I am now finished with the Aquarium except for the fish I want to display. I plan on going out to catch the rare Orange Spotted Sunfish in the San Gabriel on Wednesday morning. I have two 55-70 gallon filters on the 55 gallon setup and plan on keeping about 50 inches of fish in the tank, thus the reason for two filters. I have a Green Sunfish, Longear Sunfish, Hybrid Longear/Green Sunfish, Largemouth Bass, Blacktail Shiner, Creek Chub and miscellaneous juvie sunfish. I will remove some as I add others. Everyone that sees the Longear and the Greenie/Longear hybrid are amazed at the iridescent colors. I hope to add a small native catfish, Texas Cichlid, Dollar Sunfish, Log perch, Gar and some colorful darters. The Grandkids are all ready learning the different species and I am becoming a fish species nut. I caught a 14 inch greyhorse sucker this week in Brushy Creek. How many of you have seen one of those?

I would also like to have a couple of small native mussels, some freshwater shrimp and a Waterdog. If you see any of these or know where to catch them in the Round Rock area please let me know.

The Bass is becoming quite tame while most of the others act as if we are going to immerse them in hot grease at any time. The Blacktail Shiners and the Creek Chub must be sharks at heart as they tear the tank up at feeding time. Thanks for all the advice and help on this project. Have a great week. ET


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Your aquarium looks great Ed.

Awesome, awesome pics! I think you mean Grey Redhorse Sucker, and those are pretty rare in Texas! Great catch. I imagine 14" was probably a bit too big to put in the tank, as it would eat into your 50" max pretty fast.

But it sure would have looked cool cruising about in there!

Oh, looking at the pics again, it also looks as though you have at least one Chubsucker in there. There are at least two species in Texas, River Chubsucker and Lake Chubsucker, I believe. They're fairly rare, and that may be what you're calling a Creek Chub.

Creek Chub have a more foward oriented mouth, like a bass, or if you prefer, a shiner.

Chubsucker, on the other hand, have a mouth more oriented towards the bottom, the same sort of mouth you'd see on a Buffalo, or that Gray Redhorse Sucker you caught.

I'm talking specifically about the fish in see in the picture with the dark stripe extending down it's lateral line, and what appears to be a mouth oriented towards the bottom of the tank.

Dang dude, I just released my Highfin Carpsucker(carpiodes Velifer) cause he got too big. he was awesome. If I'd known, you'd have a rare indiginous fish allright.
Starleess, that dude got to 8" before I could control him!
beautiful tank, dude......
-B

Great job. Me and the Mrs. were just talking this past weekend about getting a tank together for the grandkids. I am in the glass business and have built my own tanks back when I was younger and had a blast with them until I just got tired of taking care of them. I am now ready to get one going and you have given me some great idea's. Thanks.

This is AWESOME Ive been wanting to do a native fish tank for some time! These pics seem to have popped right out of my head. Very nice!

A lil far from Roundrock but I used ti catch some gorgeous Dollar Sunnies in Lake Mathis. There are also freshwater shrimp all over that lake. Have you thought about some freshwater prawn out of San Marcos River?

Nice looking tank, dude. I have a couple questions/ suggestions.

What's the total watts of your lighting ? (You might be able to add live native plants.)

Mussels like to dig down in the sand so I wouldn't add them to a gravel-based substrate. You also have to be careful about how deep you get your mussels. They need to be put into a tank with the depth no more than 24" from their home environment. ( I shad you not . )

Freshwater shrimp and smaller crawdads are gonna be food in that tank . You might want to consider an aquarium with a sand bottom for the mussels and crustaceans with Gambusia (mosquito fish ).

I am open to anything colorful or strange that I can catch.

The prawn are very cool looking. Like a lobster X shrimp. You can catch them w crawdad traps but I know nothing about their habits or needs. Google "freshwater prawns san marcos river."

Very cool.

Wow...really nice... rang my bell!

I did a small aquarium in the 70's. Had fun with the San Marcos Mollies and the baby crawdad's (tiny,tiny shrimp-like) out of the San Marcos River below IH 35. Lots of unique species in there because of the constant spring fed temps. Congrats on your effort.

I hope to obtain some Orange Throat Darters from San Marcos or Onion Creek along with some fresh water shrimp.


One thing I have learned from this aquarium project is the importance of structure. Every fish other than a minnow has picked a rock, root or plant that they are stationed by 95 percent of the time. They will defend that structure against all comers unless run off of it by a more aggressive larger fish. I have a small waterdog and every fish in the aquarium picks on it when it comes by them. It is like they are natural enemies. My little LMB will only eat live larve, cut fish,cut shrimp or cut earthworms. I have not found any commercial pellet or dried fish food he will touch. I had to take the Green Sunfish out as they were too agressive to everything else and would pick a blacktail shiner and pound on it till they killed it. I hope to catch a Rio Grande to replace the Green Sunfish soon.

I've cought Orange Throat Darters with my cast net. I've also cought fresh water eels while fishing for catfish in the San Marcos river. The biggest eel was 5feet and the smallest was 2feet.