The Native Bug

[jpac716]

I've been keeping natives since I started the hobby when I was 10. It all started with a couple creek chubs,a bullhead and a green sunfish. Since then I have always had at least one tank with natives. In 1998 I decided that I would only keep natives. I have kept almost every native fish from Ohio except for about 5 and a few from other areas in either an aquarium or 1500 gallon pond. Right now I have 17 species.

17 species is a lot of different fish you must have some nice aquariums.

 

[Mr.Catfish]

Here you can see for yourself http://www.youtube.com/user/MisterCatfish?feature=mhee

 

[Owain4]

Gotta love those tanks.

Update Update

 

[jpac716]

wow that is amazing beautiful fish man

 

[Ambervikings91]

i heart my native tank

 

[Bridger]

I've been keeping natives since I started the hobby when I was 10. It all started with a couple creek chubs,a bullhead and a green sunfish.

I started with creek chubs too. They're really underrated. I had 5 pretty big ones and it was always fun to give them some feeder minnows. They're voracious.

 

[dcorreia]

I had a 500 gallon pond at my old house. Started with goldfish and koi and eventually turned into a Greensunfish pond.

 

[crazysteve]

Sweet. How about a sauger in your big tank??

 

[Mr.Catfish]

Sweet. How about a sauger in your big tank??

I had a sauger . Was a boring fish just laid around all day until the lights went out.

 

[flatcapbrew]

I was about 13 or 14 and found a baby bullhead in my dads minnow bucket so i threw it in a fish bowl, that following spring I helped my mother put in a pond and decided to put the bullhead in there. That kind of got me into natives but I didnt really do anything else related to them. about 5 years after that I got into having a tank after I got some western painted turtles. I wanted to create a tank to somewhat resemble the turtles habitat and so I looked into some sunfish. I got some sunfish from Brian Zimmerman and have added other fish since. Over the few years that I have had tanks I have kept a few different types of natives. As of now I keep some sunfish and some crappie in my turtle tank along with some tadpole madtoms. I have also kept perch and some smaller darters along with a few different types of minnows and and some other madtoms. my bullhead also still lives in my moms pond. I havent kept anything not native since I was about six when I had a little tank.