My First Native Tank!

[Mikaila31]

I gave in yesterday. I bought a kayak recently and have been taking it out a lot. Lots and lots of rainbow darters everywhere. I've wanted these fish for a while, and finally gave in. I removed most of the endlers from my 15gal, and went kayaking. I found a river area with lots of darters, catching was fairly easy w/ two nets and there were too many to miss. I was picky, so only brought home some of the nice ones. Tossed a lot of nice ones back too. There is at least 3 pairs and some juvies. I will probably give a few away to people in the local club. They have been in the tank 24hours and are already coloring up nicely and eating bloodworms and small earthworms. Females are the drab ones w/ short dorsal fins.

 

[dave_oddballs]

ey they are cool looking fish!
wish you could find wild fish like that in England! not much chance though lol

Dave

 

[mixmaster jay]

yeah same here lol
they are stunning

 

[myfishforlife100]

Wow such beautiful fish
very cool=)

-Elissa

 

[Mikaila31]

They are like a loach/goby cross and show behavior like both, they are already coming to the glass when I walk up. They seem to pay a lot of attention to what is going on outside the tank. They prefer temps of 72-76F, you can keep them semi tropical. Like with a few tropical fish that don't mind the lower temps.

 

[hypno_pleco]

wow,
ive been looking for fish like these for a few years now, but it doesnt seem that any of my LFS stock them....
how much did they cost you???

amazing fish, and i realy like your tank!

 

[blodhi74]

very nice.

 

[Mikaila31]

wow,
ive been looking for fish like these for a few years now, but it doesnt seem that any of my LFS stock them....
how much did they cost you???

amazing fish, and i realy like your tank!

They were in a sense free. If you read my first post I went out and caught them, roughly a 2 miles from my house. I bought a fishing license to be on the safe side, but they are not game fish, so I'm not sure I needed it. Doesn't really bother me since I don't mind giving money to the DNR. If you live in the USA they may be native to your area. Laws make it difficult to sell native fish, even if they are not game fish. The only two laws that I really care about, is I cannot put them back into native waters now that I have taken them. Also it is illegal to transport them out of state, I believe. Also basic collectors rules, don't take home a fish if you can't ID it stream side. The semi-local fish club does group collections, but they are all in Minnesota(out of state).

I intend to catch some native minnows too, it may take awhile though. I have no clue what is native for minnow and I am very unfamiliar with native non-sport species except for the darters.

 

[Sean W.]

do you have a picture of the whole tank? id like to see that

 

[paul_219]

Very nice tank looking great.

 

[iSnail]

Wow!! They look real cool and colourful. Will they breed in captivity?

 

[NottsFishy]

Very nice little fish

The only fish that you can catch from the wild and keep in a medium sized tank are few and far around here lol minnows and sticklebacks are easiest to find imo but there are i believe two types of loach and the bullhead which are evil fish (one bit me when i accidently caught it fishing lol) but all live in different environments so each need different styled tanks which could be expensive lol.
Just be carefull as if you catch any fry you cant id put them back imediately as they could get very big very quickly.

 

[Mikaila31]

Here's some new pictures of them settled in and a full tank shot. If I can't find any native minnows I like, I probably just go with some WCMM.