What to fill my 55g with?

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Fisherkid

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Feb 8, 2011
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United States
Currently I only have 2 little goldfish that have a 10g play place. I have a 55g in the basement that I want to fill with natives. I want a catfish, one that gets medium sized nothing to big and a couple sunfish(probably pumpkinseed). Any suggestions on what fish to get, which "flow" easily with others?


Thanks, Fisherkid
 
Thanks native, no any sites where I could purchase these fish from? Google searches turn up nothing.
 
scan your LFS feeder tanks. we get sunfish and bull heads in with them all the time.
 
A better cat would be madtoms. They stay pretty small, and you could have several. Find a stream in your area, flip over some rocks in it and you should find some. They are all over Pennsylvania. Read up on sexing centrarchids. If you only do a couple of pumpkinseeds, get two females, or a male and a female, but not 2 males. It's like keeping the ole burn barrel next to the dynamite.
 
Fisherkid;4896621;4896621 said:
Currently I only have 2 little goldfish that have a 10g play place. I have a 55g in the basement that I want to fill with natives. I want a catfish, one that gets medium sized nothing to big and a couple sunfish(probably pumpkinseed). Any suggestions on what fish to get, which "flow" easily with others?


Thanks, Fisherkid
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Pumpkinseed get pretty big and are agressive around spawning time, I would go with Northern Longear sunfish or Orangespotted sunfish and then you could have big shiners (Common, Striped) or big madtoms (slender,margined or yellowfin) as tank mates like Kzimmerman said. Native gave you some good sites to buy natives, another one is Jonah's Aquarium. Natives are undervalued and underappreciated, Ive found the Green Sunfish I had more aggressive and tougher than Oscars, and my buddies Warmouth is much prettier than convicts.
 
Another idea is to go to the local bait shops. You can find natives in with the bait minnows. I have picked up tiger salamanders (not native up here), sculpins, panfish etc...
 
Yeah, neither have I. But then again, almost all of the bait fish in my area are saltwater in origin, and the local petshops don't stop enough feeders to get any accidentals in. So, I'm left with a bucket, waders, and a net. Doesn't hurt to have a 6 yr old to help out either. He gets so excited over anything, it's great.
So, do we have a verdict on your planned stocking?
 
kzimmerman;4896840; said:
A better cat would be madtoms. They stay pretty small, and you could have several. .
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I was going to say this too, as i like madtoms, but they really need much more current than sunfish do. A madtom would never be happy in a sunfish tank like it would in a riffle / darter/minnow kind of setup.

IME, the smaller bullheads are the kind of catfish that coexist with sunnies in nature. A stream near my house has brown bullheads, red shiners, green and longear sunfish. If you wanted to do a biotope sort of thing a couple small bullheads and some longears would be great. but yeah, only one male.
 
Kaliedoscope;4899660;4899660 said:
I was going to say this too, as i like madtoms, but they really need much more current than sunfish do. A madtom would never be happy in a sunfish tank like it would in a riffle / darter/minnow kind of setup.

IME, the smaller bullheads are the kind of catfish that coexist with sunnies in nature. A stream near my house has brown bullheads, red shiners, green and longear sunfish. If you wanted to do a biotope sort of thing a couple small bullheads and some longears would be great. but yeah, only one male.
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Not trying to argue but I know of people whove kept Slender, Checkered madtoms and Stonecats with Longear, and and had no problems with out extra current.....this might be just because theyre bigger madtoms though.
 
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