All I can say is FINALLY. I've been wanting to keep natives since the day I started keeping fish but stuff came up, long story I've never got to keep them until now. Laid down my foot today and told myself if I'm going on a collection trip anyway why not keep a few fish instead of giving them all to others. 6 hours of walking up and down the allegheny river and a local creek later and I went home with 4 fish: an un-ID'd chub (I'm guessing creek), a male and female Greenside Darters, and a Green Sumfish. The sunfish is about 2.5", darters are 2.5" and 3", and the chub is 4".
I was originally planning on putting them in my 75 gallon but I realized in the end all I need to set them up a tank is a new stand since I have an extra tank or two laying around. So, I'll be putting them in a 30 gallon long as a growout tank as soon as I can get a stand (2-3 days) but for now they're in a 5 gallon bucket with a seeded sponge filter attached to a rock and a bit of PVC pipe to hide in. I'll be doing a bunch of small water changes while they're in the bucket to prevent any ammonia buildup although I'm pretty confident that the sponge filter should do most of the ammonia removal.
My final plans when all the fish are fully grown are going to be: give the green sunfish the 30 long to itself, give the darter pair a 20 tall (and hopefully spawn them), and the chub...meh I'll figure something out but worst comes to worst I'll put it in my 75 trop since it's only set on 75 F and where I got it gets hotter than that in the water during June-August.
Cant wait to get these guys in an actual tank!
Pictures coming in a few!
PS since I'm new to natives any advice about these species would be greatly appreciated such as feeding since their wild. I plan on feeding frozen bloodworms tonight but obviously I don't want to feed the same thing every day so what are some other foods I could feed and what's some good tips how to wane them on to dry?
I was originally planning on putting them in my 75 gallon but I realized in the end all I need to set them up a tank is a new stand since I have an extra tank or two laying around. So, I'll be putting them in a 30 gallon long as a growout tank as soon as I can get a stand (2-3 days) but for now they're in a 5 gallon bucket with a seeded sponge filter attached to a rock and a bit of PVC pipe to hide in. I'll be doing a bunch of small water changes while they're in the bucket to prevent any ammonia buildup although I'm pretty confident that the sponge filter should do most of the ammonia removal.
My final plans when all the fish are fully grown are going to be: give the green sunfish the 30 long to itself, give the darter pair a 20 tall (and hopefully spawn them), and the chub...meh I'll figure something out but worst comes to worst I'll put it in my 75 trop since it's only set on 75 F and where I got it gets hotter than that in the water during June-August.
Cant wait to get these guys in an actual tank!
Pictures coming in a few!
PS since I'm new to natives any advice about these species would be greatly appreciated such as feeding since their wild. I plan on feeding frozen bloodworms tonight but obviously I don't want to feed the same thing every day so what are some other foods I could feed and what's some good tips how to wane them on to dry?
