Grass pickerel
- Thread starter Joshuakahan
- Start date
i know pike as little moving fish and it is an ambush predator.american species could be simillar.
Lol, you already have the "same fish" with essentially the same paint job, several times over! I've never had any of those assorted silver killer sardines, but at least the Grass Pickerel is a miniature version, in form, colouration and behaviour, of a Northern Pike; much cooler than any of the others, IMHO.
Get the Pickerel! Once it grows up a little, you will find the others in your collection have that perfect slender, spine-free, easily-swallowed body form that will come in handy...
temperature in Phoenix during summer could be lethal for pickerel,i think....Lol, you already have the "same fish" with essentially the same paint job, several times over! I've never had any of those assorted silver killer sardines, but at least the Grass Pickerel is a miniature version, in form, colouration and behaviour, of a Northern Pike; much cooler than any of the others, IMHO.
Get the Pickerel! Once it grows up a little, you will find the others in your collection have that perfect slender, spine-free, easily-swallowed body form that will come in handy...
I don’t think the pickerel is taking out the odoe, lol I could see it with the others thoughLol, you already have the "same fish" with essentially the same paint job, several times over! I've never had any of those assorted silver killer sardines, but at least the Grass Pickerel is a miniature version, in form, colouration and behaviour, of a Northern Pike; much cooler than any of the others, IMHO.
Get the Pickerel! Once it grows up a little, you will find the others in your collection have that perfect slender, spine-free, easily-swallowed body form that will come in handy...
A northern pike is a dream fish, that’s why I’m considering the pickerel.
That’s part of my concern, I’ve been told that pickerel also can tolerate seasonal warmth, so I’m not sure
it is like you consider to keep burbot or rainbow trout in aquarium.But you can try it.
I've kept both; for all intents and purposes, the pickerel is simply a smaller pike, in terms of form, behaviour, feeding and pretty much every other way. Superficial differences in colour pattern.
"Taking out the odoe"? To me, that means beating up and killing the odoe, so I agree that it won't happen. The pickerel is not aggressive in the purest sense of the word. BUT...if the odoe appears as though it might just fit into the pickerel's gullet...it'll be gone. Those shiny teeth will do it little good when it's head is jammed inside the pickerel's stomach, being digested, while the butt end of the odoe hangs outside the pickerel's mouth waiting to follow suit.
The marshes where I collected pickerel were at nearly 80F when I caught them. I'd wager that they got considerably warmer at times. In this respect, pickerel are more adaptable than pike, which tend to shut down for the high-temp months and feed very little. Pickerel could be observed actively slamming tadpoles in isolated pools at the height of the summer; didn't check water temps at those times, but the water was very warm indeed and remained so for at least a couple months each year. Bear in mind that extreme southwestern Ontario is further south than the northern end of California.
Edited to add: pickerel are not comparable to trout or burbot; those are true coldwater fish, where the pickerel would best be described as being suited to temperate water conditions. Fish aren't simply tropical or coldwater; there is a vast range of conditions between those two extremes, so overgeneralizing isn't helpful.
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Do you think the pickerel would do ok in 75-80 year round or would I have to have a cool down period? I was thinking I could put with my bichirs, the bichirs eat pellets so I doubt feeding would be an issue
The odoe is already 9” , so I doubt the pickerel would ever see it as food since the odoe will always be bigger I think
No idea. As I said, the water I sourced them from went from frozen over to 80F+ over the course of the year. The tanks in which I kept them saw a smaller range of temps but still cooled down to max 60F in winter. I suspect they might have done okay longterm at any temperature within that range, but certainly don't know for sure. Expecting them to do well over the long haul at either extreme of their "survivable" range simply doesn't seem reasonable to me. They might very well exhibit the same sort of gradual weakening seen in things like Gymnogeophagus balzani, which apparently fall victim to various diseases if not given a cool resting period each year.
Again, I personally wouldn't mix fish in a tank where at least some of them were being forced to survive at the limit (either high limit or low) of their required temperature range. It's like keeping Discus and Goldfish together. They may not die immediately, or even soon...but they sure don't belong together. This just seems like low-level abuse to me; to use one of MFK's favourite silly descriptors: they won't be "happy".
Edited to add: after one of my slightly larger grass pickerel ate a slightly small buddy, I though the danger had passed. A week later, the culprit had his identically-sized brother jammed down his gullet past the point of no return, and both fish were dead. After that, grass pickerel went from a "single-species-tank" fish to a "one-per-tank" fish for me.
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