Salinity is confusing!

[DracoRJC]

I'm getting a dragon goby as a tankmate for my 2 one and a half inch GSPs soon, and the salinity's got me in a tizzy. The tank is 20 gallons (yes, I know they grow!!!), has been cycled and running for about 7 month, has zero ammonia, pH is 7.4, argonite sand bottom, tons of plants (yes, the right ones) and caves, and temp is 79F.

I totally screwed up my salinity when I first got them, I didnt even have a hydrometer (dont ask my reasoning, I dont even know), and ended up screwing it up even more after a few water changes. I guess this is just the one aspect of puffer keeping that I didn't completely think over before I got them. Luckily, they should be able to tolerate all the changes until I get it right, and the goby too.

I now have a hydrometer, and the salinity is 1.006. Now the Puffer Library says to keep dragon gobies from 1.010 to 1.012. So my first question is: At what salinity can I reasonably keep GSPs and dragon gobies together? I assume I would be going towards the higher end for the GSPs, but I do get different information wherever I go as to what the gobies need. I will be making the switch to marine when they become adults, and the dragon goby will be kept with other fellow brackish fish, and all will be in larger, adult sized tanks. I just need a compromise in salinity that both the GSPs and gobies will appreciate.

My second question is: How quickly do I raise the salinity, and how do I do it? I DO have true marine salt, not table salt or plain aquarium salt, before you ask. Again, the tank is 20 gallons. The part I'm confused about is how fast I can increase it, and how exactly to do so... I mean, I understand the concept, but I don't know how exactly to do it for my tank in particular.

I'm very sorry for my stupidity, I'm not very happy with myself either for not thinking this through earlier....

[Iliveinazoo]

Whenever I have a question about brackish fish I type in Nmonks and the fish that I'm looking for, I have a copy of his book and an Aqualog book and they are both great reads for the Brackish enthusiast.

You don't necessarily have to take your GSP to marine and you could maintain your GSP and goby happily together at SG 1.010.
What i would be more worried about is whether the goby will get enough food past the GSP and/or whether he will be harrassed to death by the GSP.

You're Dragon Goby will grow to be over a foot long so i reckon that you'd need about 30USG for this and another 30USG for the GSP.


You can raise your salinity slowly, say 0.001 one month and 0.001 the next to your desired level.
If your tank is at SG1.006 now then at your next water change you could change 50% of the water, the water that you replenish your tank with could go in at SG1.008 and that will raise your overall tank to SG1.007!

[Dadof4]

I'm getting a dragon goby as a tankmate for my 2 one and a half inch GSPs soon, and the salinity's got me in a tizzy. The tank is 20 gallons (yes, I know they grow!!!), has been cycled and running for about 7 month, has zero ammonia, pH is 7.4, argonite sand bottom, tons of plants (yes, the right ones) and caves, and temp is 79F.

I totally screwed up my salinity when I first got them, I didnt even have a hydrometer (dont ask my reasoning, I dont even know), and ended up screwing it up even more after a few water changes. I guess this is just the one aspect of puffer keeping that I didn't completely think over before I got them. Luckily, they should be able to tolerate all the changes until I get it right, and the goby too.

I now have a hydrometer, and the salinity is 1.006. Now the Puffer Library says to keep dragon gobies from 1.010 to 1.012. So my first question is: At what salinity can I reasonably keep GSPs and dragon gobies together? I assume I would be going towards the higher end for the GSPs, but I do get different information wherever I go as to what the gobies need. I will be making the switch to marine when they become adults, and the dragon goby will be kept with other fellow brackish fish, and all will be in larger, adult sized tanks. I just need a compromise in salinity that both the GSPs and gobies will appreciate.

I have a tank with Dragon Gobies and Mollies in it. I keep my SG at about 1.016 right now. I plan to increase to marine 1.022-1.024 with in the next couple of months. They have been found in Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico in depths up to 100 FT but mainly in estuaries that have a higher SG, again bordering on marine conditions. I know you mentioned you were aware of this earlier but I want to reinforce the idea. These guys get up to roughly 2 feet long and are territorial, not viciously territorial but territorial none-the-less. I had three and had to get rid of one because he couldn't find hiding places. The other two staked out territory and when they would discover him, they'd drive him out. I had a lot of fun making cover for them, I took some rocks that were the depth of the sand and epoxied them to the bottom of a flat rock and then buried them, like feet, in the sand. They love to dig under them and create their own caves and tunnels. Every once in a while I look over at the tank and see a sand storm as one is digging, rather funny! My point is that if you have flat bottomed decorations, do something to keep them off the bottom glass because these guys will dig under them and can trap themselves.

My second question is: How quickly do I raise the salinity, and how do I do it? I DO have true marine salt, not table salt or plain aquarium salt, before you ask. Again, the tank is 20 gallons. The part I'm confused about is how fast I can increase it, and how exactly to do so... I mean, I understand the concept, but I don't know how exactly to do it for my tank in particular.

I'm very sorry for my stupidity, I'm not very happy with myself either for not thinking this through earlier....

Raising your SG isn't too complicated. Things you need are: hydrometer that starts at 1.000, or even better, but more expensive, a refractometer, a rubber maid container that is capable of holding 50% of the tank volume, a heater and a powerhead. You can raise the SG by .002 per week with out killing your biofilter, but you don't have to go that fast. 24 hours prior to raising the SG mix new SW with a higher SG than what is in your tank. Then do a 50% water change. How to determine what SG the new water should be at? Easy if you are good at math, not so easy if your math skills are lacking (like me). I use this formula to determine what SG the new mix water should be: (C+M)/2=N

C= current SG in tank
M= what you need to mix the new water too
N= desired New SG

So, lets say you current SG in your tank is 1.000 (FW) and you want to bring it up to 1.002. The equation would read: (1.000 + M)/2 = 1.002 You would then solve for "M".

If that's confusing PM me and I'll talk you through the math.

[Pufferpunk]

I would never keep a sedentary fish like a dragon goby with GSPs.

[DracoRJC]

Is it that hard to get food past the puffers? They eat totally different things, dont they? My puffers get snails, clams, ghost shrimp, bloodworms, and krill, and the goby would get daphnia, tubifex, and brine shrimp, correct? I had leftover frozen brine shrimp blocks from my old native tank, and the puffers were completely uninterested. I have also heard of using a funnel or eyedropper to deliver food to the gobies, and have also read that they will sift through the sand with their mouths to find food particles, which would never be in short supply with these puffers. Sometimes I spend so much time siphoning the specks of food off the sand I accidentally suck half the tank's water out! To me, dragons sound like the closest thing to a cleaning crew. And when I got the puffers, I had them with 2 baby bullhead catfish and an American eel, which they very rarely bothered (fins were fine) in the 2 weeks I had them together before I convinced myself to let them go and convert all the way to brackish. I have also heard of many succesful cases of Figure 8s and dragons together, which I would probably do anyway once I convert the GSPs to full marine later.

I think I have the salinity figured out, I had to read your post over about 10 times, but it makes sense now, thank you!

[Pufferpunk]

The puffers will tear up that poor fella's fins.

[DracoRJC]

Even if he had a hiding spot the puffers couldnt get into?

[Pufferpunk]

Well, he's gotta come out eventually to eat. IDK, I wouldn't do it.

[DracoRJC]

I read that they were mostly nocturnal, and my GSPs are almost always asleep on the bottom when the lights are out. I had an American eel in there before, about the same size of the dragons at the LFS, and she hid all day without being bothered, but when she was out (which was probably about 2 hours a night if you added it up), she was never touched. I gave her and the catfish to the nature center I work at, and they are now on display, but after 2 weeks of living with the puffers, her fins were absolutely perfect and she was in excellent condition. She basically fed the same way as dragons, sniffing around the bottom, picking up scraps of food left behind by the puffers.

Besides being worried about aggresion, would you be worried about feeding? I dont really understand the concern there... Well I do, but I do think its quite easy to get around.

[Dadof4]

I read that they were mostly nocturnal, and my GSPs are almost always asleep on the bottom when the lights are out. I had an American eel in there before, about the same size of the dragons at the LFS, and she hid all day without being bothered, but when she was out (which was probably about 2 hours a night if you added it up), she was never touched. I gave her and the catfish to the nature center I work at, and they are now on display, but after 2 weeks of living with the puffers, her fins were absolutely perfect and she was in excellent condition. She basically fed the same way as dragons, sniffing around the bottom, picking up scraps of food left behind by the puffers.

Besides being worried about aggresion, would you be worried about feeding? I dont really understand the concern there... Well I do, but I do think its quite easy to get around.

I totally agree with PP on this. When I was typing the first reply I neglected to add that part, because I never thought about doing that combo. They aren't necessarily nocturnal, mine come out during the day quite a bit but do become more active at night and feed more at night, lights on or off. The difference between GSP's and the Eel is that GSP's will feed on fins and scales. That long flowing fin on a Dragon Goby would turn out to look like someone took a paper punch to it, it would be too tempting.

[DracoRJC]

Would a pair of Figure 8s work with dragons when I switch the GSPs to marine?

Now that I think about it, I only have one year of high school left, and when college rolls around these guys are gonna get big, and a 75+ gallon marine tank is extremely expensive... Maybe I should find a good home for these guys so I can get a pair of F8s instead?... I only want the best for them and now that I think about it I dont know if I can provide that for a pair of 6 inch marine puffers...

[Dadof4]

That really is something to consider. The GSP's will get to about 6 inches long and about the size of a small nerf football. For going off to college I would suggest starting with some FW dwarf puffers or a lurker species because they don't take all that much room and aren't as labor intensive as something that requires SW or BW.

[DracoRJC]

I'm kind of upset now... Even though I'm sure F8s are pretty much the same in terms of personality, I'm really attatched to these 2 right now and it would be very hard for me to get rid of them...

But I thought about it some more, and in a college dorm room, where you can only keep fish, it would be very difficult to keep a 75G tank in that tiny room. And if I lived off-campus, that would give me a chance to keep my reptiles with me (cant let them go), so a smaller tank would still be much more pratical and cheap.

I knew the GSPs would get big, but for some reason it didnt register in my head that big fish = big tank = lots of money.

What would I do with them though?...

If/when I find new homes for them, I do have a brackish tank that would need filling... Would a pair of F8s and dragon gobies get along? I'd have to upgrade that one too eventually, but not nearly as big (or marine) as a GSP tank would have to be

[Dadof4]

The dragon gobies cannot live in a 20 gallon, let alone with other fish. If you're talking about your 75 gallon, I still wouldn't mix F8's with dragon gobies, you need some pretty gentle fish to mix with them. I really enjoy my Dalmation Mollies in there with them, they help keep the tank free of algae.

[DracoRJC]

I do know that, it would be temporarily, because my LFS gets them in pretty small, like 5 inches, and F8s get 3 inches max, and the LFS gets them in small too, so basically the size of the GSPs I already have.

I am actually underestimating the size of my tank, I just realized today. It has odd dimensions, and is not a standard tank that you would find at a store. My bearded dragons tank is a standard 20 gallon, and this tank is both deeper and longer, so I would put it at maybe 28 gallons, though I know it doesnt make that much of a difference in the long run, just thought Id throw that out there.

My point was that a pair of F8s and a dragon are much easier to manage than just a pair of marine GSPs.

But I have heard plenty of people tell of sucess with the goby/F8 combo... Is a well-fed 3 inch puffer gonna pick on a hidden, foot long fish in a 50+ gallon tank with plenty of decor and distractions?