Trout, Cold water

In the Canada and the US (I think) it is illegal to keep native fish without a liscence of some sort. Also, the chilling equipment, tank size and water flow equipment costs for keeping trout are prohibitive. It would be more frugal to stock & keep a pond.

There are different laws in different states about different fish -- one of the difficulties. For game fish the most ubiquitous difficulty is the minimum size for possession. Also, from what I've heard secondhand, most gamefish -- trout, largemouth bass, etc, just don't make great aquarium fish. From experience I can say that trout are great if you have a little stream running by or thru your place with a bridge or some kind of viewing stand. Very cool!

That having been said, I do keep some natives -- perch, pumpkinseeds, warmouth, a gar, a bullhead, etc, and find them every bit as interesting as the tropicals.

A month or so ago there was someone with a largemouth bass in with his oscars, I wish I could remember who????? I thought of keeping a small brookie i cought south of lake tahoe on the upper truckee river. BUt yeah, the whole cost of keeping it would be tough. If you do it let us know, mabey I could catch you a big mac in the lake or a cutbow from the carson. I'm assuming you like to fish, where ya from?

When I was just a teen, I caught some tiny minnows in a mountain lake near here. I brought them home and put them in my 20 gal long guppy tank, hoping (not sure why) that they were either rainbow trout or kokanee salmon. Some of them grew to about 1 inch and then died, I got one to grow to nearly 3 inches and noticed that his mouth was pointed downward... he was one of those yucky sucker fish that you'd catch from time to time when fishing.... Anyway, he wasn't too attractive to look at and would pace the tank something terrible. I intended to take him back to the lake the next time my family went up there, but he didn't make it that long, he managed to jump out of the tiniest little open spot on the back of the tank...

I wouldn't recommend trying to keep one. Aside from it being illegal, if you ever go to one of those sportsmens shows when they come to your area, they'll have fishing demonstrations with huge tanks (I'd guess 1000 or so gallons) with giant filters on them, pushing the water from one end of the tank to the other to simulate a stream or river, to keep the fish alive... And they're definitely not as pretty as a pair of kribensis anyway!

I agree about the sunfish -- they're great, and very colorful! I also like the perch a lot. I recommend at least 3 -- they like to school. In fact, for a while I had them in my cichlid tank, and they adopted the Juripari as their leader. Very neat.

http://www.cichlidfish.com/photogallery/showphoto.php?photo=1326&papass=&sort=1&thecat=500

michaeljames said:

I have had great success w sunfish and bass
theyre appetites are voracious! I originally wanted to do large mouth
but after having them for a while, I gotta say the Sunfish take the cake
as being the most interesting fish I've ever had. so inquisitive and brave
I have been wanting to get a bullhead for a loooong time now but as mentioned already I find it next to impossible to catch one under 6"

Click to expand...

We catch really small bullhead all the time in the summer, they're usually foraging in the leaf litter just on the shoreline. The larger specimen are out towards the middle of the lake (it's a small lake). My g/f originally caught one a few years ago thinking it was a tadpole and that "tadpole" grew into an 18" monster in my g/f's mom's pond. Unfourtuneatly last summer we think a racoon managed to get it when her cat was at the vet for a week and the dog was with us camping. The racoon also slaughtered my g/f's mom's chicken. =(

18" is HUGE for any species of bullhead. That would be a state record fish in many states.

I once had two yellow bullheads, less than 2", come in a bunch of minnows that I bought for bait. When, I first kept them they, they easily fit into a small pill bottle and like to stay there much of the time. By feeding them massive amounts of earthworms, I got those two guys to grow to over 6" in less than a year. Thought they grew very well, they did not make great pets as they liked to stay hidden and would dart into the glass of startled.

My favorite fish ever was a largemouth bass. The fish would take minnows and nightcrawlers from my hand. Eventually, the bass got to the point where it would take a minnow dangled about three inches above the surface! The bass would also let me pet it. It would always watch me no matter where I was at in the room. Bluegills, warmouth, rock bass, green sunfish - any member of the sunfish family - all make great pets. Just like the bass they can be handfed after a short while.

cdawson said:

We catch really small bullhead all the time in the summer, they're usually foraging in the leaf litter just on the shoreline. The larger specimen are out towards the middle of the lake (it's a small lake). My g/f originally caught one a few years ago thinking it was a tadpole and that "tadpole" grew into an 18" monster in my g/f's mom's pond. Unfourtuneatly last summer we think a racoon managed to get it when her cat was at the vet for a week and the dog was with us camping. The racoon also slaughtered my g/f's mom's chicken. =(

Click to expand...

They're not good aquarium fish, and yes it was around 18", it was big and definately a black bullhead. Usually they only reach about 6-10", but when in a favourable setting where they can gorge themselves daily without interuption they will reach their max size of 18". 18" is not unusual for up here, we catch large ones too. They live in a closed system, a man made drainage lake that houses small trout for 3 months of the year, and is loaded with pumpkinseed sunfish and black bullhead.