Got Natives?

[spikekillifish]

Anyone here keep wild caught native fishes?

After keeping all kinds of traditional aquarium fish I started collecting and keeping only natives about two years ago. I was amazed at the variety of species available and more importantly their overall hardiness, ease of care, looks, and personality. There are a wide variety that are simply quite content in the home aquarium.

Golden Topminnow in my 30G.

 

[Balance]

That's a really good looking fish, Spikekillifish!

I like the red markings on it.

 

[spikekillifish]

What you can not see in the pic is that many of the prime males I have (including the one pictured) has loads of irredescent gold specs on their bodies. Some also have brilliant turquoise colors on their fins. They move around alot so I have yet to get a good representation of these features by timing the reflection of the light.

 

[valdok]

how big do those fish get?

 

[spikekillifish]

Golden Topminnows will reach a length of 5-6". It will take years though. These killifish are one of the longer lived of the species and grow more beautiful with age.

Here is a pic of another one of my favorites, the Dollar sunfish, which lives about five years and will not grow over 5" and like the Topminnow will become more beautiful with age.

Male Dollar sunfish

 

[fishysmell]

Hey Spike, the ones you sell on your site, do you breed or collect those?

I'm thinking about buying an order from you as soon as I can get a hold of a decent sized tank. Out of curiosity, how much would shipping be to western WA. I don't think I could be farther away from you and still be in the lower 48. =)

Thats a really nice fish in the pic. Are the females anywhere as nice?

 

[spikekillifish]

I collect almost all of them. I do supply a number of breeders with fish however. I have a permit enabling me to legally sell them. The $$$ from the permit helps fund and maintain their native habitats

I ship via. priority U.S. mail utilizing Kordon's breathing bags and products. Shipping to WA would run about $15-$20. I have to charge more for Dollar sunnies because they require a special foam lined cage to prevent their spines from puncturing the bags. This fee is built into the cost of the sunnie.

The females of both species are quite colorful but not as much as the males. Golden Topminnow females will not have the red or turquoise markings but will possess the golden specs.

The Dollar sunnies however are more difficult to sex. I have found the the females to be more on the green side than the brilliant blue of the males.

 

[Velvet AciD]

Hey Spike? Do you have any close-ups of your Taillight Shiners? They look like something simple and awesome to keep! *thumbsups

 

[spikekillifish]

Sorry Velvet AciD, I let my last three go this spring when I converted the tank they were in to SW. They are not that easy to keep. Other shiners tend to be much hardier. Acclimating them can be difficult. Many other fish will attack and eat 'em as well.

 

[420Loach]

my friend adam actually catches salt water fish for home aquariums from the reefs nears his house. im only doing fresh water for now and the only thing i could catch in a stream is tilapia. but they probably have cigautera.

 

[spikekillifish]

Tilapia are everywhere down here. I thought you could only get cigautera from eating reef fish. Sounds like what your saying though is that the water is polluted.

I would start a SW tank if you have the $$$. Maybe your friend could get you some nice fish.

 

[Orion]

A guy I worked with a couple of years back was stationed in Japan and he had a 500 gallon saltwater bar aquarium that he never bought a single living creature for. He tood everything from the sand,coral, and fish directly from the ocean. He was there for almost three years and he said that he never lost a fish. Of course its not like he tried to keep huge fish of course. but he said that he had very minimal proplems with keeping wild caught fish.

 

[SoulFish]

only natives i have right now are american flags and sailfin mollies (getting rid of both soon were just place holders i got for free from work to keep bacteria goin, would you be willing to trade 5-6 american flags and some sailfin mollies and more for some other fish, you would have to come up here but if you came by on a dya at my work you could chekc out the farm and i could even throw a trap in and catch some more fish for you, how would htose hogchokers be in brackish water with some mudskippers and fiddler crabs and how large do they get?

 

[spikekillifish]

I sure would!

I am low on Flag Fish right now. PM me your phone number and work address and let's work something out.

Hogchockers grow to 6" in captivity. A Crested goby would also work well in there.

 

[SoulFish]

how would a hog choker and crested gobies do in a half beach 55 gallon (would only be like a 20gallon with a bit more cause of the sloping, although shallow, substrate sand, mangroves in it too

 

[spikekillifish]

They would dig it. That is the same type of habitat they were collected from.

 

[420Loach]

im sorry not cigatera, it something else. the streams here are really messed up because of the animal farms they put up in the mountains in the 1920s-30s. we get our water from inside a natural resivour(sp?) in the mountains, which we used to get from the clean streams running out of the mountain, when the put in the farms the animal waste poluted the streams. we used to eat the tilapias before when i was like 8 but we cant now and most of the people here now dont give a crap about any of that anyway. thanks for listening to this rant.