Anyone keep "domestic" type fish

[Redbled]

Not sure if domestic is the right word, but wondered who has stories about keeping blue gill, bass, etc in tanks. I've been tempted to do it, but wondered what I should know concerning laws, differences in keeping them from storebought fish, etc. Any help would be appreciated. The tank I have is 55 gallons, so looking for smaller fish. I also wondered if fish outgrew a tank if it would hurt them to put them back in the pond they were caught in?

 

[Synirr]

Sounds like you're refering to wild type (non-domesticated) fish. I had a couple of sunfish for a while that were mixed in with the feeder goldies at Walmart for whatever reason. They were really, really interesting, but sadly, one committed suicide (jumped out) and the other choked to death on a snail
Whether or not it's legal to keep such fish depends on your state law, so I'd check up on that if I were you. I know that several types of sunfish (bantams, for example,) show up on Aquabid every now and then, if you're interested

 

[Mr Miagi]

Yes, as for the legallity, check with your local council.

Down here there are indangered gudgeons we cant touch, but plenty of people catch blue things....their name escapes me...

Large fish recquire alot of space, so your right in wanting small specimens. Depends on what fish. Trout are one of the herdest fish to keep in tanks because they recquire large amounts of oxygen whiich is hard to supply. Feeding you would need alot of too.

What fish are there local too you? Ur in the UK right?

 

[Gourami Lover88]

A 55 could hold 2bluegill for life or 4 LM Bass for about a year if they are well feed and well heated. I got mine from a pold stocking company that sells game fish for fishing ponds. In time you could teach a bluegill to eat allkinds of things. When i first got ime they would only eat live foods but now they will eat anything.

If you are serious about keeping blugill you could pm me.

 

[Redbled]

No, actually live in Michigan. Not planning on getting big stuff from the great lakes Around here I believe we have sun fish, blue gills, trout some, bass, Northern pike. Not really sure what else, only lived here for 6 months. Another neat thing about those types of fish as I understand it is you don't need a heater.

 

[Redbled]

A 55 could hold 2bluegill for life or 4 LM Bass for about a year if they are well feed and well heated. I got mine from a pold stocking company that sells game fish for fishing ponds. In time you could teach a bluegill to eat allkinds of things. When i first got ime they would only eat live foods but now they will eat anything.

If you are serious about keeping blugill you could pm me.

I didn't know bass would need a heater. Do you have aol IM, not really sure how to PM? Another thing I've heard about local type fish is they are more prone to have parasites and the like, what truth is there to that?

 

[steelhealr]

Hi...I have never done that, but, I've heard that the wild ones don't do well or live long in captivity. Many are in water with diseases and parasites that they may have immunity to or mutualism with, but, when stressed in captivity, they get diseased. In my area , the Atlantic would require a large tank. Species include puffers, flounders, fluke, sea bass, weakfish, sea robins, blue fish, blackfish...with invertebrates including many types of crabs, horseshoe crabs, clams...etc....I don't think you'd get away with a small tank

FW species would be small and large mouth bass, sunnies, etc....they are overcome by disease. Perhaps we'll see some posts here from people who set up

Perhaps we'll see some posts from people who have set up native coldwater systems. SH

 

[Redbled]

You sure wouldn't think they'd be any more stressed than other fish that come from the wild in other places.

 

[pica_nuttalli]

when i was a kid, we kept about 8~10 baby bluegill in a 10g. they did ok, considering how incredibly ignorant our fishkeeping skills were (oh, the dark days before the internet...). our biggest problem was aggression. i imagine the whole batch lasted a year before the last one suicide jumped.

we caught them along the edges of my grandfather's pond. the adults were never more than about 8", so you could probably keep a few of those in a 60g no problem. i don't think a heater would be required so long as the house stays in the 60~80 range; it gets much colder and hotter here in Alabama.

the way we caught them is there was a crab-cage about halfway into the pond along the shallows that we used to put catfish in after we caught them fishing. during the summer, if you yanked the cage and quickly grabbed in the water, you could catch the baby fish. (i'd recommend using a net as opposed to one's hands, considering my brother once caught a snake. fortunately all parties involved were equally confused, so no one got hurt.) i'm not certain how this method could be adapted to your particular situation, but that's how we did it...

bluegill are a really interesting fish to keep, very similar to the smaller cichlids. i would think you'd have better luck growing up some juveniles in a large tank than you would just starting with adults.

and as always, don't mix your locals and your tropicals. a search would reveal all sorts of great reasons not to do that.

 

[Talleyrand]

I kept three small mouth bass and a blue gill in a 25 gallon tank for probably a year. They did fine, I caught them from a local pond. I fed them worms I bought at the bait store. I didnt use a heater and they never had any sort of disease or problem. I would say they were the hardiest fish I have ever had. They grew to about 5 inches before I had to move and didnt feel like moving them, so I put them in a bucket and returned them to the pond from whence they came.

 

[fishdudein]

When my boys were really little I took them out fishing one day, there wasn't much activity from the bigger fish that day but we had a blast catching young juvenile bluegills, maybe 1.5 inches long, they were grabbing just about anything you would throw in the water, including a bare hook! Most of the time the little guys weren't even hooked, they were just holding on to the hook for dear life because there was so much competition in this pond, so there wasn't any damage done from the hooks to the fish. We kept about a half dozen in a 5 gallon bucket to take home, and then acclimated them to a 50 gallon tank. Not even a year later we had a massive sized spawn of baby bluegills in that tank. At one point they shared the tank with a large oscar, I would compare them to cichlids as far as behavior goes. We had a lot of fun watching them, great little fish.

 

[Jezah]

Check the shape of Convict cichlids to the shape of blue gills and sunfish. They are closely related beleive it or not, so they act alot like them. As well, they only grow to 12" max and 8" normally.

 

[swampcat]

Blue gills, sun fish and pumkinseeds are really territorial, even more so than cichlids. Game fish are illegal to keep and you would need to catch them at their legal size and keep alive untill you get home, this would involve some pretty big fish. Otherwise you could incur some really big fines and they take your fishing equiptment off you here in PA. I have always wanted to try brook trout, but you would need a chiller for these.

 

[Synirr]

Blue gills, sun fish and pumkinseeds are really territorial, even more so than cichlids. Game fish are illegal to keep and you would need to catch them at their legal size and keep alive untill you get home, this would involve some pretty big fish. Otherwise you could incur some really big fines and they take your fishing equiptment off you here in PA. I have always wanted to try brook trout, but you would need a chiller for these.

I'm pretty sure you could legally buy them at a smaller size from anyone who sells game fish for the purpose of stocking ponds... it's just illegal for you to actually catch them yourself and keep them if they are below regulation size

 

[Redbled]

In order to stock my 55 gallon tank with these types of fish, I'm giving 5 very small community fish, mostly tetras, and a 6 or so inch tinfoil barb, to a neighbor. Also in the tank is a very large pleco. What are the risks I'd take by having blue gill, etc, in a tank with him? Not worried about them picking on him, as nothing seems to pick on large plecos, but worried about parasite issues and the like.