Pickerel questions

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aquaculture

Feeder Fish
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May 5, 2009
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In search of Leiarius
Would a grass and redfin pickerel do well in a 300 gal pond with four koi?
Also does anyone know if I would be able to purchase a pickerel in california? I love the looks of pickerel and would create as many plants i would need to for them to fell comfortable. Also are there any other pickerel besides redfin and grass?
Thanks
 
Ok, I found a great place to buy pickerel , mentioned in another thread, and found out about the chain pickerel. But do koi and pickerel get along, I wouldn't mind if the pickerel ate the koi fry if the koi spawn. Also are pickerel known to jump?.
 
Yes Pickerel jump, if you ever have them in a tank, you want to make sure its covered... I don't think they would jump out of a pond though. The chain gets larger than the grass and redfin (grass and redfin are pretty much the same fish the redfin just has some red)
However I would worry less about what the pickerel would do to the koi and more about the koi bullying the pickerel. If the koi are larger than the pickerel, you will most likely have a problem.

Oh and is the place you found to buy them Paul Sachs? I just got a chain from him, and have gotten a few others from him, he's really great to work with, and the fish are wonderful!
 
Yah the place i found is sach's he is real reasonible. Hopefully I can get a couple here in northern california locally, support local buisness, if not sach's will be the place. I don't think the koi will pick on the pickerel they tend to just swim about and eat like pigs, they have left a minnnow of similar size to a small pickerel alone and welcome its company but maybe its different with pickerel beacuse they're predators not omnivores. koi aren't agressive in my experience, why would they bully pickerels?
 
Noto I read the whole proposal and did not seem to find them mentioning esox species. If it does can you post a qoute of it that does.
 
The only reason I said id worry about the koi bullying the pickerel is that they are, in essence, just a fancy carp/goldfish. It's not that they would seek out and bully the pickerel, but they get so food driven, that they could disturb the pickerel or stress out the pickerel in their never ending search of food, while the pickerel like to sit in the vegetational and ambush their pray.
They may not bother the minnow because it swims constantly, and is faster than the koi, pickerel really don't move much...
 
My koi don't swim much, they just graze on water hyacinth roots between meals and then go to their cave for hours at a time. I think that as long as I provide weedy plant cover and continue to keep the koi feed they shouldn't mess with the pickerel to much. Are pickerel actually that skidish around other fish? When the koi do search for food they look for it in the gravel at the bottom of the pond while i trust the pickerel would stay in the upper water levels.
 
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