Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Fish Tanks

They are ball to watch. My son caught some little bluegill, sunfish and bass fingerlings from a nearby lake overflow once years ago and put them in his aquarium after all his tropical fish died. They would break water and race to snatch bugs and worms off the surface. They were some cocky acting little dudes, too. You could be up close looking at them and they'd stop and stare right back at you like it was stare-down challenge as to who'd blink first.

Cool 👍👍

Not too bad. Larger tanks are actually easier to keep clean. About once every couple of months, I pull the sponges from the sump and wash them out under running water in the sink. 15 minutes. I do a water exchange of about 80% once a month or so. That takes an hour. Three or four times a year I vacuum the 1/2" diameter gravel bed in the bottom of the tank. about fifteen minutes.

I use a forty watt UV light to kill waterborne algae and things like ich,

Including the 90 gal "All Glass" tank with built in overflow, 20 gallon sump tank and media, external pump to push water back to the top tank, UV filter, inline cartridge filter to polish the water, "Versa Tops", and a nice LED light on top, I probably have about $1500 invested.

Purchasing plants, foodstuffs, and livestock is another matter entirely, and an ongoing expense. Kind of like primers and smokeless powder.

I have about 100 specimens in this tank. Cost was $4 to $10 each. Some of them have been in there for ten or twelve years. But typically one or two fish die each month. So I visit one of the various aquarium stores in the valley every couple weeks and look for something interesting which would fit well with my current residents.

But mine is a fairly advanced hobby as far as fresh water aquaria goes. A guy could set up a nice 55 gallon tank for $200 as mentioned above and stock it with twenty, two to three inch long (as adults) specimens, or a half dozen angels, or a couple pet Oscars and have a very enjoyable and relaxing feature in their living room

Illegal to use live bait, except worms, in Idaho, and illegal to use goldfish for bait. When fish get to big for the tank, or no longer fit well with current residents, the fish moves outside to live with Momma's porch kitties. The kitties always welcome them warmly.

Landlady had a 90 gal tank at the place I rented a room in while in college. No fish in it, and I didn't have much money but I aksed if I could get a few. I bought 4 feeder goldies for a quarter each, raised them for 4 years. Used to keep a "Homer bucket" and aquarium net out back to grow skeeter larvae in to feed them. The goldfish loved to see that net comin'. Fresh meat, yum!

Only 4 goldfish in that big tank, they had plenty of room to grow, and boy did they.

Geno

A perfect solution to introduced species issues.

Geno

Discus on the market today are pretty well acclimated to harder water, and are becoming more affordable. I am told they do well in typical tap water of the Treasure Valley, which is often pH of 7.7 or higher.

But I have not taken the plunge yet, and invested in Discus. I keep telling my self that I will, but can not give up the SA acaras and cats I now enjoy. But I already keep an RO system in the guest bathroom and store fifty gallons of RO water there for the next water change.

My Mom and Dad had a 150 gallon aquarium built in when they built their house. It was piped into the plumbing. Had 150 pounds of gravel in it. We had fish in it that we caught around home. We hept a couple of river mussels in it and a couple of big crawfish with something they could hide in. We had most of the sunfish that could be caught locally. They do well and get along. Crappie jump out the first night. Grass Pickerel jump out.
Smallmouth, Spotted , or Largemouth would kill everything else in the tank no matter the size difference. Channel cats or bullheads do well with others. We tried feeding lots of different things and chicken liver chopped small seemed to keep the tank cleanest. The bass learn to eat it once they get a little hungry.
You learn a lot about the way fish feed and eat watching them in a larger aquarium. They could tell when someone was chopping up their food even though it was 25 feet away in the kitchen. And could see out into the room. When My dad came around the corner with his cutting board they would come to the top and wait to be fed from 25 feet away. It was very entertaining to have.

Okay, I had to get a pic. Crappy cell phone, but the camera battery is on the charger.https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/users/51513/10gaugemag

The white "snow" floating around is because I fed them a bit of salad shrimp as a treat this morning.



a good share of the population is hiding under the driftwood. leopard pictus cats, yo yo loaches, clown loaches, red tailed botia, synadontis cat, bumble bee cat,, a bunch of cories hiding, four plecos,

Some of these guys only come out to be seen once every couple weeks or so. "Damn I thought he was dead, check it out Momma. He is still in there."

My buddie had 90 gal. he bought 4-5 piranhas, they grew quick! he throw a Frog in there, pretty gorey, was always have to clean the tank, one day one of them took a big chunk out of his hand. he sold them and the tank after that!

Yeah, tell me about it. I built five more last year, ranging from 28,000 gallons to 87,000 galllons...... This fish stuff is getting out of hand!

On dumping the gold fish or using them as bait. One of our local primo trout fisheries was lost to a goldfish explosion for about 5 years. Likely introduced as illegal bait. They are basically carp who's growth is only limited by its environment. Fish and game eventually cleaned it out, but now its essentially dry due to a water table draw down by a nearby 1/2 section pivot.

Goldfish are domesticated prussian carp. (C. auratus), and all fish are limited only by their environment. However, like all carp within their climate zone, they have the ability to breed very rapidly (100,000 eggs per female is not unheard of for a large specimen).

Gold fish are and invasive species in a lot of places.

Then again, so are large mouth bass........

Went with Momma to Walmart for Groceries last night. A young couple in front of us at the cash register had a ten gallon aquarium kit in their cart, two small bags of gravel and a big plastic bag with eight large fancy calico goldfish.

I poked Momma in the ribs, and she shushed me. I bit my tongue and resisted the urge to predict the early demise of those pretty little fishies.

Kinda like being at the gunshop and watching some redneck buy a shiny new 657PD for his dainty little 12 year old daughter.

i've had a few over the years, my brother gave me a 150 gallon about 8 yrs ago. i had it about two months hadn't got the chance to set it up, when my brother comes by and asks for it back, someone offered him a couple hundred for it and he wanted it, sorry f-ucker.

My 75 gallon tank is getting a gravel clean and 20% water change this morning.

Got a 10 gallon set up in my classroom. The trick to keeping it “clean”’ is to stay away from natural light, LED lighting and plastic plants are your friend, No algae no need for snails or algae eaters.

We have real hard water here, so I use “drinking water” from the store to set up the tank, top off the maybe 1/2 gallon evaporation loss per week with distilled. Once a month 1/2 water replacement with drinking water from the store.

Do not overload with fish. Got eight neon tetras, four little panda corydoras cats and a betta. The neons demonstrate schooling behavior and actually they are native to cloudywater hence their bright colors. The panda corys demonstrate disruptive coloration, with their two big black spots they just disappear against the gravel when they ain’t swimming, plus they school too on the bottom, feeding as a group.

The betta demonstrates adaptations to low oxygen swamps, breathing air and making bubble nests like they do. Plus, for a cheap fish that only lives like two years, I ain’t seen a betta yet that weren’t loaded with personality.

End of the school year I just give the whole set-up to some deserving kid, start over in the fall. Less than $100 out of pocket, worth it.

The cheapest fish are cheap because there’s lots of em, meaning they don’t die. When in doubt go with the cheaper alternative.

A common mistake is over feeding, fish are cold blooded like snakes, can go for weeks without eating. Feed sparingly, a hungry fish is a healthy fish.

Point of interest, most fish you buy in the store are bred in bulk in the Phillipines and Thailand and shipped live by air in plastic bags topped off with oxygen, the whole bag enclosed in a styrofoam crate. This is an enormous industry, neons alone shipped bythe hundreds of millions every year.

This morning fish tank cleaning is done.