Sup Ya'll

N

Nativefish Boy

Large Fish
#1
Oct 22, 2002
349
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39
St.Louis
#1
Im Geoff from St.Louis. I work at Petsmart. I have 4 tanks. Dispite my parents efforts to keep the number limited. They are:
55 with a 9"Bluegill( raised from 1.5"), a crappie and a black bullhead
20L with 5 Boseman Rainbows, 3 Austrilian rainbows and a mystery cory
10 temporairily with a Lima Shovelnose, in future a few gardeni killifish
45 soon with my Lima and what ever else.
I have had fish forever and my parents have a 29 community tank.  I have also grown up with large fish. Thats my story. 8)
 

fishboy

fishboy

Superstar Fish
#3
Oct 22, 2002
1,565
0
36
34
Cincinnati, Ohio
#3
My parents tried to do the same thing only i bought one or two of my tanks wiithout them knowing for a while *celebratesmiley*

                 Welcome!
                             

                                       Daniel
 

R

ryanp15

Superstar Fish
#4
Oct 22, 2002
1,130
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37
Kentucky
#4
hey daniel ain't seen ya in a while! How did ya hide them from you parents?

Hey geoff nice to have ya here. Hope we can be of some help to ya. ;D *celebratesmiley*
 

fishboy

fishboy

Superstar Fish
#5
Oct 22, 2002
1,565
0
36
34
Cincinnati, Ohio
#5
They don't go down in the basement that often and having the livebeares have LOTS of babies so i could say that i had to get more tanks( which i actually did)is always a good reason or excuse. My Mom loves any animals , so that is also a good thing in my situation.*crazysmiley*

I haven't been here for a while well bc mostly school and sports :(I hope i will have time to get on the net more
 

C

colesea

Superstar Fish
#6
Oct 22, 2002
1,612
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NY USA
#6
Yeah, another LFS employee! What type of retailer systems to they use over there at Petsmart?  I have felt all lonely this past year feeling like I was the only other LFS employee on the web :).  Perhaps we can share trade secretes sometime.
~~Colesea
 

D

dattack

Large Fish
#7
Oct 22, 2002
982
0
0
#7
How do you keep your crappie and bluegill happy in summer months?  Don't they require cold waters?

It's kind of funny when you work at Petsmart and can look at and buy any fish but you opt for the native North American fishes.  I always wanted to keep a rainbow or brook trout in a tank but they require a lot of current and also cold water conditions.
 

C

colesea

Superstar Fish
#8
Oct 22, 2002
1,612
0
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NY USA
#8
Keeping native North American fish I believe is illegal. At least it is in NY. I know someone who has a trout pond instead of a koi pond though, which I thought was pretty cool. Cuts down on the mosquitos. I keep getting baby bluegills mixed in my feeder shipments though. They're awsome fish, I throw them in the turtle display for some action, the turtles can't catch 'em! They look and act like cichlids, and I watched one eat a pinhead cricket off the surface of the water once. You can buy a really expensive refrigerator unit from Marineland if you want to keep coldwater fish. I usually put a fan over the water surface, wrap some icepacks around the tank, and leave the hood up on my personal goldfish tank in the summer. Not very hi-tech, and I need a sweater box under the stand as a drip catcher, but the goldfish seem to find it effective. And I just love aquaclear powerheads!
~~Colesea
 

N

Nativefish Boy

Large Fish
#9
Oct 22, 2002
349
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39
St.Louis
#9
in missouri it is legal to keep native fish that you have collected.  You can't sell them though, thats illegal.  My tank doesn't have a heater so the temperature stays pretty cool. Heres the cool thing-The tank is in the basement( it is heated ) and the temperature changes when the outside temperature changes. Right now it's about 69-70 F and in the summer it is about 73-76 F . Its cool cause it sort of acts like a real river.  my crappie is like a dog. It gets excited when it sees the bag from work.  He's like "mmm...fishes.." He comes up to the top of the tank and sticks his head out of the water and shoots water out when he trys to bite the bag/fish/worms/fingers.  It's funny.  I too would love to keep some trout.  I have a fluval 403 that i could stick in a tank smaller then what it rated for to get lots of current.  The bluegill, named Kumklusch( from the Simpsons), eats crikets and crayfish real good.  8)  My green sunfish i used to have was the most violent surfacing feeding fish i had.  But he got hole-in-the-head and died.I have also had orange spotted sunfish, channel cats, darters, many assorted minnows and suckers. If any has questions about native fish and there care, talk to me, i have kept them successfully for many years.
 

C

colesea

Superstar Fish
#11
Oct 22, 2002
1,612
0
0
NY USA
#11
Ah, thanks. I wasn't aware they were a cichlid. I'm a goldfish person myself. The only cichlid I have a fondness for are oscars. I didn't realize there were any native cichlids to North America.  I know what you mean about fingers though, my goldfish love to suck on my fingers. I've got all the fantails in my 75g display eating out of my hands. That's always a constant amusement to the kiddies (and a good trick to sell fish). That, and the "attack" oscars which throw themselves out of the tank at feeding time (and they only get pellets!).

Sunfish are pretty fish.  I was a camp instructor one summer at a local park, and I would take the kids sein netting in the pond on property (all educational usage permits in order of course). We had a tank in the education center with baby chain pickeral, large-mouthed bass, pumkinseeds, and all those sorts of things. It was made to look like a cut away view of the pond, macroinverts and live plants included! After camp ended, it was really easy to break down, just dump everything back in the pond. The tank kinda took care of itself really, all we did was provide circulation, and water change it once a week with a bucket from the pond. Now that's my kind of tank!
~~Colesea
 

N

Nativefish Boy

Large Fish
#12
Oct 22, 2002
349
0
0
39
St.Louis
#12
Yeah. i also had some longear sunfish, the local name for them is pumpkin-seed, that is actually a different specie of sunfish. Have you ever heard of Texas Cichlids? They are also from the States.  I used to have soom feeders for pets that got 9 inches long. Most of it was tail *thumbsupsmiley*
 

C

colesea

Superstar Fish
#13
Oct 22, 2002
1,612
0
0
NY USA
#13
Ohhh yes, I know Texas Cichlids. Meanest arsed fish I'd ever seen. Didn't know they were true Texans though, figured it was just a trade name. People constantly buy them (and Blue Acaras) when I'm not on watch, stick them in their community tanks, and wonder why everything is dead the next morning. I put these fish in the "aggressive section" for a reason (duh!), but of course people can't read.

I am developing a growing appriecation for the American Cichlids though. I never realized how beautiful some of these fsh can be when placed in the proper lighting. The full spectrum bulbs we use at the store really wash out a lot of the irradecesence of JDs, Acaras and the likes. Pretty glowy spots. ;D ;D ;D
~~Colesea
 

C

colesea

Superstar Fish
#15
Oct 22, 2002
1,612
0
0
NY USA
#15
Black ghost knife fish!   *thumbsupsmiley*They're South American blackwater fish. Worm eaters, although they like freezed dried tubifex and micropellets and sometimes flakes. They're peaceful as all hell, have very weak eyesight, and do use electrofields to sense their environment and hunt for worms but it's not as strong as say, an electric eel.

Bristle nosed plecos are strange too. Ugly as all sin.
~~Colesea
 

N

Nativefish Boy

Large Fish
#16
Oct 22, 2002
349
0
0
39
St.Louis
#16
Good Call.Black ghost knives are pretty cool. I like the African Clown knifes better though. I get my arawona tomorrow. ;D Bristle nose are pretty cool too. Damn, it many big cool fish, not enough big cool tanks...Ohh well, i guess i'll just have to solve that problem ;D ;D ;D
 

C

colesea

Superstar Fish
#17
Oct 22, 2002
1,612
0
0
NY USA
#17
*drool* Clown knives....those are really pretty, but too, too big. The LFS down the block had one that was nose to tail tip in a 55g (48in). Poor thing could barely turn around, nobody knew what to do with it. He hasn't been there in awhile, so I wonder what happened.  But if you need a tankmate for your arrowana, a small clown knife probably would be okay. I've never tried it and haven't read anywhere that it has been tried, so I don't know if it would really work. But it would stand to reason that if the arrowana is a surface predator, and the clown knife a bottom cave dweller ambush predator, the two should probably get along with much trouble provided they're similar size. Especially if they're both fry size. The clown knives in my experience are really peaceful predators, primarily nocturnal, and pretty much mind their own business with not too aggressive tankmates (severums, convicts, blood parrots, tinfoils, silver dollars, balas....and fish of that kind).
~~Colesea
 

R

ryanp15

Superstar Fish
#19
Oct 22, 2002
1,130
0
0
37
Kentucky
#19
You are planning on getting that arrowana out of the 45 gallon though arnt you? Just wondering, and the redtailedcat, I know I've mentioned this before, will need about an 800 gallon tank so be prepared to spend a whole lot of money on the enclosure. ;D Just adding my 2 cents. :)
 

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