native new england aquarium setup.

kittyhazelton

kittyhazelton

I eat sushi
Aug 15, 2005
198
0
0
41
Hartford, VT
elfwood.lysator.liu.se
converting 110h aquarium into local newengland fish tank....ideas?
Perch, trout, bass, hornpout, crappies, ideas?
The tank is 48" X 18" X 30". Fish will be caught this spring and kept in it as a permanent home, so nothing that gets too big.
I was thinking a small school or perch would be nice, as they're quite colorful. Ideas welcome.
 
your tank is about 80 gallons. the common 'yellow perch' grows to 30-50 cm., (at least a foot). a 'school' of Perca flavescens in my opinion, is far too much fish for the size of your tank.
 
Most of the local game fish get far too big for a tank like that. At most, I would say one or a pair of smallish sunfish such as bluegill. You probably couldn't keep anything else in there, as if it was big enough not to be eaten, it would probably be too much bioload. Bluegill are also fairly territorial. Maybe some schools of local minnows, things like that?
 
Im not trying to be rude, but according to my calculation the tank is about 112 gallons. But is still to small for such a large fish.
 
I might consider a tank with several banded sunfish (Enneacanthus obesus), a couple of tadpole madtoms (Noturus gyrinus), a large group of Banded killifish (Fundulus diaphanus) and Swamp darter (Etheostoma fusiforme) to start. These are local to the area. If you wanted to seek fish from other parts of the country, your selection would improve greatly but you have some pretty neat stuff in your backyard.

You could round the tank out a little better with some of you favorite local shiners etc. as dithers.
 
I'm not talking giant laker fish here, I'm talking small pond fish.
biggest perch I've ever caught have been aroun 10" max. So I'm wondering how an 18" wide 4' long tank would be too small for say 4-5? (Assuming I catch them small or aquire them from the local hatchery)
Are we thinking the same area here? there are alot of very small/shallow ponds around here that I've seen plenty of smaller fish.
Not to mention I'm in vermont, a generally swampy area.
I notice the replys I got are from Chicago, North Carolina, Oaklahoma, and Conneticut.
DEFINITELY not in my area. So are there any "LOCAL" people who can give me some direction?
 
the Native American fish keeping community is pretty small but lots of us trade and share info, If you are having trouble finding info on native fish pm me, there are several forums that have good solid info about native fish, in your area as well as others.
 
I'm pretty sure that most of the fish you have in VT are pretty much the same ones we have down here in CT.

Also, I wouldn't put five 10-12" fish in a 110gal tank. Maybe one or two. They're going to grow a lot faster in a tank than in the wild since they'll have a year round growing season and no dormant winter period.
 
The tadpole madtom, as mentioned earlier, looks to be a native catfish species from canada all the way to the gulf of mexico. That would be a good bottom-level fish. Eastern banded killifish should also be available. you could do something like pumpkinseed or bluegill, but they will probably eat anything else in the tank, or try to anyway. There are lots of shiners, minnows, dace that would be good schooling fish. the problem is that while it would be nice to have a dcent sized centerpiece fish, most native fish of any size are relatively predatory so would be tough to keep in a community of any kind. I think a cool tank would be 5 or 6 of those catfish and a big school of some longnose dace or something, maybe some pond snails, and freshwater mussels if they would survive, not sure they would though.
 
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