Migrating Fish that can be kept in an aquarium?

[cubano]

I'm wondering if there are any migrating fish (example: Steelhead, Salmon, Shad, Sturgeon, etc) that can be kept in an aquarium. They'd have to be much smaller than those fish previously mentioned obviously, but I was just wondering.

[aquariumfishguy]

Darn, thats one thing I'm not sure of. I can say that if you find a fish that will work (if this is something your interested in doing), make sure your local nature conservatives didn't make this illegal because many of these fish are illegal to keep as "pets".

HTH

[cubano]

I wonder if some fish that are already commonly kept as pets aren't migratory?

[aquariumfishguy]

I'm sure some might have been (to an extent)...

...but this might have been many many years ago before we commerialized on fish.

[cubano]

Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking.

I find the fact that some fish migrate hundred's of mile's to the waters of their birth very intresting.

[cubano]

I found one, from PlanetCatfish.com, about the Columbian Shark Catfish:

"Breeding: A mouthbrooder, the few, amazingly large eggs are incubated by the male. Reproduction in the aquarium is difficult as the aquarist requires to emulate the migration from marine to fresh water and back again in a spacious aquarium. The is one verbal report of this being accomplished by an American aquarist who spawned the fish by gradually changed the water from marine to fresh water and back again over a 12 month period. "

[aquariumfishguy]

Yes, and whats funny is this fish isn't illegal to keep...yet other migraters are. Makes no sense to me. :p

Of course, there is some exceptions to the law. For instance, some fish are endangered and some are near endangered. In this case, I can understand.

[cdawson]

Originally posted by cubano
I'm wondering if there are any migrating fish (example: Steelhead, Salmon, Shad, Sturgeon, etc) that can be kept in an aquarium. They'd have to be much smaller than those fish previously mentioned obviously, but I was just wondering.


All you would need to do was just vary the salinity , which is the hard part. Getting the exact specific gravity right for each and every place they visit year round. You'd have to go from completely FW to SW in about 8 months and then slowly back to FW for the next year. If you have the SW/BW experience with carefully working with marine salt, alot of spare time, money and a very large tank go for it. All those fish also need to be in schools (aside from the sturgeon) and get very large. They'd all need at least a tank of about 5000 gallons. Especially the sturgeon which reach lengths of 15' and can weigh around 2 tonnes. As for fish smaller than that, there's the mono and scat which I keep that still need a large aquarium but not nearly as big. The columbian cat shark, and the violet goby. We're pretty limited to our choices in this area, as far as availability goes.