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I was talking with my brother about all my aquariums the other day, and he mentioned how cool it would be to keep some mudskippers. I've seen some very neat looking setups for these unique fish, and agreed that yes, it would be cool. They're pretty rare in the LFS as far as I can tell, but my brother said that he could catch some in a local river.
I was under the impression that these were a tropical brackish fish, and not a freshwater fish that could survive winters in the northeast US.
based on that very limited description, does anyone have an idea of what fish he might be talking about and calling it a mudskipper?

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

He's probably thinking of mudpuppies... they live all over the place...

And yea, mudskippers are tropical and brackish. Most, if not all of them (to my knowlege, at least), live in either south america or in asia.

That's bout all I know about the little guys

HTH

I have them in their thousands in Northern Tropical Aust in the rivers and creeks which have all been tidal. It would not be the easest tank to set up as the name sugests they skip along the mud, therefore you would have to have a substrate like a creek bed with plenty of mud banks above the water line.

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Keith

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Ah, mudpuppies, yes. I'm sure that's what he means, thank you PoisonWaffle!

I have seen some lovely setups for some of the smaller species of mudskippers, but I can see how it would be very challenging to create an environment in which they would thrive long-term.

Thanks guys!

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

Mudpuppies ... you mean Mudminnows of course, since a quick Google on "mudpuppy" points you at pages dealing with a salamander species!

If you mean Umbra limi and related fishes, then you're dealing with a cold water fish (it's found in Quebec among other places, and Quebec gets pretty cold in winter) and one that's pretty tough from all accounts. These fishes will tolerate low oxygen levels in the water, and a wide temperature range. At just 3.5 inches long, the Central Mudminnow, Umbra limi, makes a good colwater pet fish.

Mudminnow page from Cornell university

Mudskippers, on the other hand, are a challenge even for a veteran aquarist. To keep these fishes happy, you have to simulate a tidal mangrove swamp. Trouble is, your average Sonneratia mangrove is a tad large for a paludarium - Sonneratia alba is a tree reaching twenty metres in height! So that's one part of the furnishing that you'll have to forego unless you're setting up your Mudskipper home in your very own converted aircraft hangar. Then, you have the fun of choosing a suitable substrate, so that they can make burrows in it, and then you have all the fun of giving them brackish water. Not only that, but if you want to stand even the slightest chance of persuading them to breed, you'll need to provide cyclically changing salinity on a 12-hour cycle to match the tides in their native home. I suspect you would also have to set up the lighting to match the lunar cycle too. Feeding will prove demanding too, as their fairly specialised detritivores.

Mind you, it is possible to keep them in a home paludarium setup. But it's not easy, and it's a brave aquarist that takes these fishes on even after doing the research.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

No, I think mudpuppies was right. I Googled it too, and when I saw salamanders, I was pretty sure that's why my brother got all excited about the idea of catching them for me and keeping them in a tank. I've often thought about trying to keep herps, sirens, Axolotls, and creatures of that ilk, but I don't know that I'd want a tank (and it would have to be a very large tank) full of 15 inch long salamanders. Although I did find a few large tanks in the recent copy of our local classifieds... Hmm... the possibilities.

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...