Rather excited about Perch

[blurock]

Yay! So I took some of my buddies perch fishing today on the lake to catch some dinner, and when I got home, i actually found 4 perch and a pumpkinseed at the bottom of the bucket still breathing. I quickly filled my large sink with cold water and added an airstone and stuck the survivors in, and voila! I now have three rather healthy and happy looking perch swimming around a large sink in my basement! haha. (one perch didn't make it, and the pumpkinseed had rigor set in while he was still breathing... found that rather od, but he's now in the fridge so its all ok, nobody's going to waste.

NOW! The question is, I've never done this before with the intent on keeping them... I used to when i was young and tried to revive them in the sink until all the others were filleted then they would go too... but how do get wild caught natives to start eatting in a captive environment, and what should i feed wild yellow perch?

I'll try to get pics up soon...
and and yeah they will have a 45g to go into, and eventually a 75g in the next two weeks...

 

[umpbump]

i know the pumpkinseed you can probably get to eat anything live (probably the perch as well), for wild caught fish are used to live foods. try starving them and get them on frozen bloodworms, brine shrimp and such. and slowly try adding pellets into their diet.

theres always the option to start your own earthworm colony. and from looking at your list of fish all of them would grub on them too =)

 

[YOOPER]

i know the pumpkinseed you can probably get to eat anything live (probably the perch as well), for wild caught fish are used to live foods. try starving them and get them on frozen bloodworms, brine shrimp and such. and slowly try adding pellets into their diet.

Agreed. You may have to break down and try small minnows even if they prove very stubborn. At least you have three, if one starts eating sticks/pellets the other usually follow suit. My last group sat below my hob and started picking off cichlid sticks as they were forced under water. They spit them out for the first couple of days and then started eating them.

 

[Gator]

From my little experience first get them to eat live foods. It will reduce their stress. Keep the live food going then start with the frozen and freeze dried food like Krill and frozen blood worms. The sunfish will help a lot with getting the other fish eating prepared foods since fish are very competitive when it comes to food. My sunfish took about 2 weeks to go from live food to Hikari Cichlid pellets and the Yellow perch continues to follow him and taste everything he does. I would still go with live foods once or twice a week just to keep them on a varied diet even after the switch over to prepared food. One other thing I did was hit the creek behind my parents house and use 2 little dip nets and catch a bunch of small darters, crayfish and aquatic larval insects. And by small crays I mean small to the point where their pincers were to small to even pinch my skin. Just don't over do it with the prepared foods so you don't end up with all kinds of stuff sitting at the bottom of your tank rotting and fouling up your water. Have fun with the natives, I thought my Arowana and oscars were cool but I'm finding I get my more enjoyment in watching my Gar, perch and sunfish than I did with the previous fish.

 

[blurock]

Thanks for the help guys! Only one of them made it though the night... but I really wasn't planning on keeping any of them for the tank when i went fishing so im not heart broken... I think ill go back out in a day or two and try to get fish for the tank instead of food... haha
Maybe keep a pumkin seed alive since they are sooo pretty!
I was also filleting one of the perch out, and found its stomach full of baby bull heads, now I wanna figure out how i might catch some baby bull heads since i love my catfish, it would be fun to have a bullhead in the native tank.

Anyone got ideas there?

 

[Danyal]

get a minnow/crayfish trap and put some dough bait in it.