info on manjrove jack and other species in tank

[Benny01]

i am wanting some info in regards to keeps esturay species in a tank especially a mangrove jack.

i havent bought a tank yet as i am doing my homework but can anyone tell me if there is a fish they wont attack. i read that they will hit pretty much anything.

how much do they eat(i have a mate with a barra that costs $30 a week to feed)

was thinking maybe a flathead, bream, whiting or any other comomnplace estuary but wondering if theyre just gonna become food.

I have read that they should be kept alone. would it be ok to have more than 1 jack

thanks

[warrior]

mate in the early stages of there life you could have 2 or 3 in the tank but eventually they will thin out to become the survival of the fittest ,they are very teritorial ,about the other species you were talking about ,as long as they are bigger to start with you should be ok but remember flatties are big eaters too as far as 30 bucks a week to feed barra i think thats a bit much as i had 2 for 18 months and they grew to 400mm before 1 took over the tank and he didnt cost anywhere that to feed he grew to 600mm before too big for tank read the post about tank fish in the photo section it will help you heaps

[Ozie_3]

Yeah as Warrior says ... when young you can load the tank up with several fish like jacks, even several different species, but in the end even with an 8 or 10 foot tank you will end up with 1 fish as a display.... the saratoga in my avatar started 3 centimeters long in a 5 foot tank with just a couple of bristlenose cats to keep the algae down and at 18 months and 45 centimeters eating 1 pilly a day, my mistake was leaving the cats there as he made a snack of them and never survived... so id stick with 1 ... ps a jack will live in fresh water which is a lot easier to maintain... hope this helps... cheers

[jackextracter]

In my experience i wouldnt put two jacks in the same tank even if they were only 1cm long, they compete over food and territory and kill each other u may get away with it at the start maybe but after a month or so they will kill each other, its not worth a waste of a fish.

[ffejsmada]

Have a look at the Aquarium thread in Generel Fihing chat.

There are examples of Jacks living quiet happily with other fish.

I know of a tank that has jacks, trevally and bream in it, quite happily living together. They might have their own territory, but they co-exist.

Cheers.

[the gecko]

Yep, jacks are ok with other fish. DBs tackle shop has a 50cm jack living with a 50cm Sooty Grunter, and theyve been getting on for years. Nothing else in the tank, and its about 2m in length. just dont put anything small in the tank ;D;D;D

[84mick]

How would you go about converting a saltwater Jack to fresh?

Cheers, Mick. ;)

[Didley]

Mick, Do a search it's been covered in depth many times.

[Jungle Jim]

i have had
bream
barra
jacks
sooties
spangled perch
bass
silver perch

all in fresh water and always one at a time .... i did buy them all as fresh water converted already. so cant help you there..

But from an agression point of view jacks and sooties were fiesty but i reckon the friskiest was definitely the spangled perch. when he was 4 inches i put him in my three foot tank - with plenty of drift wood for cover- with a barra of around 10 inches just to see if they co-exist....went to sleep woke up to broken fish tank lids a fired up spangled and a sorry looking barra... both fish survived but i learnt my lesson.

i fed all my fish white bait as a food sorce i found it obviosuly easy and cheap to buy easy to thaw, easier for the fish to swallow and their waste came out surprising clean.

I did however raise a jack from 2cm to 30cm on cichlid pellets. the benefits is primarily the cost. but pellets are again easier to buy easy to for the fish to swallow little or no mess in the tank. the other benefit is you get some good quality ones with colour enhancers and what not.


one last thing im not sure if it's true or not but i believed it and it makes sense - a bloke told me that if you intend putting aust natives in a tank they must be legal size or have reciepts to show they were commerically bought and therefore not caught and kept as undersized fish. again i bought all my fish and kept the reciept coz i had a small tank and enjoyed watching them grow up but i have heard of plenty of people catching legal size fish and keeping them in a tank. i don't think dpi&f would except a "keeping it for a pet" defence if you plan to catch your own natives..

anyway hope it helps all the same

JIM

[84mick]

Thanks Didley, done a quick search and it sounds pretty easy. Here is a link to one of the results for anyone else that had the same question: http://www.ausfish.com.au/vforum/showthread.php?t=72076&highlight=converting+jacks+from+salt+water+to+fres h+water%3F

Cheers, Mick. ;)

[tunaticer]

I used to keep 2 jacks and 4 cod and several bream in a 5' tank for about 18 months until a major power failure and lost the lot. They all got along well without any real aggression between them.
I did feed them about coffee mug full of live glassy prawns every second day tho, I guess that kept them fat and healthy and less interested in aggression.

All fish were under 10cm as well most around the 6-8cm mark.

Jack.

[BARRAkid]

Mate you can buy freshwater jacks from quite a few pet stores :-/
whiting will be like bait to a jack and have a look at a barcoo grunter they are tuff little suckers ;D
It is pritty risky putting other fish in with jacks as they are very agressive but some fish are good natured if its called that ::)

P.s if you are getting fish for a tank size limits apply unless bread or from fish shop ;) just a heads up as some people may think different

cheers BK

[rhycebullimore]

hey, currently i have a 4ftx2ftx2ft tank - frsh water with about 1 cup of salt to keep diseases out. I have 1 mangrove jack which was caught from fresh water at about 25mm long he now is around 200mm long.
I think i would sturggle to house 2 jacks this size in this size tank due to them being so aggressive.
Just remember Mangrove jack like and thrive anr are at their healthiest in water that is high in alkalinity i keep mine at approx 8 to 8.3.....not a ph netural tank which is what most fish enjoy. having dead timber (mangrove trees) will make your tank eventually go acidic.
To stop this there is a reef ph buffer that you should use.
I only add about a 1/4 of a tea spoon when i change water (approx 200l at a time.)
this ratio keeps it at around 8.2
As far as food is concearned i just take my bait net when i need it, catch about 200 herring and swirl them in a bucket to descale them before i freeze them. I feed him about 3 or enough until his stomach is bulding every couple of days or so. but when he was small i only fed him small pieces of cut prawn.
Hope this helps and message if you need any more information.

[Cammy]

All those fish will certainly live together...for a couple of days mabye. But the reality is Jacks are an aggresive fish he will harrass other fish no doubt, unless you get the one off fish thats a bit pussy and doesnt attack anything, they get like that probably because when they were young they were the weakest in the tank and they got picked on, therefore resulting in the fish being not as aggresive.

The only fish i have found to live with a Jack is a good sized Sleepy Cod, cod about 25-30cm, Jack about the same, there was also an Eel in the tank. Although he probably didnt attack the fish cause of the fact the Jack and Cod got feed 5 goldfish every day, therefore there was no competition for food at all and the Cod had hiding places. Feed em on High protein diet if you want them to grow fast, make sure you have a big tank, and if your starting out small get the fish from a petshop no need to grab em out of the wild.:)

$30 bucks a week! I spent probs $25 for 3 weeks, i just got a couple of Big bags of pillies, fed em every 3rd or so day.

Definatly go through the Aquarium Thread, lots of good info in there.

Cammy