Brook Trout Questions

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
Interesting... i know a guy with native riffle tank that is about 3' wide 3' tall and 5' long. He has a lot of beautiful natives in it. Plus two 7" brooks. Its a awesome tank. It's about 60°, so he keeps it real cold. That might be why they all get along...

That sounds aweosome!!! :D. Any pics you have of it?
 
Yes definitely would like to see some pics of that. Love seeing native tanks, especially river tanks.

Also, glad I could help bring my fellow fishheads more knowledge about lampreys, knowing I didn't waste all that time doing research in college. lol
 
Ok well I'm waiting to do trout until next spring of I do decide to do them but I was at a hatchery this weekend on my way home from a fly fishing trip to see what they had and they told me in April and May they'd be glad to sell me Brown, Brook, Tiger, Rainbow or Xanthtic Rainbow (Palomino) Trout fry around 2-3". I'm also setting up a tank between 240-360 gallons probably by January or so so I have plenty of tank space to grow out trout in. I do have a few questions though. First, which of these is the best for captivity purposes, also which can take the highest water temps, final which is least aggressive? The reason I'm setting up the giant tank is because mainly I want a large tank but my parents are only letting me because my mom's favorite fish (a gibbiceps pleco) is putting on size and she doesn't want me to get rid of it, so as difficult as it is if I had the trout in a giant tank the temp range would have to be high end for trout and low end for the pleco in order to keep them together. It's another stort if I did them in my 75G though. I know they'd outgrow it eventually but I think they'd be good until they got to large. I'd be very willing to run a chiller on my 75 and keep it around 62-64 but for this tank I'm looking for the slowest growing species of the 4 I listed above, what would that be?
 
None of them. All trout species are fast growers. Browns and tigers can tolerant the warm temperatures but they are highly territorial and cannibalistic and they may will kill pleco. Brook is least tolerant of warm temperatures and won't be thriving in the temperatures the pleco is in. Rainbows get too big for your setting and they are fastest growing trout. To be honest, you will have problems with temperatures while try to keep trout with pleco. Perhaps you might have to look at different species that is comfortable in the temperatures with the pleco.
 
None of them. All trout species are fast growers. Browns and tigers can tolerant the warm temperatures but they are highly territorial and cannibalistic and they may will kill pleco. Brook is least tolerant of warm temperatures and won't be thriving in the temperatures the pleco is in. Rainbows get too big for your setting and they are fastest growing trout. To be honest, you will have problems with temperatures while try to keep trout with pleco. Perhaps you might have to look at different species that is comfortable in the temperatures with the pleco.

The pleco will be in the 300G and I'd have the trout in my 75G by themselves (maybe with my white sucker for a while) and would chill it to as cold as necessary. So regardless of temp what would be best to growout in a 75? When they got to big I'd move them to the 300G and shuffle the pleco around or out them in the pond I'm building in April.
 
Personally I would just slow down and hold off on the trout plan for awhile. Its great that you have great interests into native fishes, but keeping trout thriving ain't that cheap and judging from other threads you had some trouble to keeping natives alive so I feels that you are not ready for take on the trout challenge yet.
 
Yeah it's probably best to wait, I'll keep them someday though. And the natives I've been.loosing aren't from water conditions or aggression. I lost my perch from jumping out and swim bladder problems. I lost some minnows and darters because either they jumped out or I added them to an established tank without QT. All of these I admit to be mistakes and I've learned from them as well as corrected the things that were wrong such as loose lids and I now QT new fish unless putting the, in their own new tank. Thanks for the concern though.
 
Haven't seen this thread in awhile. But regardless, I'm a very stubborn person, and am going to setup a trout tank regardless of being informed of all the expenses :). Since I got a pair of 33 longs for very cheap, I think I'll probably use one as a growout trout tank. One will almost definitely be planted and my original idea for the other was to use it as a European stream tank but those fish are just so hard to find over here. So, the 33 measures (48"x12"x12") which will be a temporary GROWOUT for 3-6 fry-smolt sized fish. The next tank after that will be a (72"x18"x22") 125 gallon which, by the time they get monstrous enough to outgrow that, i should once again be in the market for yet a larger tank :). This 125 was originally going to be a sunfish tank plus my yellow bullhead and sailfin pleco, but I can always put my sunfish in one of the 33s as a local lake themed tank, the bullhead I'm sure can tolerate stream life in a trout tank as yellows are most adapted to moving water, and the pleco in a small outdoor pond for the summer (180 gallon pond is what I'm looking at now).

And for those concerned with temp, don't be. This tank will be in a basement fishroom which ranges from 72 max in the summer down to the low 50's in the dead of Winter. I'll be providing rigorous aeration via a large powerhead in the growout tank and probably a few powerheads plus a large prop pump in the 125, both tank with a river system manifold for filtration.

All that's left now, if I do go this route, is to decide what trout I want. I'm tossing two ideas around in my head right now. One is to go with a local stream theme with all the fish found in streams around here (whether native or not) including a Rainbow, Xanthic Rainbow, Brown, and Brook. The other option would be a wild brook trout Biotope such as streams in north central pa where I go on fly fishing trips. Stock would be 3 or so brooks and maybe a brown as they're not native but there's very much a small stable population of them in these streams. Which stock would you guys rather go with of these two?

Oh, and if I run into territory issues among the fish as they grow I can just thin out the numbers and put the "problem fish" I a friend's cold water pond in his yard.
 
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