Aquariums

I'm setting up a small pond made from an old butler sink, I haven't decided if I should keep fish in it but i may end up with some sticklebacks in it if I can find some for sale. (its illegal to take them from the wild over here.) sticklebacks can get real aggresive in spawning time so it will have to be a single species pond. I'm facinated by sticklebacks, I just love'em!

I've got my aquarium at my folks' place right now, since I won't have my house repaired until mid-June.  I'm not sure how the plants are doing, but they have been looking a little thin. 

Just about any minnow will do well - I've had great success with Carmine Shiners, Southern Redbelly Dace, Bleeding Shiners, Whitetail Shiners, Longnose Dace, Bigmouth Shiners, and Redside Dace.  If I had to pick one it would be the Southern Redbelly Dace.  Mine stayed in breeding color pretty much all the time, and were hardy and easy to feed.  They even bred in my tank.  Really beautiful and active fish.  Northern Redbellies are a little less colorful (IMHO) but even easier to keep. 

Darters do well but usually won't eat flake food.  You have to feed them frozen bloodworms or brine shrimp and if you have a school of minnows in the tank almost none of the frozen food gets down to the darters unless you take special measures.  Bigger-mouthed darters that are aggressive can be fed foods too big for the minnows to eat, which solves that problem (Blackside darter, Fantail darter, river darter, logperch).  Rainbow Darters are surprisingly easy as long as they get fed.  One of the coolest and hardiest darters I've found is the Mud Darter.  They look like a rainbow darter but without the blue - they're mostly brown and red.  They live in the warm backwaters of the Mississippi so they are really tough fish.  Cool red dorsal fins. 

Temps - just keep it at room temperature and don't try to keep sculpins or burbot. 

Filter - I like having two big canister filters going.  I clean one of them every month or two.  I like the Fluval 400 series, but it's been awhile so I don't know what other stuff is out there. 

I'm thinking of circulating the water in my pond by pumping it up throught the plughole as it comes out of the overflow, or the other way round.

it may work or it may not, but I reckon it will be pretty cool if it does...

it must just be a threespine thing then, (or only during nesting) it seems they will attack anything that enters their nesting area that isn't a female ready to lay eggs,  

heres an interesting video showing their aggression towards other males

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfcGZCGdGVE

Unfortunately, Jonah's doesn't carry them.  Here's their fish list:

http://jonahsaquarium.com/JonahSite/fishlist.htm

I've ordered bluespotted sunfish and bluefin killifish from him, and he runs a good business.

You can easily catch Mud Darters (following all applicable laws of course) in the weedy shallows of the Mississippi.  As you can see from the map:

They're pretty much everywhere below Lake Pepin.

here's a picture:

If anyone wants a cheap circulating pump harbor freight has them for roughly $14 for a 200 gph pump. I have about 5 running in my aquapoincs set up right now. They work great and are cheap. I thik a few running could make an awesome riffle tank.

Yeah it's ridiculously expensive.  You're better off catching them yourself or buying them from Vados.  Seriously, if you get the "River Mix" minnows at Vados, you end up with spotfin shiners (one of the best, which I forgot to mention), spottail shiners, finescale dace, northern redbellies, common shiners, and other cool stuff.  Sometimes even darters.  I've gotten a bag of those minnows and had eight different species!

I have kept two yellow perch in a non-heated five-gallon tank for many years -- not an ideal size but they seem to do alright. I also kept ninespine sticklebacks for several years with minimum effort. I think the secrets to success are natural plants and weekly or bi-weekly water changes. I've been propagating Java fern and and Java moss from some original plants going back 15 years and they are the dominant plants in all three of my tanks. They're cheap, grow like weeds, don't need heat, are inedible to fish -- and most importantly, keep the nitrites and nitrates down to keep the tank stable.

I love our snail bullhead that we keep in an aquarium. He's very interesting and active, and will hunt mosquitofish and even surface to eat Vipachip carnivore pellets out of our hands. So sweet!

You guys are making me want to set up aquariums again.  I had several when I was younger....  When I lived in Kingsville TX, I kept Sailfin Mollies that I caught locally.