40 Gallon Native Tank Help
- Thread starter thelaw
- Start date
yinyangpete
Mostly New Member
If you plan to go out and do your own collecting, the list is huge.
If you are ordering online or from a local fishery, the list is considerably narrowed.
There are a large variety of minnows and darters that would work. (Many of which are quite beautiful.) And, if I remember correctly, there is also a pygmy sunfish that is quite popular. Whatever fish you decide to work with, you need to keep in mind the adult size of the fish, just as you would with tropicals.
I've never kept natives, but I'm sure there are other forum members who could chime in on particular fish. Two additional sources of information I found quite interesting (when I was researching native fish out of my own curiosity) are online materials from your state conservation department and the North American Native Fishes Assoc.
If you are ordering online or from a local fishery, the list is considerably narrowed.
There are a large variety of minnows and darters that would work. (Many of which are quite beautiful.) And, if I remember correctly, there is also a pygmy sunfish that is quite popular. Whatever fish you decide to work with, you need to keep in mind the adult size of the fish, just as you would with tropicals.
I've never kept natives, but I'm sure there are other forum members who could chime in on particular fish. Two additional sources of information I found quite interesting (when I was researching native fish out of my own curiosity) are online materials from your state conservation department and the North American Native Fishes Assoc.
I have 3 Swamp darters, they are fun little fish, and they're a great option for your bottom dwellers. They stay fairly small... 3 inches maybe. Can't remember of the top of my head, but mine are all maxed out at about 2 and a half. Don't know of any others, hopefully someone else will! Good luck!
You could do really ANY type of shiner/minnow/darter. There are some extremely gorgeous ones out there.
For sunfish you can do orangespotted (my avatar), dollar sunfish, bluespotted, blackbanded, bantam, northern longear, or if you wanna keep it singly (only fish in the tank) a green sunfish, pumpkinseed, or central longear. Also you could do a bunch of little pygmys.
For catfish you can do any type of madtom.
Of course you can't mix all of the species together (for instance darters and madtoms are usually not a good idea) so make sure you research before you do
For sunfish you can do orangespotted (my avatar), dollar sunfish, bluespotted, blackbanded, bantam, northern longear, or if you wanna keep it singly (only fish in the tank) a green sunfish, pumpkinseed, or central longear. Also you could do a bunch of little pygmys.
For catfish you can do any type of madtom.
Of course you can't mix all of the species together (for instance darters and madtoms are usually not a good idea) so make sure you research before you do
Oh I just noticed you said you wanted top mid and bottom dwellers. In that case I'd go with a community tank.
You could do a nice school of shiners or dace for the middle like: Rainbow shiners, redfin shiners, redbelly dace, and so on (there's really so many types of these fish, the possibilities are endless) and maybe one smaller and milder sunfish species like the orangespotted, bluespotted, or bantam.
For the top there are golden topminnows or blackstripe/blackspotted topminnows. Neat little guys.
For the bottom I would do some cool darters like Iowa darter, banded darter, or orangethroart darter.
Good Luck!
You could do a nice school of shiners or dace for the middle like: Rainbow shiners, redfin shiners, redbelly dace, and so on (there's really so many types of these fish, the possibilities are endless) and maybe one smaller and milder sunfish species like the orangespotted, bluespotted, or bantam.
For the top there are golden topminnows or blackstripe/blackspotted topminnows. Neat little guys.
For the bottom I would do some cool darters like Iowa darter, banded darter, or orangethroart darter.
Good Luck!
I think the orangespots and dace should be ok. Just keep in mind, all sunfish are territorial, even the orangespots (but they are much more mild mannered). Just make sure there are places for them to hide if they get into trouble. The least killifish are very tiny fish, and will most likely get eaten by the sunfish. If you have access to collect the killifish you can try it, sometimes sunfish won't bother small fish if they grew up with them. If you are ordering, I wouldn't cause that would be an expensive snack.thelaw said:
I think the orangespots and dace should be ok. Just keep in mind, all sunfish are territorial, even the orangespots (but they are much more mild mannered). Just make sure there are places for them to hide if they get into trouble. The least killifish are very tiny fish, and will most likely get eaten by the sunfish. If you have access to collect the killifish you can try it, sometimes sunfish won't bother small fish if they grew up with them. If you are ordering, I wouldn't cause that would be an expensive snack.juhason said:
OK cool so will the sunfish and the dace eat flake and pellet foods?
The dace absolutely, they'll probably try to eat anything and everything you put in the tank. The sunfish might require a little patience but having more than one sunfish helps. Once one learns pellets are food the rest will very quickly follow. You can try a few different methods, the one that worked for me was to feed him live foods for a few days (so he knew that Human=Food) then starved him for a few days and then gave him pellets. Also if you get them at a young age they learn much quicker.thelaw said:
Yes these fish will be perfectly fine with plants. The only native plant I know of is cabomba, it's very pretty but grows insanely fast so you'll need to prune it constantly. The NANFA forums might be a good place to learn about some native plants. Or you can go to your nearby pond and collect some, just be wary of the various hitch hikers like bugs and larvae and what not.thelaw said:
Yes these fish will be perfectly fine with plants. The only native plant I know of is cabomba, it's very pretty but grows insanely fast so you'll need to prune it constantly. The NANFA forums might be a good place to learn about some native plants. Or you can go to your nearby pond and collect some, just be wary of the various hitch hikers like bugs and larvae and what not.juhason said:
OK thanks
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