# Local fish?



## Wildcat (Feb 2, 2010)

Has anyone ever had success with locally caught fish? I am in the middle of moving and will be re stocking my tank this spring. I have thought about either a perch/bluegill tank or something with schooling fish like darters and shiners. Obviously not a combo of the two. Thoughts?


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## junebug (Aug 5, 2013)

A friend of mine has a "local" native tank. Orange throat darters which her daughter collected from a local stream  So it can definitely be done.

The only thing is, if you catch the fish yourself, assume they have camallanus worms, as they are extremely common in wild caught fish. You'll need to quarantine everything for at least a month before adding it to your tank.


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## asukawashere (Mar 11, 2009)

There's an entire society, NANFA (North American Native Fish Association) dedicated to the aquarium culture of native fish species—collecting from the wild being a major source of specimens. So yes, it absolutely can be done. Some fish fare better in captivity than others. Sunfish are very much like cichlids in the aquarium and are actually treated as exotic aquarium fish in some other countries.  I have a pumpkinseed in a tank with a bunch of Bolbitis, myself.

Depending on where in the country you live, you may have access to any number of darters, shiners, livebearers, killifish, dwarf sunfish, minnows, etc. Also there are plenty of wild crayfish and Macrobrachium shrimp to be found in the U.S. (admittedly, not good for mixing with sunnies or perch). You can also collect wild plants and do a whole local biotope tank.


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## Karl M (Jul 15, 2013)

Years ago when I lived south of Houston, TX I tried several locally caught fish in an aquarium. The first I tried was bluegill/sunfish. Most of what I had were hybrids. They where very young, about an inch or so long when I caught them. Even that little they were very aggressive. There was one that was super aggressive so I let him go back where I caught him. But another took his place as being super aggressive. I think a just kept them for a week or two and then just let them go. The same thing happened with some baby largemouth bass I caught. The bass seemed to be okay at first but it didn't take long before there would be one that dominated all the others. They were worse than the bluegill. All the bass had to stay hidden in the plants except the dominate one. They wouldn't even feed. So I let them go as well. 

I wasn't ever intending to keep any of them for a long time because I didn't have a big enough aquarium but their aggressiveness just didn't even allow it for the short term. I have seen many bass and bluegill in large aquariums at sporting goods stores, etc that don't seem to have the aggressiveness issues but that sure wasn't my experience.

I did have some success with some wild caught sailfin mollies that I kept for a while. After that I gave up on wild caught and went with tropical fish.


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## asukawashere (Mar 11, 2009)

It's illegal to release a fish back to the wild after you've held it in captivity—they could have been exposed to all number of aquatic pathogens in your aquarium.

That said, in a place like Houston, I'd be going nuts collecting wild livestock—there's such a great selection around there! Wild livebearers and killifish, the only U.S.-native cichlid species, all kinds of awesome inverts and plants...one of these days I'll have to go on vacation around there...


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## Wildcat (Feb 2, 2010)

Thanks for the help. I have decided I am going to give it a try when spring comes around. I have been wanting to change something up. I'm really excited about this. There are so many cool species in our back yards if we take the time to look.


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## HDBenson (Sep 24, 2014)

Don't know if this is an active thread anymore or not but, I have a newly set-up local biotope as well. It's a 20g long east-central Mississippi water's edge biotope(could that be a longer description?). Anyway, many of the ponds in this region are silty, with lots of leaf litter about twelve feet out into the water. But, this zone is full of Gambusia sp., bluegill fry, and bass fry. There are many other fishes including shiners, minnows, and darters however, I've only caught and identified Gambusia mosquito fish and, bass/bluegill. Most plants are emergent, i.e. reeds, rushes, grasses, and the like. some sunnier clear parts of ponds have emergent Ludwigias, and Sagittaria sp. The primary examples of true SAV(submerged aquatic vegetation) of this particular pond include Juncus repens and, a species of Utricularia I have yet to ID. Some ponds around here have floating plants like hyacinth and, lilies. Again, I digress! This particular tank has clay sand up against the the back of the tank with leaf litter and other debris straight from the collection point. Even the water is from the pond. So this tank has: Gambusia x 12, one bluegill sp. fry, and leaflitter, clay sand Utricularia sp, and J. repens. I got the idea from Ivan Mikolji. He has great videos on youtube.


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

Sounds like a cool tank, I'd love to see photos!


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## HDBenson (Sep 24, 2014)

Since I last posted there have been a few changes. I was able to collect some E. zonatum which is my area's local pygmy sunfish, a few blackstripe topminnows(a sp. of killifish) and a madtom sp. who likes to hide when the lights are on.








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