Native Irish biotope

At least I think biotope is the word i'm looking for

I have a 4' x 1' x 1' and I'm seriously considering the possibility of turning it into a native Irish tank with sticklebacks, minnows etc. This would be aquascaped with some fine sand, pebbles and small smooth rocks with some small branches, similar to thousands of streams throughout Ireland. I was going to originally set up a cichlid tank but I'll leave that until I can find a bigger tank.

A few questions:

1. Is it legal to take species from the wild or will I be breaking any laws?

2. Could I keep something like Newts in the tank with the sticklebacks etc. or would that be a bad idea? I don't mind if I have to create a dry bank area for them to leave the water.

3. Are there any other fish or amphibians that I could add to such a set-up?

4. What is the best way to actually catch wild fish?

Not being Irish,I am not too up to date with your laws,others here will help with the questions you ask.What I can say,is,that you would probably need a chiller unit,an expensive item,to keep the tank temperature low enough for the native species.Even room temperature would be too much for them.It would be a lovely set up if you could do it though,often thought of it myself.

Dave

as far as i'm aware the only restricted species are game fish ie trout and salmon and also the pike now a catch and release fish and the Pollan on endangered list so its protected everything else as far as i know is ok, also besides sticklebacks there are gudgeon you could look at catching the smooth newt which is the only native amphibian and is found in fens and in many small water bodies such as ponds and white-clawed crayfish. the best way to catch them is the old jam jar and twine trick bated with bread

Cheers guys,

One of the members here PM'd me and kindly offered to speak to a fisheries inspector and find out exactlt what the rules are.

Would room temperature really be too much for them?

I obviously knew that they weren't tropical and didn't need a heater but I presumed I could just set up a normal coldwater tank like I would for a goldfish.

Also, how big do Gudgeon get?

I really like the sound of this now and getting more interested in it. Are there any other special considerations that I need to know about. I presume that a small external filter will be fine.

considering the weather we have had over the last few years not a big problem but you would need to climates them very very slowly.

plus provide live food along with native plants. it will take time to get them to take the food we offer.

You will also have treat them straight away! for worms and parasites and this may have to be done a number of times.

plus treat for all the usual stress related conditions.


But what would be a good think to start off with is getting a sample of water from the location you will get them from. while take the water temp. this will tell you a lot comparing your water with the stream/river you catch them.

if you decide to go a head after that well set up a temporary tank in garden shed do not fill bring water back with you after catching fill tank add fish, a filter will be need but in this case i suggest a box filter run off an air pump you can seed this from another tank (again i can't stress how important it will be to treat these fish throughout the change over)

so you will need to be able to supply water from the location you got them so you can change them over slowly to your water to avoid the likes of pH shock. the mix and match period will also serve as part of the climatisation process. when the tank has reached the minimum level of a heather then add it set to room temp about 22 this should bring them up the last few degrees slowly enough.

when you have treated them for a few weeks and they are living happily in your own water reasonable period of time you can them move them in side.

I would agree Dave about the temp problem but this is something that is going to concern all tanks.

Mickey

when the tank has reached the minimum level of a heather then add it set to room temp about 22 this should bring them up the last few degrees slowly enough.

when you have treated them for a few weeks and they are living happily in your own water reasonable period of time you can them move them in side.

I would agree Dave about the temp problem but this is something that is going to concern all tanks.

Mickey

Salmonoids such as char and trout etc start to suffer between 16C and 18C respectively. As minnows and sticklebacks are smaller and tougher they should be ok in a room so long as they arent in direct sunlight. I wouldnt add a heater though as 22C is too high.

Wildcaught freshwater fish can be very susceptable to fungus and may carry parasites so itd be worth keeping an eye on that.

Best of luck, it should make an interesting project

sorry yes kev 22 is a little high do i am not sure if this the right one for what we have here.
www.fishbase.org/Summary/SpeciesSummary.php?id=2420
this might also be interesting to read Google got to love it:laugh:

www.fishbase.org/summary/Speciessummary.php?id=4661

Mickey

pointer28 are you thinking of this tank for inside the house or outide. I thought initially you meant outside but from the posts I see that it could be inside. I have a tank outside that has frogs and tadpoles in it with plants from the local river and rocks and stick and such from the river too. We ususally go and catch whatever we find about now and into June and keep it in the tank too. We ususally get green sticklebacks and I am determined to catch an eel this year. They are all happy enough outside.

As for inside I think what mickey said sounds bang on. You would have to aclimatise them slowly and treat them for all sorts of bugs. It will be interesting to see how you get on. I also know a fella who has a tank indoors with rudd and a huge eel and other native varieties of fish also newts from the canals and they seem quite happy. His eel was at the show last year and it was really lovely (and huge) so it can be done.

good luck with it and look forward to seeing your photos

Hi Guys,

I had originally intended to have it inside but it's not looking very feasible at the moment. Those chillers are very expensive and look huge.

I was also thinking of putting it outside in a shed but there is no power in any of the sheds in the yard for filters etc. and I'm in rented accommodation so don't fancy paying an electrician to do work on someone elses property.

Rudd etc. be a definite no as the tank is only 4 x 1 x 1 and although they are not huge fish they are quite big compared to the average tropical tank fish. An eel would be fascinating but again the tank is too small and they would eat everything they could catch.

I would like to keep it inside and if I put it in a corner away from any sunlight and with mild lighting that didn't give off much heat hopefully it wouldn't overheat????

As for filtration, I was thinking of a tetratec external drawing from one end of the tank and then a spray bar inlet at the opposite end cascading onto protruding rocks for newts to sit on and then into a tank producing a stream effect. My only worry is how newts would get on in moving water. I used to catch loads of them as a young lad but always in ponds, I can't remember seeing them in streams.

maybe some food for thought. I have spoken to a lad who is thinking of doing something similar but with native marines and his idea was to run the water through an old fridge to cool it. might not be possible for you to do but it does raise a few more questions.

The stream effect sounds nice and would probably suit minnows and that but I dont know much about newts so cant help you there.

I have a small cold water tank in the kitchen at the moment with tadpoles in it its about 16-22degrees. I took some of the spawn in becuase we got a bit of snow and a lot of cold weather and I was afraid that the spawn had died off. They are growing well and feeding fine. What I have noticed though is that compared to the tadpoles outside in the garden they are not growing as fast. This could also be because they are in a smaller tank. so maybe you would get away with having natives indoors but they just wouldnt grow as fast?

let us know how you get on as I am curious.

Nessa

Another way to cool the tank would be by using an old beer cooler if you can get your hands on one, but if you are looking at sticklebacks and minnows etc then if it was me Id chance it without a cooler because it'd probably be ok, so long as the room doent get too warm

best of luck

Kev

You can just put them in a coldwater tank, as the goldfish, they'll be fine. The water wont go higher then 24 if you put the tank away from a heat source and windows. the minnows and sticklebacks are tough little buggers. just think how the weather is in the winter and summer. as long as you will provide a strong water curent in the tank it 'll be ok. i kept minnows, weather loach and other little cold water creatures in a coldwater tank for many years and they did ok, mind you i was leaving back home in romania at that time and the temp difference between summer and winter there is big, 40-48C in summer and -10 -20C in winter. just make sure you get them used to the ph of your water very slowly. a good idea would be to fill the tank with the water from the river you catch the fish and every time you do a water change add some dechlorinated tap water to the river water. start with a rate of 1L of tap water to 9L of river water and increase it every 2-3 weeks by adding 10% of tap water(9:1 , 8:2, 7:3 and so one). i hope this helps. cheers

Thanks all, it starting to seem a little more do-able now!

I was starting to get a little put off with all the expense and difficulty of chillers etc. I don't mind a little hard work but it was starting to look a little foolish at one stage.


All I have to do now is but yet another filter (do tetratec have a bonus buyer scheme), and I'm hot to trot. Have to go away next week so I'll wait until I come back as I'll be broke for a few weeks afterwards.

just a quick update about the tadpoles inside versus the ones outside. I did think that the ones inside were growing slower then their cousins outside but this doesnt seem to be the case now at all. I have baby frogs inside now compared to still only tadpoles outside, some of them dont even have legs yet.

The only thing I can think of is that there are more of them outside so they might not have had as much food as the ones inside. Anyway the little froggers are now outside with their cousins. The kitchen would have been over run and I would probably been evicted.

Probably not much help to you ayway but didnt want to have given you wrong information just in case.

nessa

As for the newts question they can be put in but do need a dry area IE: a section of tank built up like a bank so they can spend time out of the water, in this size tank it may drop your capacity down a bit making the available fish area considerably smaller,
Nessa as for your friend thinking of doing a native marine tank get onto mbuna on the forum he was doing this donkeys years ago successfully and may be of assistance.. as for your tadpole query i'd guess its because the ones in the garden have an unlimited and varied supply of wild food types and are constantly grazing unlike the tank tadpoles which have only you to feed them
Seamus

had a little frog explosion in the kitchen today. Thank god no-one else saw . it was comical trying to catch them all. i lifted the lid to feed them and they bounced out all over the place. they are gorgeous and now living out in the back garden.

are there any rules & regs about re-introducing native species back into the wild. I would like to release some of the frogs back into the river in the park across the road. I dont think there was any spawn there this year but there was some last year. dont want there to be a major catastrophe but dont want them to die because I cant feed them all.