15 years ago people told me i couldnt keep mudskippers they said it was to hard to properly care for them. i researched them talked to zookeepers with real world experiance (not the ive never kept them dont know anything about them but ill still talk smack) replicated their habitat to the best of my ability paid thru the nose to get them shipped here and managed to keep all but 2 out of ten alive for 8 years almost twice their natural life span. since then ive imported 5 differnt species and have kept them alive beyond their natural life span as well.people on this site talk thrash about members that keep or want to keep sturgeon as well. while in the UK they are sold in koi shops all over the place and kept very successfully i might add. as for the dwarf paddlefish its most likely they got taken by a lying lfs and will soon have a very large fish.yes thats sad. paddle fish are at present being farmed in ranch ponds in a number of states. they can and are able to live in koi ponds and in very large aquariums well under 10,000 gallons the bass pro shop in denver has them in tanks and has since the were small, as does the downtown aquarium restaurant these fish are very healthy and have been in captivity for in tanks with corners for over a decade. there are also paddlefish being raised in waste water treatment plants in oklahoma.while paddle fish are widely know by the casual observer as filter feeders they are also a predator that can and will take smaller fish. all the paddlefish that im aware of in captivity both the farmed ones, the ones here in colorado, the ones in oklahoma, and the ones with the link posted here have all readily taken pellets.
now should a average idiot fish keeper have them no! and heres why
1) they do have special requirements
2) they do get 5-6' and have record sizes of up to 198 lbs
3) every other reason that people say you cant keep rtc, tsn,gator gar, ...... the list goes on and on but it still gets done and successfully.
