Freshwater Gamefish

camber1981

AC Members
Jun 23, 2008
31
0
0
Genoa, IL
I am thinking of starting a north american lake tank in the spring, probably 90 gallons. does anyone have any experience/suggestions, etc.? Any ideas as to lighting/substrate/filtration demands? Some ideas on plants and what fish to stock would be helpful as well. I was thinking along the lines of maybe a largemouth bass and some crappie or something along those lines.... :help:
 
A 90 gallon tank is way to small for largemouth bass and crappie.
 
A 90 gallon tank is way to small for largemouth bass and crappie.

thats why i'm asking, i haven't the foggiest where i am going with it, yet. the only reason i was thinking largemouth vs. smallmouth is someone had told me before that smallmouths need a lot of current.

if anyone lives near crystal lake, IL, you may have seen the tanks in Nick's Pizza in recent years. (granted I haven't been there in like, 6 years) but i believe they had a few bass and walleye in 55 gallon tanks around the place, although i think they kept them about 1 or 2 fish to a tank.
 
You could probably keep a largemouth and then release it back into **the same place it came from** once it got too big. I'm not sure about the legalities though.

I know keeping gamefish as pets is illegal in some states.
 
Try american flag fish.

Or a smaller killifish like that like red ears, small bluegill species, and there are a few other.

or you could just go the cool route and get a male and female crawdad, some minnows and a res.
 
Ken- Rerelease of fish is illegal in all states.

Camber- The other posters are right that a 90 gallon is far too small for a black bass. However, there are many smaller centrarchids with basslike behavior, such as rock bass, warmouth, and green sunfish. You could keep a small group of these species in a 90, as well as other smaller predators such as grass pickerel. Crappie are smilar in size to these fish, but they probably wouldn't do well in a 90; they really need a lot of room to swim and are easily stressed.

A great source of info on keeping North American native fish is http://forum.nanfa.org/. Hope to see you there!
 
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