Unusual Cold Water Fish

[tenohfive]

I'm after some pointers on some cold water fish that are a little different to goldfish and the varieties. Which is why for the last half hour I've been googling that subject and browsing this forum but without much success. The vast majority of similarly titled topic's tend to be people asking what else can go in their 60L with their goldfish, and I don't fall into that bracket. For starters, the tank they'll be going in to will be a 4ft / 340L tank.

I've kept goldies for years and as the fish have got bigger I've looked to expand tank size. The largest of the three is now 5-6 inches and today I moved them into the 4ft / 340L tank. They look rather dwarfed by the tank right now. As the tank is now somewhere I'll be seeing it a lot more often I thought it might be an idea to add a couple more fish in there.

I'm not keen on fancy goldfish, black moors etc...the sorts of fish you seen every LFS. I briefly looked at the hillstream loach family but I'm convinced they would need a specialist tank to really thrive (one day ). Last time I went to Wildwoods I saw something advertised as a Weather Loach/Dojo loach or similar (I gather from another thread it's unlikely to be a genuine weather loach due to needing a licence?) and that looked like an option. Basically I'm thinking about a couple of additions that aren't goldfish.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

Red Shiners?
http/www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/content.php?sid=40

 

[tenohfive]

Red Shiners?
http/www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/content.php?sid=40

According to that article they can be a bit nippy and will out compete my existing goldies. I'm tempted to give it a go as there's not much information available on them through google, and I've still got the old 3ft tank running that I can pop them in pending return to Wildwoods if it doesn't work out. Thoughts?

I've been doing some more digging and some other potential candidates so far are:

Taiwan Bitterling
Rosy Bitterling
Rhinogobius nagoyae formosanus (a goby, can't seem to find a common name)

The "looks good but I can't find any information about them" list includes:
Etheostoma caeruleum (Rainbow Darter) - looks stunning. Wildwoods appears to have stock, I might give them a call to see if anyone there knows much about them.

On the "I'd like but I can't really afford" list are:
Rainbow Shiners (notropis chrosomus) - gorgeous fish, but getting 6 in there would cost me the far side of £120. Might be worth saving for as they are truly stunning fish:

At the moment I'm veering towards a shoal of either Taiwan or Rosy Bitterlings and a couple of Rhinogobius nagoyae formosanus with a Rainbow Darter (depending on what else I can find out about them.) Or blowing the budget, kissing some of my savings good bye and getting a shoal of Rainbow Shiners.

Any opinions anyone?

 

[tenohfive]

Thought I'd add a little update.

I've tried to do a bit more digging but there really is very little information available on cold water fish that aren't gold fish of some variety, so I decided to take a risk.
I have just introduced 6 red shiners to the tank - whilst they're reportedly nippy I've decided to take a chance given that I'll have the time over the next few days to keep a close eye on them - and as I mentioned above, I've got a spare tank setup and ready should I need to relocate them.

I also opted for a Rainbow Darter - at £23 it wasn't cheap, but they are lovely little fish. Not especially colourful right now but I'm looking forward to seeing how s/he comes on. Owing to it's small size (and the biggest goldfishes large mouth) I decided to setup a spare 65L for the darter - if it grows significantly in the next few months I may move it into the big tank, but if not I'll keep it in the 65L and see if I can sex it and add another (plus maybe something else, like WCCM's.)

I was sorely tempted by Rhinogobius nagoyae formosanus - a coldwater goby. They were a decent size and one of the most interesting looking temperate fish I've seen. I held fire on buying a couple though as if I do decide to move the darter to the main tank it'd turn into an expensive snack for these Gobies. If I decide not to move the Darter across then I'll be straight back to buy a pair of the goby's.

When I eventually rehome the goldfish in a pond (not in the near future, but I'll have to eventually - they're common goldfish) I'll probably look at adding another flavour of minnow to the tank.

Will post some pic's in a couple of days if anyone is interested.

 

[merlinblack]

Thought I'd add a little update.

I've tried to do a bit more digging but there really is very little information available on cold water fish that aren't gold fish of some variety, so I decided to take a risk.
I have just introduced 6 red shiners to the tank - whilst they're reportedly nippy I've decided to take a chance given that I'll have the time over the next few days to keep a close eye on them - and as I mentioned above, I've got a spare tank setup and ready should I need to relocate them.

I also opted for a Rainbow Darter - at £23 it wasn't cheap, but they are lovely little fish. Not especially colourful right now but I'm looking forward to seeing how s/he comes on. Owing to it's small size (and the biggest goldfishes large mouth) I decided to setup a spare 65L for the darter - if it grows significantly in the next few months I may move it into the big tank, but if not I'll keep it in the 65L and see if I can sex it and add another (plus maybe something else, like WCCM's.)

I was sorely tempted by Rhinogobius nagoyae formosanus - a coldwater goby. They were a decent size and one of the most interesting looking temperate fish I've seen. I held fire on buying a couple though as if I do decide to move the darter to the main tank it'd turn into an expensive snack for these Gobies. If I decide not to move the Darter across then I'll be straight back to buy a pair of the goby's.

When I eventually rehome the goldfish in a pond (not in the near future, but I'll have to eventually - they're common goldfish) I'll probably look at adding another flavour of minnow to the tank.

Will post some pic's in a couple of days if anyone is interested.

Id be interested to see some pics. I bought a couple of red shiners/rainbow dace from the local fish auction the other day. I don't even have a cold water tank at the moment so have them in a really useful box at the minute. I kind of bought them for my brother to put in with his goldfish but I might just set up a coldwater tank and keep them. I'm interested to see what other coldwater fish I could keep but i'm not into goldfish, I prefer wild type fish not manmade mutant goldfish types. I know the rainbow dace are quite easy to breed once you have the swan necked muscle for them so I might just keep them and see how it goes. Would be nice to just have some fish that can breed and have a whole tank to themselves rather than gathering a noahs ark community tank.

 

[tenohfive]

The biggest problem I've found with cold water fish is availability. Most LFS don't seem to much in the way of cold water fish, so it took me an hours drive to get to Wildwoods as I don't know anywhere else that has a good stock of non-goldie coldwater fish.

Actually having a proper look whilst I was there made me realise that there are some great fish - nowhere near as much variety as tropical, and nowhere near as much information about them available - but a it's opened my eyes somewhat. I'm planning on doing a bit more digging, as I suspect finding private breeders is the way to go.

Whilst I was there I got some additions for one of my tropical tanks, so I'm having a well deserved rest after aquascaping one tank, setting up another and acclimatising fish to three different tanks. I'm going to give it a couple of days to see how the shiners get on, fingers crossed they'll settle in.

 

[merlinblack]

The biggest problem I've found with cold water fish is availability. Most LFS don't seem to much in the way of cold water fish, so it took me an hours drive to get to Wildwoods as I don't know anywhere else that has a good stock of non-goldie coldwater fish.

Actually having a proper look whilst I was there made me realise that there are some great fish - nowhere near as much variety as tropical, and nowhere near as much information about them available - but a it's opened my eyes somewhat. I'm planning on doing a bit more digging, as I suspect finding private breeders is the way to go.

Whilst I was there I got some additions for one of my tropical tanks, so I'm having a well deserved rest after aquascaping one tank, setting up another and acclimatising fish to three different tanks. I'm going to give it a couple of days to see how the shiners get on, fingers crossed they'll settle in.

-
My local tropical fish shop sometimes has black banded sunfish and rainbow dace in. I've found out that a licence is needed to sell a lot of coldwater species, it will be because they could survive if they're let out into British waters. I've just tried signing up to a forum called north american native fish association but I wasn't able to.

 

[tenohfive]

The biggest problem I've found with cold water fish is availability. Most LFS don't seem to much in the way of cold water fish, so it took me an hours drive to get to Wildwoods as I don't know anywhere else that has a good stock of non-goldie coldwater fish.

Actually having a proper look whilst I was there made me realise that there are some great fish - nowhere near as much variety as tropical, and nowhere near as much information about them available - but a it's opened my eyes somewhat. I'm planning on doing a bit more digging, as I suspect finding private breeders is the way to go.

Whilst I was there I got some additions for one of my tropical tanks, so I'm having a well deserved rest after aquascaping one tank, setting up another and acclimatising fish to three different tanks. I'm going to give it a couple of days to see how the shiners get on, fingers crossed they'll settle in.

-
My local tropical fish shop sometimes has black banded sunfish and rainbow dace in. I've found out that a licence is needed to sell a lot of coldwater species, it will be because they could survive if they're let out into British waters. I've just tried signing up to a forum called north american native fish association but I wasn't able to.

I looked at their forum, but their emphasis seems to be on catching the fish themselves and breeding them. Interesting, but not much use when trying to source suitable fish.

For what it's worth, Wildwoods do delivery. I've not ordered fish from them by mail order before, but I keep going back there because I'm impressed with their stock:

http/www.tropicalfishfinder.co.uk/stores_products.asp?type=Fish&fish=&store=54&cat=212

 

[merlinblack]

The biggest problem I've found with cold water fish is availability. Most LFS don't seem to much in the way of cold water fish, so it took me an hours drive to get to Wildwoods as I don't know anywhere else that has a good stock of non-goldie coldwater fish.

Actually having a proper look whilst I was there made me realise that there are some great fish - nowhere near as much variety as tropical, and nowhere near as much information about them available - but a it's opened my eyes somewhat. I'm planning on doing a bit more digging, as I suspect finding private breeders is the way to go.

Whilst I was there I got some additions for one of my tropical tanks, so I'm having a well deserved rest after aquascaping one tank, setting up another and acclimatising fish to three different tanks. I'm going to give it a couple of days to see how the shiners get on, fingers crossed they'll settle in.

-
My local tropical fish shop sometimes has black banded sunfish and rainbow dace in. I've found out that a licence is needed to sell a lot of coldwater species, it will be because they could survive if they're let out into British waters. I've just tried signing up to a forum called north american native fish association but I wasn't able to.

I looked at their forum, but their emphasis seems to be on catching the fish themselves and breeding them. Interesting, but not much use when trying to source suitable fish.

For what it's worth, Wildwoods do delivery. I've not ordered fish from them by mail order before, but I keep going back there because I'm impressed with their stock:

http/www.tropicalfishfinder.co.uk/stores_products.asp?type=Fish&fish=&store=54&cat=212

I'm getting confused with the redfin shiners/rainbow dace, I'm not sure if theyre the same fish, there looks to be a lot of very similar species to these so not sure exactly what I've got. I've just registered on loaches online, theres some cold/temperate water species of loaches too.

 

[tenohfive]

I believe Red Shiners are also known as Rainbow Dace, Redfin Shiners are something different.

There are some beautiful hill stream loaches that one day I intend to setup a biotope tank for - ideally they need massive flow rates and there's not alot else that is ideal company for them. One day...

 

[Biulu]

Yes, private breeder or better even local aquarium societies are good sources for any uncommon fish. I was at a meeting of one of them a few weeks ago and they all came up with fairly unknown 'wild' livebearers! Many of these hobbyists are purists and you should maybe phone around a bit to see if somebody keeps these fish.

 

[BINKSY]

How much did the Red Shiners set you back? Just googled them and they look lovely fish. Am considering changing my 4ft tropical tank to a coldwater tank.

Cheers Gordon.

 

[coldwatermarinez]

I believe Red Shiners are also known as Rainbow Dace, Redfin Shiners are something different.

Just to clear this up, rainbow dace refers to both the red shiner (Cyprinella lutrensis) and the rainbow shiner (Notropis chrosomus) and redfin shiner refers to both the Cyprinella lutrensis and another species, Lythrurus umbratilis. Another reason to go by scientific names instead of common names.

Also, hillstream loaches do well with Rhinogobius and Stiphodon gobies, which are both suitable for the indoor coldwater aquarium. The two species of Tanichthys minnow aren't bad tankmate choices either.