greetings.
I have taken the plunge and entered into my first native tank. I currently have 5 bluegill taken from my dad's small pond, caught with the rake method. Did I say small? I'd guesstimate maybe 2000 square feet.
I also set some minnow traps made from 2 litre bottles but caught a bunch of tadpoles and a red striped fish I originally thought to be a red bellied dace @ around 3-4 inches, but if memory serves (I give it a 50/50 chance) it had a grouper type mouth, so probably not. Anyway, I didn't want to become attached and see him eaten by the sunfish I was actually hunting, so I released it and the tads. The fish was caught with a shrimp/salmon combo, while the tads liked that, the bread, and the garden worms.
The largest gill is about 1 1/4" , the smallest about 1/2". One went into hiding and pretty much stays there. Though it has come out once or twice to swim with the others it won't eat. Even blackworms writhing in front of its face only causes him to swim to another spot. I don't think it's going to make it.
He's the next largest at just over an inch.
The others ate frozen daphnia the first night, love the blackworms enough to ignore the daphnia, and mouth tetra flake, crumbled brine shrimp pellets, and crumbled hikari staple and gold. I would have been happier with more daphnia to clean them out better, but their time is coming.
Poor them, the worms are gone tomorrow. they are visibly plumper than when they came in and I'm not worried about them starving so the training starts in earnest on monday.
With the exception of the hunger striker, they are active and inquisitive. There's playing in the filter flow several times a day, and more than once I've caught them watching my parakeet who's about 6" away from the one side. They follow the big one's lead sometimes and rise to the surface. There the four will sit as if waiting for insects to fall in. Neat stuff.
My tank is a 90G, gravel planted with vallisneria mostly, I have a sword in there too, but don't know if it will survive the 60's come next winter. I'm looking for a "reedy" looking tank and am looking forward to seeing it grown out. I hope the fish and I aren't going to have interior decorating issues, but I just have to wait and see.
There are snails from my tropical tank to keep the plants manicured and help with clean up. I don't know what kind, they came with the plants. I also picked up a dozen ghost shrimp that appear to be native, one of which is a berried female.
Free food or more shrimp, it's a win/win.
One of the ghost shrimps was swimming in the filter flow and 3 o' da gillies surrounded him and watched. Right now he's bigger than the largest, but it seemed to dampen his enthusiasm and he quit.
I have taken the plunge and entered into my first native tank. I currently have 5 bluegill taken from my dad's small pond, caught with the rake method. Did I say small? I'd guesstimate maybe 2000 square feet.
I also set some minnow traps made from 2 litre bottles but caught a bunch of tadpoles and a red striped fish I originally thought to be a red bellied dace @ around 3-4 inches, but if memory serves (I give it a 50/50 chance) it had a grouper type mouth, so probably not. Anyway, I didn't want to become attached and see him eaten by the sunfish I was actually hunting, so I released it and the tads. The fish was caught with a shrimp/salmon combo, while the tads liked that, the bread, and the garden worms.
The largest gill is about 1 1/4" , the smallest about 1/2". One went into hiding and pretty much stays there. Though it has come out once or twice to swim with the others it won't eat. Even blackworms writhing in front of its face only causes him to swim to another spot. I don't think it's going to make it.
He's the next largest at just over an inch.The others ate frozen daphnia the first night, love the blackworms enough to ignore the daphnia, and mouth tetra flake, crumbled brine shrimp pellets, and crumbled hikari staple and gold. I would have been happier with more daphnia to clean them out better, but their time is coming.
Poor them, the worms are gone tomorrow. they are visibly plumper than when they came in and I'm not worried about them starving so the training starts in earnest on monday.
With the exception of the hunger striker, they are active and inquisitive. There's playing in the filter flow several times a day, and more than once I've caught them watching my parakeet who's about 6" away from the one side. They follow the big one's lead sometimes and rise to the surface. There the four will sit as if waiting for insects to fall in. Neat stuff.
My tank is a 90G, gravel planted with vallisneria mostly, I have a sword in there too, but don't know if it will survive the 60's come next winter. I'm looking for a "reedy" looking tank and am looking forward to seeing it grown out. I hope the fish and I aren't going to have interior decorating issues, but I just have to wait and see.
There are snails from my tropical tank to keep the plants manicured and help with clean up. I don't know what kind, they came with the plants. I also picked up a dozen ghost shrimp that appear to be native, one of which is a berried female.
Free food or more shrimp, it's a win/win.One of the ghost shrimps was swimming in the filter flow and 3 o' da gillies surrounded him and watched. Right now he's bigger than the largest, but it seemed to dampen his enthusiasm and he quit.
