New venture. - European perch (perca fluviatilis)

[ken31cay]

Confidence wise we're at the glass surfing stage now. My presence doesn't bother them one bit. Eating worms and small locusts at will.

At first they'd wait for the worms to sink to the bottom before nailing them, but now they happily rise up in the water column to snap them up. The locusts float but they will gingerly come to the surface and take them. It's great to watch them compete for the food.

I'm beginning to think that I could have put a few more in too. There are currently 10, not 9 as previously thought, I miscounted them!

My daily parameter checks are showing me that these guys are putting out a relatively small bio load in comparison to my previous bustling tropical com set up. I may add another half dozen or so, we'll see.

Pic below of them showing an interest in my fingers wiggling against the glass.

View attachment 1562577

Certainly an interesting species to keep. I'd keep a local brackish water setup if I found any of the fish interesting.

After a while we all lose some interest in our setups and, generally speaking, we eventually find things to change or enhance the setup. Any thoughts on this? I know you mentioned keeping only the perch, and possibly adding more, but what about native invertebrates? When I kept native tanks in the US (I was a 10-12 yrs old) any invertabrates I could catch went into the tank.

 

[esoxlucius]

I know you mentioned keeping only the perch, and possibly adding more, but what about native invertebrates?

Anything I add to that tank of a certain size, that moves, will be considered food. If all the current perch grow at different rates then even some of the stragglers will get predated on by the faster growers eventually.

So even if I did want to add various creatures from under rocks etc from the local river or reservoir I caught them from, then these critters will just get eaten. So it'd be a pointless task going out of my way to collect them.

If there was a chance any critters would survive, without having to constantly hide, and so I could view them along with the perch, then I'd happily add some for extra interest.

And these fish are constantly searching for morsels, I don't think anything could hide for any length of time without being found. I've noticed they even pick at the bark on the sunken logs, maybe looking for insect larva.

At the larger end of the scale we do have large invasive crayfish in another local pond I know. These would be fine in my tank......but my perch wouldn't be!! So they are definitely out.

 

[tlindsey]

Confidence wise we're at the glass surfing stage now. My presence doesn't bother them one bit. Eating worms and small locusts at will.

At first they'd wait for the worms to sink to the bottom before nailing them, but now they happily rise up in the water column to snap them up. The locusts float but they will gingerly come to the surface and take them. It's great to watch them compete for the food.

I'm beginning to think that I could have put a few more in too. There are currently 10, not 9 as previously thought, I miscounted them!

My daily parameter checks are showing me that these guys are putting out a relatively small bio load in comparison to my previous bustling tropical com set up. I may add another half dozen or so, we'll see.

Pic below of them showing an interest in my fingers wiggling against the glass.

View attachment 1562577

They are coloring up .

 

[ken31cay]

Anything I add to that tank of a certain size, that moves, will be considered food. If all the current perch grow at different rates then even some of the stragglers will get predated on by the faster growers eventually.

So even if I did want to add various creatures from under rocks etc from the local river or reservoir I caught them from, then these critters will just get eaten. So it'd be a pointless task going out of my way to collect them.

If there was a chance any critters would survive, without having to constantly hide, and so I could view them along with the perch, then I'd happily add some for extra interest.

And these fish are constantly searching for morsels, I don't think anything could hide for any length of time without being found. I've noticed they even pick at the bark on the sunken logs, maybe looking for insect larva.

At the larger end of the scale we do have large invasive crayfish in another local pond I know. These would be fine in my tank......but my perch wouldn't be!! So they are definitely out.

I used to keep native crayfish with sunfish, bluegills and black crappie and they were a good size in proporiton to each other (crayfish were small but not small enough to be eaten) to coexist for a time. But being young none of my tanks lasted for very long.

 

[Poseidon2.0]

Very interesting change! Glad to see you still around. I’ve not been around much myself. We just bought a house and moving soon so am using the opportunity to disrupt my set ups as well. Will keep tabs on your perch.

 

[esoxlucius]

I did a little bit more research into the breeding crickets thing, minus the chirping. The crickets I had before, which absolutely drove us nuts, were black crickets. Apparently there are brown crickets too, which are chirp less! Bingo!

So I placed my order and these guys came today. And you know what? My research was spot on. These guys, all 500 or so of them, are totally silent!

I will feed these guys to my perch more or less daily but if truth be told, once these crickets start breeding, I doubt very much my perch will keep up! #fatperch.com, lol.

They are easy to keep and breed, I've done it before. I have loads of old fish food left from my tropical stint, which crickets love, and they love fruit too. Keep the enclosure (in this case an old 10g tank) at around 25-30°C and you're golden.

 

[esoxlucius]

Here is a short video as promised. They've been in the tank about a week now and I honestly couldn't be happier with the way they've settled in.

 

[danotaylor]

esoxlucius love to see the video but no can do as it is private my friend

 

[esoxlucius]

esoxlucius love to see the video but no can do as it is private my friend
View attachment 1562650

My apologies, fixed it!

 

[danotaylor]

They look awesome mate. I’m very (happily) surprised how quickly they acclimated to the lateral visibility of tank life. They seem completely chill & relaxed. Very cool indeed!