MA natives: Esox & others

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Tucc185

Tucc185

Candiru
MFK Member
Jul 7, 2005
413
17
48
Boulder, CO
www.reef2rainforest.com
I went swamping with a friend the other day and among other things we brought back a beautiful 8" grass pickerel, a 2" baby grass pickerel, some small sunfish, and some other native plants and inverts. Anyone have experience with these fish? tips on keeping them healthy? preferred water conditions? They seem to have acclimated well, and both pickerels ate feeders right away.
 
you prolly won't manage to get your pickerels to eat anything other than live fish. Don't feed them goldfish; anything other than goldfish is fine.

sunfish can be mean little grubs, aside from bullying one another they may harass your pickerels as well if they are kept in the same tank. you can feed sunnies pretty much anything you want.

I'd try and keep their current tank's temp similar to what it was on the lake, if you can help it... over time try gradually acclimating them to higher temps if you see fit. I'd avoid raising the pickerels' tank's temp above 75F though.
 
Lots of room, lots of plants, they like to lurk in the leaves, lots of food, fish, frogs, crayfish. lots of waterflow and lower temps than tropicals, pikrel are cool. Sunnies are very adaptable and settle in quickly but can be real bullies. They eat everything small enough to swallow, including cheerios, The love crickets and will tame enough to hand feed earthworms.
 
I lost one baby chain pickerel, sadly, but the baby grass is eating small guppies like no tomorrow and the adult has been eating large guppies well too (although I've never seen him eat yet). Sunfish aren't too bad, they're both real small and in with pretty aggressive fish already. A LFS near me has some baby northern pike for sale, and now I'm really tempted to go buy one. Oh, and the pickerel were all in a pretty fast moving, weedy river, so I scooped out lots of weeds to make them feel more comfortable in their new environments, and I have powerheads moving water in both of the holding/QT tanks in addition to the filter for extra flow. Thanks for the advice. I'd love to post a pic of the adult grass-he's one bad*ss lookin' fish.
 
As for goldfish , unless they are culls from a "fancy" breeder they are usually heavily medicated in large crowded growth tanks by the breeders, many carry resistant strains of gut worms and high metal levels esp. copper. The rare feeding of a goldfish or 2 prob won't hurt but as a steady diet they are bad news.
 
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