Native fish tanks

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RyanD19972
RyanD19972's picture
Native fish tanks
<p>Hey all! &nbsp;I was curious if anyone on this website has experimented with keeping fish tanks stocked with native species. &nbsp;So far I have kept eastern mosquitofish, creek chubs, muscadine darters, green sunfish, bandfin shiners (as well as several other species of shiners), and a central stoneroller. &nbsp;Many of these fish died quickly but I was able to keep a few of these fish alive for quite awhile ( the green sunfish, the central stoneroller, and one of the shiners). &nbsp;However, none of these fish lasted nearly as long as they should have ( the green sunfish had a ton of character and seemed very healthy and then one day, after about nine months of living in my tank, mysteriously died.). &nbsp;I was just wondering if anyone had any information on keeping native species more succesfully and maybe information on particularly hardy species. &nbsp;I have a ten gallon and a 30 gallon tank, so I can&#39;t keep anything that grows much longer than 4 or 5 inches and even thats a bit of a stretch.&nbsp;</p>
andy
andy's picture
Live plants

I've kept a lot of native fish over the years.  One thing that I'd make sure to do first is start growing some awesome thick plants.  A well-planted aquarium is very healthy.  Depending on what type of small fish I have at the moment, I'll feed them flakes or bloodworms or brine shrimp.  Larger fish get fed crappie minnows from the bait shop or angleworms.

IsaacsFishingCorner
IsaacsFishingCorner's picture
I have to agree with Andy,

I have to agree with Andy, plants are the best first step to setting up a successful aquarium. The last tank I setup I made sure had a lot of aquatic vegetation and rocks for the fish to find shelter in. I kept a lot of small native fish in it and I don't think I had any fatalities (well....none other than the smaller minnows that my bullhead kept eating...). I always add a bubbler to make sure there is enough dissolved oxygen and I run two filtration systems to keep my tank nice and clean. It's probably overkill, but that is what I've had success with. I checked the water quality with a testing kit once a week while setting up my aquarium, and then once every 2 weeks once the tank seemed to have reaced equilibrium. I hope that helps!

krazyk
krazyk's picture
I kept a female Pumpkinseed

I kept a female Pumpkinseed for 4 years. I caught her when she was only 1 1/2" long while fishing for bullhead out of a acre or so small pond. This pond in particular was well known for its over abundance of sunnies - most of them are pretty dang stunted. 4" or so is probably the largest I have ever caught out of this pond.

When I took a look at her the idea sprang into my head. The hook was still in the corner of her mouth and her being so tiny I figured would give me the best chance of 'domesticating' her.  So I promptly placed her in my minnow bucket , grabbed a couple of the native pond weeds, and headed straight home with her.


It went very well and she was easy as heck to take care of. I've kept tropical fish most of my life and I would choose a 'sunny' over a tropical fish every chance I could. You don't need a heater and the ph levels don't seem to matter nearly as much. When she was small she would eat tropical flake food and freeze dried bloodworms. As she grew though her food needed to grow too!

I regularly fed her 'superworms', waxworms, and rosey reds. I tried small shiners once but they gave her a disease which I never fully could get rid of and was her eventual undoing (it was a weird fungal infection). I would say try to stay away from baitshop minnows. A petstore's super over crowded rosey reds are probably healthier - which is sad... but probably true.

Inbetween, I'd feed her anything from beetles to spiders to grasshoppers to centipedes... and of course the occasional nightcrawler. For whatever reason her favorite wild insect to devour was Ladybugs - haha! Usually in the fall here you can find hordes of them here so I always made sure to catch as many as I could to feed her. She would nearly jump out of the aquarium to get at them. Moths would make her go wild too. 

I ended up needing a way larger aquarium than I expected! Within 1 year she was at least 4" and by the time she passed she was a trophy sized Pumpkinseed! haha. Just over 8"! I went through 3 aquariums to house my girl.

Having a native fish was really super fun though. Look at the area where they came from and try to mimic it. I had a lot of drift wood and sticks with some weedy plants - just like the pond she came from. By far she was my favorite fish that I have ever kept. She even learned to recognize that my shape meant 'giver of foods' and would come out of hiding to parade in front of the glass for me - and only me.

Chain Pickerel: All the bad assery of a Northern Pike wrapped up in a smaller, prettier package.

Corey
Corey's picture
Native Tanks

I have kept about 40 different species of native fish in aquariums, and have given lectures on native fish keeping to the Minnesota Aquarium society. I've been able to breed some species in the tank (Southern Redbelly Dace). I think about aquarium keeping as plants first, fish second, when possible. If your tank has healthy plants growing in it, then you can keep non-plant-destroying fish much more successfully. Unfortunately, fish like large sunfish and bullheads will destroy plants. You can keep them successfully, but you need to worry about them killing fish and plants. If I had a 30-gallon tank for natives, I would concentrate on cool native fish that are bulletproof and don't destroy plants. Ideally, I would get some mud darters, some red shiners, some killifish, and maybe a couple of tadpole madtoms. Use tropical plants ... cryptocoryne, hornwort, java fern, java moss, and vallisneria. If you want some amazing, colorful natives that are easy to keep, I'd recommend redside and redbelly dace. I'd recommend orangespotted sunfish but I've personally had problems keeping them, although that might be because I was also keeping burbot and sculpins in the same tank. Bad idea. Spotfin shiners are also awesome and bulletproof, and fun to keep. Good luck.

Phil
Phil's picture
Beware mixing in the

Beware mixing in the aggressive jerks- I once introduced two yellow perch into a tank with a burbot that was really doing well -until they pecked his eyeballs out. That really bummed me out, perhaps one of the reasons I haven't had a tank for years. Feeding was with worms and similar technique as you are describing.

krazyk
krazyk's picture
Corey brought up a great

Corey brought up a great point about Sunfish that I completely forgot to mention. I personally did not realize how aggressive they could be until I kept one. After I had her for a couple weeks I thought it would be fun to get her a 'buddy'. Another Sunny almost the same exact size as she was.

This did not end well for the other sunny. My Sunny thought the entire aquarium was her territory and beat the piss out of her new 'buddy' almost instantaneously. I took that poor thing out of the aquarium within maybe a half hour. It was missing bits of fins, scales, and had bruising scattered around its body. I released it into my Grandfather's goldfish pond and never saw it again. I'm guessing it probably died from blunt force trauma and being relocated twice in one day.

Sunfish are mean little guys. I wouldn't keep more than one in the same aquarium unless you put them in at the same time and there is AMPLE space for both of them.  The only living thing my Sunny left alone was a large pond snail I had in with her that cleaned the aquarium. When the snail eventually died of old age she did eat its body, though...

Chain Pickerel: All the bad assery of a Northern Pike wrapped up in a smaller, prettier package.