Cold water tank for beginner

[RedFish42]

I've been thinking about starting a tank and either keeping some yellow perch, rock bass, or Mediterranean gobies. I was wondering if any of you had any experience with these species and could offer any advice. Also, if fed well, how big will they get?
Thank you

 

[MN_Rebel]

My experiences with yellow perch and rock bass is that they are boring fish I ever had. Fed them living foods and they won't take prepared foods. Rock bass can get very big up to 15" easily and yellow perch often surpassed 10"

 

[Shenanigans]

IME, I wouldnt call perch really a beginner fish, as MN rebel said, they are not easy to pellet train and can be picky eaters. If they eat well, they can reach 21" and nearly 4 pounds(record) More likely, a well kept perch will stay 13-15" and 1-2 pounds. Im not familiar with the other two.

Many minnows and dace stay small and are easily kept and trained on prepared foods. Sunfish species are easy and readily take pellets, I have had alot of luck pellet training eels(escape artists), catfish species are very easy...there are many easy beginner natives. If you really want better suggestions for natives that would fit what you want, you need to provide more info such as the tank size and dimensions, do you want a community, one or two bigger predators etc

 

[Itsadeepbluesea]

Perch can pose some what of a challenge, they tend to stress out easily, and can be difficult to acclimate. You can get them on pellets but it is difficulty. But they do accept a variety of other foods. For my mine I cycle between freeze dried krill, frozen blood worms, frozen brine shrimp and cut up smelt. For size technicallly they can get up to 21 inches, but this is highly unlikely. Mostly they will max out at a foot or less. If you don't mind having to work with foods other then pellets or flakes and you are careful with the acclimation process I find them to be quite enjoyable.

 

[Owain4]

I started with baby yellow perch in a 55 gallon, they had no problem taking freeze dried shrimp and any other live food. since you are american however i suggest trying out some pumpkinseeds and other pretty sunfish

 

[everlastace]

I had some pumpkin seeds, they were cool, for about a week. Very dull.

 

[piranhaman00]

I had both. My perch readily accepts anything that i throw into the tank but yes it stresses out very easily. The rock bass was kind of aggressive with his tankmates but he to accepted any type of food.

as for the size you will never get a rockbass to 15 inches thats kinda ridiculous. I know they can get that big but really id say more like 9 to 10 in a tank. Perch will most likely max out at a foot.

 

[nsfmabk]

I've had several rock bass and yellow perch over the years, the rock bass I've had are real gluttons and will eat almost anything and have been agressive to everything except for my hybrid and green sunfish, as for yellow perch they are hard to acclimate and can be sensitive, I've had no real problems pellet training them if they were under 8 inches, bigger ones have never accepted pellets from me , but it isn't impossible, both species are rather dull compared to the sunfish species, though the three yellow perch I have right now swim around together with my yellow bass and are fun to watch.

 

[warmouth]

I've been thinking about starting a tank and either keeping some yellow perch, rock bass, or Mediterranean gobies. I was wondering if any of you had any experience with these species and could offer any advice. Also, if fed well, how big will they get?
Thank you

I had a friend who had an Ozark bass (a subspecies of Rock bass) in with some Oscars and he loved them, Shadow bass or Ozark bass are like Rock bass but smaller and a little bit milder of a personality.