer me this: brackish, they need salt and the water can be clear. b/c i always thought of brackish = dirty.
acutully i change my mind. i want to add a ancher to my tank. i was reading and i heard that they can be kept in FW? how

Last edited by bettachris at 19-Mar-2005 23:41

http://badmanstropicalfish.com/brackish/brackish.html

The only thing I disagree with is the necessity for sand. Crushed coral or aragonite is best, IMHO.

on the site it says that mollys should be kept in brackish, but they can live in Fw. now is the archer fish the same thing.

No, mollies are that way because of years of breeding in captivity in freshwater. Archers should definitely have brackish water. They are still wild caught in the brackish environments that they come from. They could survive for a while in freshwater, mine survived several months, but they really thrive in brackish. When I corrected the situation in my tank, their color got better and they became more active.

As for dirty, in a tank, the brackish should be as clear as salt or fresh water.

One thing to remember with archers is that they get very large and will need a very large tank to house them. I agree that they should be kept in brackish water as they don't do very well for very long in FW.

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Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody. -- Mark Twain

so it isn't worth getting an archer for a Fw tank.

You are correct, if you can't keep a fish in conditions natural to it, then don't keep the fish. It's immune system will be compromised, causing disease & shorten lifespan.

Archers grow to twelve inches, and, for the majority of their adult lives, live in nearly full saltwater. This alone makes them unsuitable for all but the most specialized aquaria. In fact, in their range, they are often caught miles away from shore, cruising above coral flats.

Mollies are not kept in FW as a result of inbreeding. One cannot change physiology to this degree merely by “inbreeding”, as has been so suggested. There are, BTW, many well established fully riverine molly populations, most notably in the Grand Canyon and inland Everglade groups. There are others, regarded in name by their locality, but me not being a livebearer expert states that I won’t be able to tell you which variations they are. In other parts of their range, mollies migrate between FW and BW, depending on food availibilty.

The fact is that mollies are FW and BW fish, while archers are BW and marine fish.

Not sure where you got your information from, but the archers that are available, chatareus and jaculatrix, while they are occasionally found out in open waters, primarily reside in the brackish mangroves and freshwater streams. Even fishbase indicates that although jaculatrix have been reported in the ocean, the primarily stay in freshwater/brackish conditions. Chatareus is more likely to be found in coastal waters, however, they are found less often in the pet trade. Also, www.wetwebmedia.com recommends keeping them in brackish water, stating that long term exposure to full SW will probably not be good for them.

Jaculatrix? We rarely, if ever, get barred archers in our store, as opposed to the spotted archer. I have seen numerous sources state that archers of the aforementioned species are regularly found as pelagic fish, and rarely riverine, save the spawning season; adults are not a common FW find. In fact, fishermen catch much of their archerfish stock in surrounding costal waters. Pygmies are the only "FW" archers, all things considered (not to mention that you yourself stated that they could not thrive in fresh water for very long, if at all). My boss, by the by, keeps archers in a full marine tank, and has yet to run into any problems. The several hundred gallon archer display at Sea World San Diego also keeps them at VERY high end brackish water, and all is well (and has been since the tank started up).


Last edited by Cup_of_Lifenoodles at 23-Mar-2005 18:35

Fair enough.