# Clownfish and Guppies in the same tank?



## bmlbytes (Aug 1, 2009)

Anyone ever heard of "Magical Water"? It apparently is a substance you add to your tank water and acclimate your fish to. After your fish have become properly acclimated to it, you can combine freshwater fish and saltwater fish in the same tank. There is little documentation or sale of it in the USA, but its still interesting.

I looked at the statistics of it and I think I get the idea. The salinity of the magical water is in the brackish water range (7% - 9%). This would indicate that they are trying to get as close as possible to each types of fish's limit. Any less salty and the saltwater fish can not live in it, and any saltier and the freshwater fish can not live. They also claim to add electrolytes to it to reduce osmotic pressure (the reason that freshwater fish can not live in saltwater, and visa-versa). 

After doing a little research on it, I found that this method has been used for years. People used to quarantine new fish in a similar solution for about a week. This would likely kill the bacteria on the fish, but not the fish itself. After several days, the fish would be returned to the salinity that it was meant for. This makes me wonder how long a fish could live in "magical water". 

The fish in the following video shows goldfish, guppies, gouramis and clownfish living in the same tank. They all look fairly healthy and active to me, but I have no idea how long they have been in that tank.

http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?196414-Asia-Trip-2009-Singapore-Aquarama-2009-GEX-Magical-Water

Before I let the conversation continue, I personally do not think that this is a good thing to do to your pet fish. I would be interested in seeing research on whether or not fish can thrive in an aquarium like this though.

Thoughts?


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## Ghost Knife (Mar 12, 2008)

I would think Mollies would be able to handle the salt better than Guppies.


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## Mikaila31 (Nov 29, 2009)

As you stated its basically putting each fish near its tolerance threshold. Sure they may be able to survive short term, but thats a lot different then thriving long term. If people were actually successful with it, it would be more widely used. I've seen it come up before, so its not anything new AFAIK.


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

I wouldn't underestimate guppie's salt tolerance. I've heard of public aquariums raising guppies in pure saltwater to feed to freshwater animals and feeding freshwater guppies to saltwater animals. 

I do think you could breed selectively for tolerance. The more generations in a different water chemistry, the better suited the fish would get. It would be a cruel experiment, but you could slowly shift the water until half the fish die, then dial it back and breed the survivors and repeat. This is essentially what the hobby has done with ammonia and nitrate and why wild fish are 'sensitive' compared to tank strains.


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## Fishpunk (Apr 18, 2011)

Some guppies can tolerate brackish conditions. Mollies are famous for having the ability to live in salinity from freshwater to higher salinity than marine conditions, but they do have to acclimate slowly.

The success of "magic water" is going to be heavily dependent upon the fish involved. There are many fish that cannot tolerate any salt. To me, this is a gimmick. I would keep the marine fish in marine conditions and the freshwater fish in freshwater conditions. There isn't much to gain from keeping them together.


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## platies pwn (Nov 29, 2010)

Fishpunk said:


> Some guppies can tolerate brackish conditions. Mollies are famous for having the ability to live in salinity from freshwater to higher salinity than marine conditions, but they do have to acclimate slowly.


What do you mean by "some"?All guppies can.All guppies can go a little saltier than Sw,too.


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## Fishpunk (Apr 18, 2011)

The error in my post is that it should read marine and not brackish. "Some" comes into play during acclimation. Some will not survive it. There are many variables involved, not the least of which is the aquarist and that person's experience. Transition in salinity is stressful on any fish, like changing pH. Sorry, I should have been more clear.


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## bmlbytes (Aug 1, 2009)

If you watch the video, you will see goldfish and gouramis in there as well.


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## Fishpunk (Apr 18, 2011)

I think the operational question is what are the healthiest conditions for the fish, not whether they can survive.


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## Mikaila31 (Nov 29, 2009)

If your really interested in it then see if you can get it to work in a real life setting. As far as I can see even if all those fish could survive in those osmotic conditions, it still does nothing to fix the issue that the ideal temps for them are all very different. 

I think it will work as well as the majority of additives and treatments you see on a LFS shelf, which is ****************ty. I still don't see any indepth explanation on how they chemically or biologically do away with osmosis. Long with the reasoning that you need to keep buying the stuff to be able to mix up new water for water changes... so how long before its the same cost as just having two separate tanks?


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## bmlbytes (Aug 1, 2009)

I think as most of us know, cost is not what drives someone in this hobby. Some of us buy ridiculous amounts of equipment, water, additives, tanks, fish, corals, etc. Some are driven by a desire to do what would be impossible in nature. Sure, many of us prefer to just show off a nice healthy tank (I know I do). But I know many people who buy things like GloFish, just because it cant be found in nature.

The saltwater/freshwater mix would be the ultimate of the unnatural possibilities. 

Does anyone happen to know what the lowest possible salinity is for false percula clowns? What about the highest possible salinity for common guppies? Maybe we can figure out exactly what this "Magical Water" is made of.


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## platies pwn (Nov 29, 2010)

Wouldn't doing this hurt the fish's kidneys after a while?Aren't SW fish's kidneys built to push out salt?


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## lohachata (Jan 27, 2006)

it seems that there have been far more freshwater fish that have been acclimated to live in full strength saltwater than there have been saltwater fish acclimated to live in freshwater..
much of this has to do with the oceans themselves..
the most constant thing on this planet is the ocean..things like PH,specific gravity,chemical make up and trace elements change very little...so the creatures that live in the oceans have not had to adapt to any kind of rapid changes in their environment..but freshwater animals have had to evolve to adapt in a short period of time..
man insists that he is smarter and more powerful than God...and he keeps trying to alter what God created...


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

Magic Ocean is not salt.
Well, okay, it is, but not sea salt. It's just a mix that raises the hardness of the water so high that saltwater fish can live in it. It's not the saltiness of the water that matters, but the hardness, and saltwater is of course very hard. The freshwater fish aren't able to live in salty water so much, but they do sorta okay in this hardwater made by magic Ocean. Bear in mind that one of the components of the stuff is one that lets this all work; just making the water super-hard by itself won't let the saltwater fish live in it for long.

This stuff comes and goes, unfortunately returning every now & then once we think it's finally gone for good. Don't use it, please; you'll just get yourself in a big mess one day when you have an emergency and can't do anything about it.


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## FrichKazzone (Nov 10, 2011)

I've seen it come up before


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