Anyone ever keep any native species (marine or freshwater) ?

Would love to keep some perch or small tench in an aquarium.
Some of the weird & wonderful marines caught while fishing off piers would look great too - i.e. wrasse, gobies, bullheads, dragonets.

Cheers,
Patrick.

Hi Patrick,
it is possible to keep native marine species but you will have to buy a cooler for your tank. We used to have a tank with blennies in college and come the summer the cooler would run non-stop. If you had a cool cellar you might get away without one.

Freshwater species are much easier. Sticklebacks, minnows or gudgeon are easy enough to keep. You can keep tench in a pond but they are too messy for a tank. For perch you will need a serious size of a tank. They are shoaling fish so you will need at least 6 and they grow to some 2lbs.

Holger

Hi Holger,
Thanks for the info.

Would stickleback/minnow etc need live food or do you think they would take flake?

I love the look of stickleback in their breeding colours - blue eyes, red belly etc.

Cheers,
Patrick

Patrick,
You'll find that the male minnow takes on a very colourful image during the spawning season as well, and they will eat almost anything offered to eat!

You could try small Perch (2-3&quot and if they outgrow their acconmmodation at some point in the future you could always replace them to their 'home' and renew the cycle with another 'shoal' (as Holger suggests) from the wild.

I have kept small Perch in this way but they did take a long while to come to terms with the confined area of the tank (36x15x15) and the comings and goings of people, mostly hiding amongst the plants but they settled down eventually, eatring maggots and small worms.

I also once had a six inch Pike which was a great pet, feeding on worms and, latterly, small fish. But this outgrew its surroundings quite quickly and went back from whence it came...I never managed to ever obtain another little Pike, although (them being my favourite 'natural' fish) I'd dearly love to again...

John

Cheers John,

I'd say the pike looked excellent in a tank alright.
I was in an aquarium in Galway that had a large display tank with several large pike along with some large trout.

Also in a zoo in Amsterdam I was at recently they had a large native species tank - really interesting to see the perch hiding out in any available debris while the roach, bream & rudd shoaled with their own species. The perch is probably my favourite freshwater fish.

As I type I have a nice gash on my finger from unhooking a large pike a friend caught last weekend.. :roll:

-Patrick

Hi Patrick,
I agree with John. Just to add that it's not a good idea to keep several pike in a tank. They will try to eat each other. Not joking, a pike will try to eat a fish its own size and more than likely both will die in the process. One will choke the other be bitten to death.
I'd stick with minnow and stickleback. Both are easier to catch in the summer. My first fish were carusian carp caught in an old gravel pit. We caught them on bare gold hooks. I was four and my mother was 'delighted' to see them coming into the house. It wasn't bad enough that dad had all available space taken up in the living room, the basement and any other place he could squeeze a tank into. He was breeding Apistogramma borelli in a small tank on top of the cistern in the bog...She had great hopes for me

Would never have the space to keep pike though I know what you mean re: their aggression. One of the lures I use to fish for pike is a 14 inch artificial pike..

I think I will give minnow/stickleback a go in the summer. I have an old tank that would fit the bill & I'm not far from a river that holds them.

Re: tanks in the bog - that sounds very 'MTV cribs' it was way ahead of its time :wink:

And unlike most of the couple in those MTV reality shows they are still married

hi 2poc
it is possible to keep native marines, but you will need a chiller, which are expensive!