First off, I'm glad to have found this forum. I've been searching and reading articles for days, but most of the fish forums I came across were inactive.
Second, background: We live on a canal on a large chain of lakes in Orlando, Florida, where last month my son and his dad caught nine minnows. I was on my way out of town and assumed they were going to throw the minnows back. Imagine my surprise when I returned a week later and found them (the minnows, not the boys) living in the same buckets of water!
I know nothing about fish, but since my son declared them "keepers" I immediately grabbed a Critter Keeper (I have a seven-year old boy, we keep these on hand as a matter of course!) and fetched a change of water from the canal. The next day we took the minnows to a pet store and asked loads of questions about how to keep them… which over the next three weeks led to more pet store visits and more questions with inconsistent answers… which is why I'm posting here.
Right now we have seven minnows (two died suddenly after a partial water change) living in a 1.75 gallon Critter Keeper (so about 1.5 actual gallons of water), with no filter or other equipment. Every couple of days we fetch a bucket of water from the canal, let it come to indoor room temp, and do a partial water change. We were doing a complete change once a week, but it's been about ten days since the last (jumping on that tomorrow). The "tank" is furnished with pebbles and river stones from dad's tool shed, a large snail shell recovered from the canal bed and a few live plants also pulled from the canal. Oh, and one store-bought decoration the fish can hide in. Tonight we discovered a snail, which after some reading I'm guessing came in on one of the plants or with a water change. After visiting a bona fide LFS (Fishy Business in Longwood, FL) today, we think one of the minnows is pregnant (is that the right term for fish?) and separated her into a smaller Critter Keeper.
So now I come to the questions. Since keeping these minnows is turning into a long-term project, I've been asking the pet stores/LFS how best to keep them, and the consensus seems to be to transition them to conditioned water. After sifting through the different answers, I've come up with a tentative plan: Set up a 5 or 10 gallon tank with water from the canal and run a filter on it for a few days. Since this is the water the minnows are currently living in, go ahead and put them in the new tank. Then slowly begin introducing conditioned water with water changes, maybe 10% at a time, once a week?
Is this a viable plan? Will the tank have the appropriate bacteria, etc. if I do it this way? Is there a better way? Once the tank is completely on conditioned water, would I be able to add fish purchased from a store? Or would it be advisable to keep the native fish separate? Is this whole project inadvisable, i.e., if we are really interested in fishkeeping as a hobby should we release the minnows back into the canal and start over?
Every day I read up I discover things to consider that I never knew needed to be considered! I appreciate any help you can give. Thank you!
Audrey
Second, background: We live on a canal on a large chain of lakes in Orlando, Florida, where last month my son and his dad caught nine minnows. I was on my way out of town and assumed they were going to throw the minnows back. Imagine my surprise when I returned a week later and found them (the minnows, not the boys) living in the same buckets of water!
I know nothing about fish, but since my son declared them "keepers" I immediately grabbed a Critter Keeper (I have a seven-year old boy, we keep these on hand as a matter of course!) and fetched a change of water from the canal. The next day we took the minnows to a pet store and asked loads of questions about how to keep them… which over the next three weeks led to more pet store visits and more questions with inconsistent answers… which is why I'm posting here.
Right now we have seven minnows (two died suddenly after a partial water change) living in a 1.75 gallon Critter Keeper (so about 1.5 actual gallons of water), with no filter or other equipment. Every couple of days we fetch a bucket of water from the canal, let it come to indoor room temp, and do a partial water change. We were doing a complete change once a week, but it's been about ten days since the last (jumping on that tomorrow). The "tank" is furnished with pebbles and river stones from dad's tool shed, a large snail shell recovered from the canal bed and a few live plants also pulled from the canal. Oh, and one store-bought decoration the fish can hide in. Tonight we discovered a snail, which after some reading I'm guessing came in on one of the plants or with a water change. After visiting a bona fide LFS (Fishy Business in Longwood, FL) today, we think one of the minnows is pregnant (is that the right term for fish?) and separated her into a smaller Critter Keeper.
So now I come to the questions. Since keeping these minnows is turning into a long-term project, I've been asking the pet stores/LFS how best to keep them, and the consensus seems to be to transition them to conditioned water. After sifting through the different answers, I've come up with a tentative plan: Set up a 5 or 10 gallon tank with water from the canal and run a filter on it for a few days. Since this is the water the minnows are currently living in, go ahead and put them in the new tank. Then slowly begin introducing conditioned water with water changes, maybe 10% at a time, once a week?
Is this a viable plan? Will the tank have the appropriate bacteria, etc. if I do it this way? Is there a better way? Once the tank is completely on conditioned water, would I be able to add fish purchased from a store? Or would it be advisable to keep the native fish separate? Is this whole project inadvisable, i.e., if we are really interested in fishkeeping as a hobby should we release the minnows back into the canal and start over?
Every day I read up I discover things to consider that I never knew needed to be considered! I appreciate any help you can give. Thank you!
Audrey
