Apocryptes bato mudskippers

A while back (mid-July) I found some interesting-looking gobies being sold at Pet Stop; they resembled Sicyopus or Stiphodon species, only a bit larger. They were called "silver gobies" or something like that in the shop, and @Pierré Schoonraad thought they might be something called "Mountain Rock Gobies" which after some Googling I found to be a very cute Sicyopus that looks just like an oversized Stiphodon. Since I love Stiphodons and follow this thread with a semi-religious intensity this was a no-brainer and I bought 3, putting them temporarily in a high-oxygen tank with a bunch of South American bumblebee cats.

As time went by they grew and grew, as did their fins which became long and flowing. I was starting to worry that I had purchased a trio of Purple Dragon Gobies by mistake (a cool fish, but not one I actually want to keep). More Googling commenced, and EVENTUALLY (you know how hard it is to search for a plain silver goby?) I found this thread where someone was looking for an ID for a fish closely resembling my little guys. One of the suggestions made was Apocryptes bato, and when I looked that up, there were my fish! Here's a good page on them. They're a type of brackish mudskipper from India. They've been doing fine in freshwater so far, but obviously it won't be ideal.

Now... you see my problem? I can't find a single article on them from the aquarium hobby, only scientific literature. And one forum post. So I'm kinda having to make this up as I go along. Fortunately I like nothing more than a challenge, so this thread is going to be about that. Also fortunately, I recently succumbed to the lure of the Dark Side and set up a small reef tank, so I feel a little more confident with salt water than I would have a while ago. Now my brain's going all manic with visions of tankmates, mangroves, mud, all these fancy setups that pump all the water out and back again to simulate tidal action... This is going to be fun!

 

Very cool - but where is the pics of your monster ..

 

Very happy to hear about your mudskippers. Sorry I lead you on the wrong path with the ID of them. I never noticed the prodruding eyes on them. At least now you have a perfectly valid reason to setup another tank

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Hahahaha I think it's awesome congrats!!! But would also love to see a photo or 20!

 

@Pierré Schoonraad I give you all the credit, if you hadn't intrigued me with the possible ID I might not have bought them and then where would I be? @f-fish , what monster? The skippers? Or some tank that I've been talking about and haven't shown pics? I'll get a photo asap... @SterlingAce Thank you! Same with the photos... and I see some Figure 8s in my future @Reedfish , in my compulsive searching last night I realised that Neale knows all there is to know about these things, I'm working my way through his website Brackish FAQ.

OK, so what I've found so far says the following:
One, these skippers are happy with low-end brackish conditions, so I'm planning on a bit under 1.005 salinity (ie my reef tank's salinity divided by 5). Also, that works for a lot of other nice species such as figure 8 puffers and knight gobies, and saline-tolerant plants such as vallis and Java moss and fern.
Two, they don't appear to spend as much time out of the water as other skippers do (as also evidenced by their physiology and the fact that they haven't climbed out of the bumblebee tank yet). So I'm going for a small beach area, using either rocks or a Perspex shelf-type thingy to hold the sand while still giving a lot of water volume.
Three, it seems to be recommended to start and cycle the tank FW (especially since the relevant fish are all kept in FW in the shops anyway) and increase the salinity during water changes, in increments of 0.002ppt.

Sooo, the plan is, 2 1/2 or 3-footer, start fresh, planted, lots of Vallis (looks like seagrass!) play sand, lots of rocks, good use for all those that fail the vinegar test! Small beach, not sure how yet, and either HM or home-made internal canister/sponge filter, depending on how I decide to do the beach. Then overstock scandalously according to my usual MO Yay! (it's never failed me yet, only had one tank crash and that's cause my cat peed on the light ) I have 4 halfbeaks (wrestling I think, though more colourful than most photos show), do you think wrestling halfbeaks would do well in brackish conditions? I should have got more...

 

@PsyXe so happy I could misslead you in the right direction

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Half-beaks should do fine in slightly brackish water. Maybe you can consider blue-eyes (Pseudomugil sp.), if you can find one of those species tolerant of salt (like the pacific blue-eye) or some of the Poecilidae, many of which are happy in brackish water. Brackish is not really my thing, but I have seen nice aquaria, and some of the fish, like the puffers, are totally cool. What I do appreciate, though, is spending time at estuaries and seeing the natural ecosystems. In SA, we have some very different habitats, like the warm northern estuaries around Richards Bay, through the eastern and southern Cape. We used to see plenty of pipefishes in the Tsitsikamma area's estuaries. Now THAT is something I would have loved to keep, but it is of course strictly off-limits.

 

@PsyXe, sounds like you going to have loads of fun!!

And your little guys are gorgeous, had to google them.. Dont forget some pictures!!
Looking forward to this thread's development

 

ooh yes please ... more pics .. skippers / tank, Halloween fish all the same we just need PICS ;-)

 

A big sorry to anyone who's been looking forward to this tank (and to the poor fish)... all 3 of my skippers have died within a couple of weeks, the last one today No other fish in the tank were affected, and I'm sure they just succumbed to being kept in the wrong conditions for too long. Moral of the story: Set that tank up NOW, don't wait.

 

That's not good news. Very sorry to hear about the loss.

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Sorry for your loss @PsyXe .....

 

Eish, not nice to hear. Those would have been nice fish to grow out, and maybe even breed. You are right: Never put off until tomorrow what you can put off until the day after tomorrow. Wait, that's the wrong one...