Favorite native fish for aquarium and why?

[k0y0te]

My favorite native fish is the Red Breasted Sunfish. Great coloring, active but my favorite time to watch is during feeding time. He hits the food fast and hard. He darts from the bottom under the food (floating pellets) and hit themm hard. Mine very aggressive and tries to kill anything that goes in the tank. IMO great fish to have!

 

[ScatMan]

That would be the ALL AMERICAN Bowfin.

I don't know how to go about explaining the personality of my Bowfins. They are similiar to Oscars in that aspect. I love hand feeding these brutes. It is hard to believe that these gentle playful beautiful creatures are the APEX freshwater predator in the USA. It just breaks my heart that they are doomed to extinction from retarded polliticians making laws in the US FORCEING the citizens to exterminate a non-native species of fish that has a slightly similiar body shape as poor 150,000,000 old native Amia Calva and wacking a prehistoric native fish in the process.

You members on MFK here either have no concept of an idea of what the consensus thought of the "MAJORITY" of the USA Freshwater Large Mouth Bass fishermen thoughts are on protection of the whimpy large mouth bass that can not defend itself from a real predator fish, or are just ignorant and fully intend to stay that way! It is an EXTREME common belief with LMB fishermen that even if you can successfull differentiate the Bowfin from a Snakehead, that the bowfin should ALWAYS be culled in the same manner as the invasive.

No kidding. THE MAJORITY of LMB fishermen believe the Bowfin (Native to the waters of the USA for over 150,000,000 years) is a serious threat the the LMB population in the USA. The fact that even though the LMB is an infantile fish in comparison to the Bowfin and that no serious decline in population has occured in the first 2,000,000 year stint of the LMB can NEVER factor into the equation of (protecting their wittle game phish).

I am an avid fisherman and find myself embarised to admit it with the average IQ displayed by the ALL AMERICAN LMB fishermen.

that must be a maryland thing related to their war on snakehead. the fisherman i've met here in pa and nj all LOVE and respect bowfin. they consider themselves lucky to get a glimpse of the beasts when caught accidentally and some people fish for them intentionally just like others do with bass. don't lose hope, in my experience, your passion for the bowfin is shared with many fisherman in my area!

to the op: i keep 2 albino channel cats in my pond that are awesome and active fish imo!!! a friend of mine had a silver-blue colored yellow perch that looked cool and my uncle had a melanistic smb that was damn near jet black when he was a kid.

i like the prehistoric looking stuff, so if i could i would keep sturgeon, bowfin, gars and paddlefish. when i convert my pool to a pond, i think i'll try a paddlefish!

some of the dace and darters can be really colorfull too! awesome looking fish but a little harder to keep.