Help with Native Fish for 58 Gallon

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chimpkin

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jul 10, 2006
12
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Parkersburg, WV
I am new to this forum and this is my first post. I joined because I love to see some of the crazy fish that people keep and you seem to have more native fish info that any other site.

I live in Parkersburg, West Virginia, which is right on the WV/Ohio border. There are plenty of creeks and ponds that I could get fish from and I have an empty 58 oceanic tank that I have been wanting to fill with native fish. I would love to hear any stocking suggestions.

I want to naturally decorate the tank so it can't be any fish that get huge. Fire Away!
 
chimpkin said:
I am new to this forum and this is my first post. I joined because I love to see some of the crazy fish that people keep and you seem to have more native fish info that any other site.

I live in Parkersburg, West Virginia, which is right on the WV/Ohio border. There are plenty of creeks and ponds that I could get fish from and I have an empty 58 oceanic tank that I have been wanting to fill with native fish. I would love to hear any stocking suggestions.

I want to naturally decorate the tank so it can't be any fish that get huge. Fire Away!
Click to expand...

Green sunfish, longear sunfish, yellow perch, maybe a bullhead for the bottom. Of course, the bullhead would eventually outgrow that tank...
 
I would love to do sunfish. How many could I add? I was thinking 2 and some other misc. smaller minnows or darters. Would this be acceptable for a tank of this size.

Also, how big could I expect a sunfish to grow in captivity?
 
You're going to end up having to decide between a community tank with darters, shiners, topminnows, etc. or a predator tank with sunfish, pickerel and bullheads, etc. Other wise, you will be spending a lot of time replenishing the smaller fish.

I would suggest the former tank with some darter and madtoms on the bottow area, some shiners and smaller Enneacanthus sunfish in the middle area and some topminnows at the surface. I think this makes for a much more interesting tank with a lot of interaction. It will also allow you to have many more fish.

If you go the larger fish route, you will be limited to just a few fish. Most of the Lepomis sp. sunfishes get rather large and aggressive. A 58 is not going to hold many for long. The bullhead and pickerel also get some size on them fairly quickly. Just my two cents.
 
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