My little girl is two and loves to go fishing at the pond with me. She loves watching them swim away when I catch them.
I found a 55 gallon tank the other day really cheap and picked it up. I was thinking about getting some fish from the store, but I think it could be cool to have some native fish in there instead.
I found this on tpwd:
Code
Fish stored by a person at their residence do not apply to their possession limit.
Spotted, Guadalupe & Alabama
No Minimum Length
Sunfish
Various species including bluegill, redear, green, warmouth & longear
Daily Bag:
No limit
No Minimum Length
So I think I am okay to do this?
I was thinking 1 guad and 2 sunfish to start would be plenty. I have researched how to feed them, setup a suitable environment, and how to introduce them into the tank from the lake water.
Has anyone done this and have any helpful tips?
I only bass fish usually, are there any sunfish variety that I should seek for color/activity levels?
A friend of mine that goes by Dfitz on the forum is a "MASTER" when it comes to fish aquariums. Hopefully he will respond to your post. I have seen several good aquarium post here on the forum over years and I have always enjoyed seen their aquariums in operation.
Side Note: As stated by Smithaven the Longear Sunfish is the most colorful of all the sunfish. I have seen them in a lot of aquariums. The Rio Grande Cichlids also make a good aquarium fish as long as you get them in 3 to 4 inch range.
IGFA World Record Rio Grande Cichlid. Lake Dunlap.
John 3:16
Sinner's Prayer. God forgive me a sinner. I accept Jesus Christ as my Savior !
Good luck with your aquarium project Wes, I'm sure your daughter will love it, but be prepared to be gratified by it yourself. 55gl is a good starting point for a first aquarium, it may sound big to people, but for North America Native Fish tank, it is on the small side. Small predators grow fast, with good water quality and a healthy diet your 4" Guad will be 8" within a year, same goes for doubling a 3" Sunny. Bass, Sunfish, Crappie, Pickerel, Catfish, Bowfin, Gar are considered Aggressive not Community fish and will want to claim a territory and will fight for it, provide lots hiding places, driftwood. The smallest or weakest fish will get picked on, its fins nipped and will eventually stop eating from the stress so try to keep things that are similar in size. Make sure all your fish eat when you feed.
Bass/Sunfish eat a lot, and what goes in, must go out. So, water changes are a must. Siphon the sand/gravel once a week. Read up on Aquarium Salt for your fish, mine do much better with it. Are you doing an underwater gravel filter or a wet/dry sump filtration? Think about adding a Fluval External to help keep the water crystal clear along with adding activated Carbon. Ammonia and Nitrite must stay at 0ppm, my Nitrates stay around 40. I keep my Ph around 7.4 If your aquarium Ph is different than where you caught the fish, I recommend letting the fish adjust and to stay away from additives that raise or lower your Ph.
Regarding fish, every tank I have set up I used Goldfish or minnows to start the Nitrogen cycle, once that has run its course start adding your desired fish.
I will offer my on what would be a healthy fish stock. As Chuck said, small Rios are fantastic to keep, they have a good personality (not shy) and their range is limited for most people to collect, being in SA that is not an issue for you. While Bullheads are hated in the angler world, they are awesome in the aquarium world. Easy to catch with a minnow trap in a pond with some dog food or Bacon as bait and you can keep small ones unlike Channel, Blues, Yellas. And Catfish show well in aquariums, take my word for it. Longear are colorful, hearty, and flat out mean when in the Alpha position. And for Guad Bass, I have one, he is beautiful and a favorite, but I would not recommend introducing him for your first go at stocking a tank. Wait until things have settled and you are confident with the acclimation process. Stay away from Redears, don't have great colors and not as hearty. Redspots are awesome if you can find them, Redbreast can be hard to keep when you are new at this, Warmouth will eat anything that fits, but find a small and I recommend keeping, great color and fun to feed, Bluegill and Greens both acclimate well.
Another idea for having an impressive aquarium, look for interesting color morphs and hybrid Sunfish. Certain water bodies produce oddball colors and patterns, that's what you want to focus on. Thats what I look for.
Let me know if you have any additional ideas you want to bounce off me. Be sure to post pics when your tank is set up.
Finally here is a link to my 225gl North American Native Tank. New pics will be added soon.
Good luck with your aquarium project Wes, I'm sure your daughter will love it, but be prepared to be gratified by it yourself. 55gl is a good starting point for a first aquarium, it may sound big to people, but for North America Native Fish tank, it is on the small side. Small predators grow fast, with good water quality and a healthy diet your 4" Guad will be 8" within a year, same goes for doubling a 3" Sunny. Bass, Sunfish, Crappie, Pickerel, Catfish, Bowfin, Gar are considered Aggressive not Community fish and will want to claim a territory and will fight for it, provide lots hiding places, driftwood. The smallest or weakest fish will get picked on, its fins nipped and will eventually stop eating from the stress so try to keep things that are similar in size. Make sure all your fish eat when you feed.
Bass/Sunfish eat a lot, and what goes in, must go out. So, water changes are a must. Siphon the sand/gravel once a week. Read up on Aquarium Salt for your fish, mine do much better with it. Are you doing an underwater gravel filter or a wet/dry sump filtration? Think about adding a Fluval External to help keep the water crystal clear along with adding activated Carbon. Ammonia and Nitrite must stay at 0ppm, my Nitrates stay around 40. I keep my Ph around 7.4 If your aquarium Ph is different than where you caught the fish, I recommend letting the fish adjust and to stay away from additives that raise or lower your Ph.
Regarding fish, every tank I have set up I used Goldfish or minnows to start the Nitrogen cycle, once that has run its course start adding your desired fish.
I will offer my on what would be a healthy fish stock. As Chuck said, small Rios are fantastic to keep, they have a good personality (not shy) and their range is limited for most people to collect, being in SA that is not an issue for you. While Bullheads are hated in the angler world, they are awesome in the aquarium world. Easy to catch with a minnow trap in a pond with some dog food or Bacon as bait and you can keep small ones unlike Channel, Blues, Yellas. And Catfish show well in aquariums, take my word for it. Longear are colorful, hearty, and flat out mean when in the Alpha position. And for Guad Bass, I have one, he is beautiful and a favorite, but I would not recommend introducing him for your first go at stocking a tank. Wait until things have settled and you are confident with the acclimation process. Stay away from Redears, don't have great colors and not as hearty. Redspots are awesome if you can find them, Redbreast can be hard to keep when you are new at this, Warmouth will eat anything that fits, but find a small and I recommend keeping, great color and fun to feed, Bluegill and Greens both acclimate well.
Another idea for having an impressive aquarium, look for interesting color morphs and hybrid Sunfish. Certain water bodies produce oddball colors and patterns, that's what you want to focus on. Thats what I look for.
Let me know if you have any additional ideas you want to bounce off me. Be sure to post pics when your tank is set up.
Finally here is a link to my 225gl North American Native Tank. New pics will be added soon.
Good luck with your aquarium project Wes, I'm sure your daughter will love it, but be prepared to be gratified by it yourself. 55gl is a good starting point for a first aquarium, it may sound big to people, but for North America Native Fish tank, it is on the small side. Small predators grow fast, with good water quality and a healthy diet your 4" Guad will be 8" within a year, same goes for doubling a 3" Sunny. Bass, Sunfish, Crappie, Pickerel, Catfish, Bowfin, Gar are considered Aggressive not Community fish and will want to claim a territory and will fight for it, provide lots hiding places, driftwood. The smallest or weakest fish will get picked on, its fins nipped and will eventually stop eating from the stress so try to keep things that are similar in size. Make sure all your fish eat when you feed.
Bass/Sunfish eat a lot, and what goes in, must go out. So, water changes are a must. Siphon the sand/gravel once a week. Read up on Aquarium Salt for your fish, mine do much better with it. Are you doing an underwater gravel filter or a wet/dry sump filtration? Think about adding a Fluval External to help keep the water crystal clear along with adding activated Carbon. Ammonia and Nitrite must stay at 0ppm, my Nitrates stay around 40. I keep my Ph around 7.4 If your aquarium Ph is different than where you caught the fish, I recommend letting the fish adjust and to stay away from additives that raise or lower your Ph.
Regarding fish, every tank I have set up I used Goldfish or minnows to start the Nitrogen cycle, once that has run its course start adding your desired fish.
I will offer my on what would be a healthy fish stock. As Chuck said, small Rios are fantastic to keep, they have a good personality (not shy) and their range is limited for most people to collect, being in SA that is not an issue for you. While Bullheads are hated in the angler world, they are awesome in the aquarium world. Easy to catch with a minnow trap in a pond with some dog food or Bacon as bait and you can keep small ones unlike Channel, Blues, Yellas. And Catfish show well in aquariums, take my word for it. Longear are colorful, hearty, and flat out mean when in the Alpha position. And for Guad Bass, I have one, he is beautiful and a favorite, but I would not recommend introducing him for your first go at stocking a tank. Wait until things have settled and you are confident with the acclimation process. Stay away from Redears, don't have great colors and not as hearty. Redspots are awesome if you can find them, Redbreast can be hard to keep when you are new at this, Warmouth will eat anything that fits, but find a small and I recommend keeping, great color and fun to feed, Bluegill and Greens both acclimate well.
Another idea for having an impressive aquarium, look for interesting color morphs and hybrid Sunfish. Certain water bodies produce oddball colors and patterns, that's what you want to focus on. Thats what I look for.
Let me know if you have any additional ideas you want to bounce off me. Be sure to post pics when your tank is set up.
Finally here is a link to my 225gl North American Native Tank. New pics will be added soon.
Thank you for the help everyone and a special thanks to dfitz for that amazing write up.
My filter is a 350gpm filter for 70gal tanks so it should be able to handle 55gal easy. I heard the sunfish create quite a mess and was reading I should get a strong filter. I also plan to get some nerite snails to handle algae.
I bought a nice led light and a timer to keep them on a schedule. There is plenty of gravel on the bottom right now, along with bigger rocks, decorations, and fake grass. I am going to be looking around for some nice driftwood as I can't see paying $80 for a stick at petsmart like I saw today.
I'm also going to follow your advise on holding off on the guad and start with two Rios if I can catch them.
I'll post some pictures hopefully by next week when it's all running.
We have some Nerite snails and little fish to start the nitrogen cycle as recommended.
Plenty of bubbles and light. Tons of Muana.
Now to find some driftwood for cover and some Rios!
-Wes
edit- The light in the tank actually looks pretty cool, its a blue led. I can not figure out how to take a picture that looks even close to how it really looks though.
I have a small tank in my Kitchen, about 22 gal. the bluegill killed everything else except the snails. He really went after the crayfish and ghost minnows. I now feed him meal worms. They come preserved, I give him 2-4 every 3 days, he goes right after them and he has gotten bigger with beautiful blue coloring. I may just release him and try again with smaller fish. Try using a cast net around any reeds, shallow warm areas, you will get plenty of small fish to chose from.