Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Aquarium observation

I don't know how many of you are interested in this, but I am having such a blast with it so I thought I would post it for those that are. It's kind of long, but here goes.

My oldest daughter recently gave me a hand-me-down 55 gallon aquarium that she acquired from a friend. I decided to set it up with pond fish rather than tropicals. I got some stocking fish from the "fish truck" on Sept 26, and from them I put (4) 4" CC, (7) 2" LMB, (15)2" RES into the new aquarium. I set the aquarium up with sand and gravel bottom, rock formations, a flat rock ledge, caves and depressions. I planted aquarium plants, installed a power filter and an aeration ring. I got some stocking fish from the "fish truck" when it came through on Sept 26. From that purchase, I kept out (5) 4" CC, (7) 2" LMB, and (15) 2" RES and put them in the new tank. I also put in (2)FHM that were in an existing smaller tropical tank. The rest of the stocking fish went into the pond (see my earlier post about renovation of an existing 1/4 ac pond).

Anyway, it has been incredibly interesting watching these little guys interact. I read everything on this site about feeds and feeding, especially pretaining to the RES. At first, none of them seemed to know what to do with the various offerings that I gave them. I had fish food around for the tropical fish so I tried flake food (no interest from any of them), I tried goldfish crumbles (slight interest from the RES), I tried freeze dried krill (the RES and LMB took pieces in but immediately spit them out), I tried finely chopped turkey, and finely chopped ham (the LMB will take some of the ham, but the RES don't like either, the CC will eventually clean up what the others don't eat, but they are not real enthusiastic about the chopped meat), I gave them thawed out frozen brine shrimp (they are coming around to that pretty good, especially the RES), and I tried some 50% protien pellets from the aquarium shop (the LMB were reluctant at first but will readily take them now; the RES are beginning to take them, especially the larger fish, but the smaller ones take the pellets but immediately spit them out), I chopped up meal worms (none of them would touch them, actually I only tried them once early on, so I really haven't given them a fair chance), I chopped red worms (and as expected they all love them). I also bought 30 feeder guppies (1/2 - 3/4") and put them in the tank. They lasted about 5 min. I actually didn't see the show. Nothing happened immediately after I released the guppies, so I went into the other room to fix myself a sandwich. When I got back (literally 5 minutes)they were all gone. I couldn't believe it.

It is so interesting to see first hand the difference in agression between individuals. There are 2 of the LMB that will eat until they are gorged. They will actually swim down onto this large flat rock shelf and just lie there on the bottom with their huge swollen bellies. Others will only take a couple of pieces of food and then move away from the action and suspend at mid depth.

They RES are very tuned to the bottom. They are becoming more agressive about hitting food as it falls, but they tend to wait until it is on the bottom before picking it up. Some will hover over a morsel for the longest time with their snout almost touching before taking it. Sometimes after the long investigation they will just swim off.

The CC are incredibly shy. They stay in the rock caves I created, or hang under some of the plants in a depression in the corner when the light is on. You can see them but they stay in the cover. When I turn the light off at night they immediately come out and begin hunting. It is funny to watch them when they find food. They scour the bottom until they find a morsel then when they take in the food they jerk their head to the side like they are trying to tear off a bite or keep some one else from getting it.

The 2 FHM have become part of the RES school. They are the most agressive feeders in the tank. They are accustomed to tank food. They were left overs from a fishing trip a year and a half ago and have lived in the smaller tank all this time. They seem to like all the extra food they are getting now in the big tank, but I don't think they know what is in store for them when the other fish get a little larger. In fact right now they are bullying the bass, bumping them and pushing them away from the rock caves and snatching food from them.

I did put a couple dozen snails in the tank with the hope of some reproduction for the RES last friday but all but the largest two are gone already.

All of this has taken place over a little more than a week. All of the fish are getting more and more acclimated to the tank and are getting more aggressive with each feeding. They already anticipate a meal when I open the cover on the right side of the tank.

I can't get over how interesting these fish are. I find myself sitting and watching these fish like a televsion program. If any of you are interested, I will give periodic updates. Otherwise I just thought I would share.

Cool, a friend of mine has a simular tank, she has an 8 inch LMB, a 6 inch Black Bullhead, several Pumkinseed, a couple BG and several creek minnows. She came over here and caught 9, 2-3 inch yellow Bullheads. She can hand feed the BG and the Bass is getting more and more tame. She feeds tubeaflex worms and some flake food.
I have a 55 gallon too but have always stuck with the traditional tropicals or goldfish.

You can observe and learn some really neat stuff with pond fish in an aquarium.

Mike, you've tried feeding just about everything we tried feeding to BG (and a whole lot besides) except blood worms (freeze-dried mosquito larvae).

mikebee,

Interesting post. I've always wanted a large aquarium to do just what you are doing...observe pond fish. Instead, I built a micro-pond and stocked it with several of the fish you mentioned plus some other unique fish. The micro-pond just isn't as good as an aquarium for observation of fish, however. Hence, I'm thinking of building a custom aquarium again.

Some species I have in the micro-pond which might interest you include Fx offspring of the GG, HBG, Crappie (1), Pacu, Tilapia, Gambusia, goldfish, Koi, in addition to some standard pond fish.

I'll be watching for your posts on aquarium observations...after all an aquarium is just a minature pond.

A very good way to learn a lot about fish. Keep watching as things will change soon. If the LMB live for 60 days you will have done well. As they all get a little bigger look for drastic changes in their aggressiveness. When you have watched for about 2 mths then try this. Find a red laser pointer. Turn the room lights way down (but not dark) and wait 5 mins., then shine the red dot on a fish and watch the show. Also watch for color changes in the fish and note the reason you think they changed color. Tell us what you see.

Watching fish behavior is fun, last night I watched two of my SMB come in and cruise around with the BG while I was tossing pellets. The SMB were not interested in the pellets but were looking for small BG to pick out of the crowd, I am pretty sure one of the SMB got a small BG. A little bit later a 16" LMB came in and most of the smaller BG vanished very quickly. An aquarium is very much like a clear water pond.

Somewhere 2-3 years back, we did a PB survey here on the forum to see who, as kids, had aquariums while growing up.

I thought it would be close to a slam dunk that most of us grew up with aquariums, but it was not that skewed.

I'll have to dig up the link. It made for an interesting read on the cross-section of all of us.

EDIT: Here's the link:
http://www.pondboss.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=20;t=001196

I had a 55 gal aquarium in college that we stocked with native fish. The most interesting for me was the gar which would float almost motionless up to its prey before quickly snapping them up. A couple of Rio Grande Cichlids were some of the most beautiful. Had a 12" bass which could barely turn around in the tank. We'd seine minnows of several varieties and bluegill and dump dozens into the tank at once. The permanent residents would gorge themselves, sometimes swimming around for hours with victims in their mouths. And then, over the next several days the remaining minnows and bluegills would slowly disappear as tummies got larger. A great experience.

Back at my college, one of the guys had a fish aquarium with various fresh water creatures that you would normally have at a run-of-the-mill pet store.

He had an albino frog, an eel, and some other types of cichlids, I believe.

We tought the albino frog how to eat fish. At first, he really didn't have the dexterity to catch a live fish. We used to buy rosies if I recall.

We'd cut them in half and drop them right in front of the frog.

Finally, he got hooked on the fish and could even catch them.

It was the funniest thing to watch this frog try to stuff fish in his mouth. His "arms" were not really developed to be too usefull; he'd wave 'em like he was fanning his mouth in efforts to try to stuff more fish in his mouth.

The eel would just strike a pose and wait for something to move near it's mouth, then it would simply retract under a rock to eat it's prey.

Cool stuff.

Hi Mike:

Its great that you are enjoying the "naturals" in your aquarium. I get a big kick out of watching the behavior of them at feeding time too.

Now my tank is converted to tropicals, after making the mistake of over crowding a large selection of various Manitoba native minnows bought from the bait shop.

If I knew then what I know now, I would only have put maybe 6 in the 55 gallon tank instead of a couple of dozen. It sure was an education watching their activities though. Some of them like the Red Bellied Dace were quite pretty too.

You have a pretty large amout of fish flesh in the tank for 55 gallons to support right now.

My biggest problem was found to be overfeeding. You'd be surprised about the small amount of food they need not only to survive, but to thrive.

As much fun as it is to watch them eat, cut your feeding schedule to about once per week and also buy yourself a complete water testing kit and monitor what's happening closely. A good guideline that my local fish guru uses is to feed them only what they will eat in about 2 minutes, once per week.

Also, do regular partial water changes ... about 10% by volume each week .. and use a proper de-chlorinator when you replace the water.

The tendency to overfeed is natural on your part ... after all, its great fun to watch them but you may well be "killing them with kindness" as the the "by products" of the food leads to water quality problems.

I've just started a second 20 gallon tank that I'm just using as a plant tank with plants gathered from my trout pond. Maybe if they survive, they might end up in my main tank. More liekely I'll catch a few local minnows and try and get them through the winter ... and with my typical sense of humor, use them as live bait for the Rainbow Trout next spring ... cruel I know!

Regards,
Lee

I thought you might get a laugh out of one of my cats that is a really avid fish observer. With no exaggeration, he will spend 6 hours a day watching the action in the aquarium and you almost have to drag him away from the tank to feed him.

At first I thought the novelty of this would wear off, but half a year later, and he's still there for several hours per day sitting in his observation chair.

When you watch his eyes, he is totally absorbed in watching the fish and you can tell his little walnut-sized brain is spinning at 10,000 RPM from the concentration. He must burn a few thousand calories a day due to eye movements!

Hopefully the picture works via Photobucket.

Lee

mikebee - Lee provides valuable advice, reread it and heed it. He speaks from practical experience. The fish behavior you describe is consistant with my observations of fish in and out of the aquarium.

Your fish tank is overcrowded. Unless I miss my guess your fish will begin to show signs of stress and disease problems. Cut back on the amount of feeding and monitor water quality closely. Do not forget to do regular water changes. Keep us advised as to how the fish are doing as winter progresses. Good luck.

I have a 20 gallon tank with 2 channel cats, 2 crawdads, 1 bluegill, and 1 longear(I think). The biggest channel cat is about 5 3/4 inches. Like Bill said the tank is overcrowded. I would cut all of their numbers in half, at least. You should put a few crawdads in there, they are interesting to watch. Make sure that they cant get out. I have had one escape twice.

Thanks for the advise on numbers and feeding. I will adjust as advised. It is sort of like overfeeding your dog or cat. When I go up to the tank they all coming swimming to the "feeding area" with these expectant little fishy faces looking out at me. But, I understand and will be strong from now on. Besides, chopping up worms twice a day is getting old, not to mention the looks I am getting from the wife. For some reason she has a problem with using the kitchen for a worm butchery. I would like to reduce the numbers so that I can add a couple of other species. I regularly catch pumpkinseeds, warmouth bream, and rock bass from the Elk river near the house. In fact a caught several last Saturday but they were too large to go in the tank with the size fish I have now. I will cull the current fish down to more reasonable numbers and let the remaining ones size up a little, then see about adding some more colorful native fish. I would love to add a small gar. There are plenty in the river but I have never seen any small enough for the tank. I will give periodic updates as things progress.

My son also has been doing his own 20 gallon experiement since last March. First he put four 4-6" LMB in the tank plus two "perch"(sorry not quite as knowledgeable on the "correct" terms), 3 crawdads and quite a few minnows, all from the creek right down the road. He is currently down to the most aggressive LMB which is now about 8" and the biggest crawdad. One of the most entertaining things I have ever seen. This bass is so aggressive that he is extremely easy to train. He eats dangling minnows out of our hands and will only eat live food. My son also does a trick that he shows friends that I find amazing(he doesn't do it often because I'm afraid it will stress the little guy). He can put a live minnow in one of those small green goldfish nets and dangle it right at the top of the water and the bass will attack that net and hang on while my son lifts him completely out of the water. He shakes his head like a shark would do trying to get that minnow out of the net. I couldn't believe it the first time he showed me. Question for some of ya'll is this. The creek has dried up and minnows are now hard to come by so the feed has recently consisted of grasshoppers and crickets. Is this enough nutrition for the bass to survive. Plan on releasing him next Spring and replacing with a new economy sized one.

I would think that grasshoppers and crickets would be fine for the bass. Just feed him till he stops eating. I started feeding the fish at my school the other day. When I set the minnow bag in there the bass bit a hole in it.

Here is my little story. A few years back I had a 55 gal tank with a Oskar and a big alge eater and a few aquarium catfish. They were all put in there together and the oascar didnt bother with them. One day while bass fishing I caight about a 3 inch largemouth. In the livewell he went for the oscar tank. I get him in there and he wont eat the krill or pellets the oscar ate so to the garden to dig worms. He ate them and anything alive I could find. The oscar was about 5 inches long the bass 3. well I got tierd of digging worms so to the store I go to buy a doxen goldfish 2 times a week. the bass would eat till he was so fat i thought he would explode a few months go by the bass is maybe 6 or 7 inches the oscar about the same maybe a hair smalller. The bass never touched the cats or the giant alge eater but I didnt make it to the store for a few days I finallly come back with 12 goldfish and WHERE is the Oscar. All I saw was a tail hanging out the basses gullet. Bass are mean dudes. I had to let the bass go in a pond before winter because he got to big and was very dirty for a tank.

A general rule of thumb from my aquarium days is 2" of fish for every 1 Gallon. This info was relative to tropicals with good filtration and aeration in a seasoned (bacteria rich) aquarium. From experience with pond fish I would cut this number in half to 1" per gallon max starting out and not letting it exceed 1.5" per gallon if you get growth. I once observed 4 4" bass devour 100 minnows in 3 days. They are eating machines. This resulted in very poor water quality in a tank with excellent (reef tank) filtration.

I will take the opposite approach as Ryan. I prefer less fish than 1" per gallon of water. For smaller fish (1"-4"), I prefer something on the order of 0.5" per gallon of aquarium water. This allows room for growth of the fish while not overloading the filtration capacity of the tank. This also allows good room for "Operator" error in regards to regular tank maintenance. People commonly put too many fish per gallon of aquarium water. Been there and done that way too many times before.

Rarely do normal aquarium set ups have adequate filtration capacity for long term growth of fish that in healthy conditions will grow to larger sizes. Always remember that the fish is constantly producing ammonia, a toxic substance to them. Also the fish are producing manure with needs to be processed by the aquatic system of the aquarium. Biological processing of the manure wastes also produces ammonia & nitrites. Proper biological balance of filtration reduces ammonia and nitrites into nitrates which have very low toxicity. The more one feeds the fish the more waste products that are produced. As the fish grow in length and weight the amount of waste it produces increases exponentially. Fish in an aquairum live in their own waste products and the filtration system should ideally be oversized to properly handle all the biological wastes. Regular water changes (20%-25%) are also beneficial to maintaining good water quality for the captive fish.

And if you do not have them, get some some live plants for the aquarium. They are great for the overall "health" of the aquarium. You do need proper lighting for the plants though.

I am listening to the advise given, but I've gotta tell ya, those fish were mucho PO'd at me this morning. No tasty worm tidbits last night and none this morning. There was definitely rumblings in the ranks as I left for work. I am afraid they will not take it well when the Lottery is initiated to choice those that must go. Hopefully they will understand that it is for the long term good of the community. I think it is hard for fish (especially young'uns) to see the big picture.

Watch out for the Redears - that's who'll start the rebellion.

mikebee said - ""Hopefully they will understand that it is for the long term good of the community. I think it is hard for fish (especially young'uns) to see the big picture.""

I say - Rarely does anyone like what is ultimately good for them in the long term.

Yup, them Redears is the worst type of Commie Pinko alright ... always ready to foment dissent!

Here's a picture of one of those "Godless" Pink Gouramis just waiting for an opportunity to lead an uprising in your tank. Next thing, they'll want to nationalize your house.

Lee

thats deep bill