Mudskippers

Hey

Just wanted to know if there were any other Mudskipper keepers on here. I've had mine for about half a year now, and they've been brilliant fish. They'll eat bloodworm, flying ants and pieces of fish... and probably anything else if I gave them the chance! :blink1:

Anyways, if you keep these fish, please feel free to post your experiences!

Cheers
SA

 

Very nice pic there salmon !

 

Thanks.

That one in the picture is about 10cm now, his partner is about 8cm.

I wanted to also try out the other mudskipper species that occur down our costline, but after seeing those things move, I think it'll be impossible to do so.

 

nice photo

 

Hi SalmonAfrica.
I am interested in setting up a mudskipper tank. Are there any good online resources with info on setting up a tank, requirements, etc?
TIA

 

Hey Darryn

It's always best to do a lot of research before buying a fish which needs such a specialized setup - here's a short fact file about basic care (LINK) and the Aquarium Wiki Article (LINK).

They aren't a hard species to keep - they're very tolerant as far as water goes, although try to avoid any extremes.

With regards to tank setup, one of two methods can be used. Because having land is extremely important for mudskippers, you'll have to find a way to allow them to come out of the water. What a lot of people do is make a pile of rocks that project out of the water, at a gentle enough slope such that it's easy for the fish to get on and off.

The other way is to create a sloping beach-style environment, where the gravel (or whatever substrate you use) slopes from out of the water into the water. The problem with this is that the gravel tends to 'slump' because nothing is holding it in place. You can either use flat rocks or glass panels to act as retaining walls to keep the beach's shape.

All the best
SA

 

What Tempratures do they prefer?

If you need a 1m tank for them, what depth and ratio of bank vs water?

 

Spotted some at a LGS (garden shop that happens to have a pet section) R95 per eye and these guys had two eyes each .. making it 190 per fish ... The tank had a big section of driftwood as the bank and about +-10 cm of water around the wood for swimming - water depth was +-15 cm with a heater and a corner filter.

 

Ideally, I like to keep them tropical, so from about 24/25C and upwards. However, the species we most commonly see (P. barbarus) can take much lower temperatures, but I must stress for shorter periods of time only - often in dealers' tanks you'll see them in unheated water. I don't agree with this practice but it is to some extent tolerable.
To heat the water, either try to find a heating cable or use a high-wattage globe to heat the tank, but ensure good ventilation to prevent overheating.

The amount of land varies for the number of fish and the ration of males to females. In 1m setup with either just a male or a male and female pair, you only really need a quarter of the tank to be out of the water, plus maybe an additional rock for the female in case things get feisty. For more than one male, I'd normally go for a tank larger than 1m, but otherwise you can still use the 1m tank and create up to half the area as land space, but using rocks and other decor to block lines of sight and to create well-defined territories.

Never, ever exceed 10cm of water depth unless you're keeping your mudskippers with other fish (that need the water space), and in these conditions, ensure that it is easy for the 'skipper to get to land/the surface quickly.

That is way too expensive for mudskippers, unless it is one of the other species that are now being more commonly traded overseas. What kind of patterning and colour did they have?

There they seemed to use the water depth to accomodate for heating and filtration - while the reason for extra depth is acceptable, I don't recommend it, as deep water without suitable, easily accessable areas of land can create big risks for mudskippers.

 

SA - Don't think this LGS would have fancy mudskippers - these had a dark mottled appearance. Bad lighting in the tank .. sorry. Will swing by next weekend and see if they still have them.

 

If the water should be no more than 10cm deep, what type of filtration would you use?
What type of sand would you use for the bank? Would pool filter sand be okay?
Could you use a normal aquarium heater for heating?
Noob question: how would you make brackish water? Do you buy aquarium salt and then just mix it with dechlorinated water to the right concentration?
TIA

 

i saw some at Pet City in Montana, didn't do much more than glance at them, so i didnt take note of the setup, or price, sorry

 

It likely that they're just getting the regular species, but either from a really expensive stockist or they're making the price so high plainly because they're unique.

As I mentioned, you can have deeper water if you wish to accomodate a filter. However, in shallower water, you can run an internal filter horizontally, maybe even using a pipe to divert the flow out onto a rock feature to create a waterfall. Other people have used sumps and canister filters - it's all up to you.
As for me, I chose a rather high-maintainence method. I covered a pump with material, and then buried the pump in the 'beach' of the setup. A pipe emerages from the sand and takes the water that was drawn through the pump to a piece of slate, where it creates a waterfall. In drawing the water through the entire beach of sand, it acts as a massive biological filter, as well as preventing the sand that makes up the beach from becoming anaerobic, having a constant flow of water through it.
This poses two problems. Firslty, regular gravel siphoning is needed in order to prevent the sand from becoming too filthy. The other problem is, should there be a problem with the pump, you have to rip up the whole beach to get it out. To date I havn't had a problem, but its important to keep these things in mind.

You can use a regular heater for heating, provided that the water is deep enough. I've also heard that keeping a heater horizontal (as you'd have to do in shallow water) is more efficient than keeping it vertically. My one conern with this is that, as mudskippers love to climb and crawl everywhere, they can end up burning themselves on the heater, which is something best avoided. If you're running a sump on the tank, rather use the heater in the sump.

Brackish water is, in simple terms, half freshwater, half marine. This is very rough however, as such a definition would give you a reading of about SG 1.010 to 1.013. Brackish water in reality anything from 1.001 (some say 1.003) to 1.018. Mudskippers prefer 1.010 and below.
All you need to do is buy marine salt and a hydrometer, to meausre the specific gravity (SG mentioned earlier). Use a bucket to pre-mix your salt in, and get it to the right salinty in the bucket before treating it with dechlorinator and adding it to the tank.

 

f-fish...were u around the linden area?....Today i saw some at R89 each and last week there were a few at a diff place at R59...Im not too sure on the protocols of naming shops here so i wont....

 

you can name shops, just not give out their contact details etc

 

oic- well the R89 was at plaza pets, they also had red neon gobies and a mountain goby,pretty cool things! I almost got some when there was confusion about the price...then there was the true price...ouch
R59 was at a pet shop in norwood. its just opened, seemed ok, owner was making the employees exercise all the puppies...never seen that before...

 

59 bucks here in CTN

 

Tank size?

What would the smallest tank you could use to keep mudskippers? Would a strandard 3ft be large enough for a male or maybe a male and a female?
TIA

 

A three foot would work fine for a male by himself, but there is a slight problem with keeping a female as well. Even in the 1m tank I recommended for a pair, I must still caution that mudskippers can cause problems with each other in such limited space, especially as they get larger.

Cheapest I've got them for is R50 each, the most expensive I've seen is R79 each.