Keeping a wild fish.

[MRB]

Hey everyone,
First off is it legal to keep wild fish in a home aquarium (i live in Georgia). If so then what is a cool wild fish to keep. 2 fish i was lookin at were bluegill and shellcrackers. Are these fish ok. and what are other nice fish.

 

[Toby_H]

It is not illegal to keep wild caught fish...

There may be State laws that in some way restrict keeping locally collected fish... There are definately State laws regulating the collecting of wild caught fish locally...

 

[MRB]

ok then thanks
now to the other part of the question

 

[seds]

Other nice fish (depends on where you live)...are daces, shiners, other sunfish and the odd darter or sculpin.
Some people have bass but they need a big tank with other big fish.
Some people have catfish but there are few in canada so...
There are nice perches, yellow perch are popular because of their nice color.

Trout are nice in theory but apparently too hard to keep.

 

[Cichlaholics Anonymous]

I'd go with sunfish like those, probably the easiest to keep of the natives

 

[snoopy65]

Just make sure what ever you decide to keep that you do not release it back into the wild for any reason. Once they become a pet, they should not go back. There are laws about releasing fish once "owned".

 

[MRB]

if anything needed to be released then i would just put it in my 1000g pond in my backyard. it currently has a few large pond comets and some bluegill and a few plecos (hopefully they will make it through their 1st winter).

 

[Jeox]

if anything needed to be released then i would just put it in my 1000g pond in my backyard. it currently has a few large pond comets and some bluegill and a few plecos (hopefully they will make it through their 1st winter).

A pleco cannot survive a winter in georgia.

 

[big dovii]

I find Plecos here and Canada. And it gets past -30 degrees celcius here, its -37 right now with the wind chill.

 

[Gator]

Hey everyone,
First off is it legal to keep wild fish in a home aquarium (i live in Georgia). If so then what is a cool wild fish to keep. 2 fish i was lookin at were bluegill and shellcrackers. Are these fish ok. and what are other nice fish.

Yes its legal but you need to check on local laws on the legal way to catch them. Sunfish (panfish) are game fish so you need to see if its legal to use a seine or if you can only keep what you catch by hook and line. Decide on what fish you want to keep then make sure you have a tank that can house them otherwise you'll end up throwing everything in your pond. Shellcrackers are nice looking fish as are all the other sunfish. Daces are some of the darters are really colorful fish tho and you can keep more in a tank due to the smaller size and the lack of aggression in them compared to sunfish. Another option would be the Southern red belly dace. Go to www.nanfa.org lots of good advise there on keeping natives and a lot of good all around info and some vendors that have a nice selection of natives. Hope this helps a little.