Interesting native fish?

[glamp88]

Does anyone have any experience/suggestions for native fish? Any sizes or species suggestions welcome. Any tips also welcome.

[blazeyreef]

it depends on where you live really. I know here we have some pretty cool gurdeons (I think thats what they are) that are a beautiful red and blue

[lauraleellbp]

Here's a few sites I ran across a while back that might have some useful info for you:

http://www.nativefish.org/

http://www.nanfa.org/

[Feral]

It depends on where you live and what size fish you want. If you have a large tank I would go with Pumpkinseed or Bluegill. Bullhead catfish are also a medium sized fish that do well in aquariums. If you are doing a small tank Rainbow Darters are a must (shown below). They are very aggressive and like clean fast moving water, but are very unique and beautiful.



I've even kept a young Northern Pike, Largemouth Bass, and Channel Catfish. I would not recommend these unless you have a giant tank. Both the Pike and Bass are extremely aggressive and will eat most other animals with them. The Channel Cat isn't aggressive but will eat everything. Hope this helps. I love native fish and have kept many varieties. Just let me know if you have any more questions.

[psybock]

I've kept sunfish, they act much like cichlids, except the smaller ones tend to be more or less shy at times. I've had experience with Heterandria Formosa (dwarf livebearer). Very easy fish, basically like a small amber and black striped fish. Females are the largest and get around 1.25 inches. Swamp darters are not as colorful as the ones above but are definitely interesting. I've kept Bluefin Killies, very cool little fish, easy to take care of, seem to travel in shoals, well at least mine do.

American Eels are cool if you have the space, mine decided that he wanted to pull a nemo and went inside the outflow of my canister filter and got wrapped around the impeller... I have another trio of killies that I have no idea what they are b/c they don't look like anything I've found by research, the closest thing I can figure they are, are either seminole or black banded killies.

Bridle Shiners are cool, caught them by hand in a West VA streambed. They just have large mouths for their size. Florida flag fish are native and really cool, they look/act like cichlids but are killies. I've kept Gambusia species, no real problem there, same care as a guppy, they just happen to be more aggressive.

Thats about all I can think of at the moment, but there are some choices for you...