Tropical Fish Forums

[multiplepets]

Hello I am wondering if I could put a wildlife fish into my domestic tank for added variety. I am aware of worms and other potential parasites so I have collected a few babies and put them in a wildlife tank. It has been 3 weeks and the only reason for the deaths of 2 baby fish is due to an injured turtle I have rescued and so far the fish are doing wonderfully anybody with experience in this subject please respond.

thank you
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Jakson

[bignellm]

Reality is, there are quite a few fish on market, that were harvested from the wild. What did you add?

[multiplepets]

I live in Minnesota and I have considered adding some baby bullhead, I have done my research and have discovered that adult bullheads rarely go for live food and being that these little guys (about 1 inch) are so small the won't pose any threat.
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Jakson

[UncleWillie]

A lot of this depends on the size of your tank. Most bullheads get to be 10-12'' with some staying smaller, some larger... What are these other fish you've collected? You need to make sure you have caught legal species, using legal gear, and purchased the proper license / permit. Bullheads grow pretty fast in the first 2 years of life (6-8'') then slow down in length, but grow in girth. Bullheads are easy to train to eat prepared foods (in fast they are often docile and will eat out of your hands), but I've never known a bullhead to turn down an easy live meal.

You should post some decent pics of these baby fish you've already captured and we can help ID them. The bullheads you are going to run into in your area are blacks, browns and yellows. Out of those I would avoid the browns (they just get so big), and go for the yellow or black bullheads. Yellows may stay a bit smaller, but black bullheads come in a variety of cool colors and patterns, and IMO prettier. Look for light colored chin barbels on the yellows, and black chin barbels on the black bullhead.

[multiplepets]

I have checked the laws and I am operating within the leagal limits (I found a loop hole and it takes a while to explain so I won't bore you with details) but the are black bullheads and I plan to increase the size of fish in my tank from small fish like guppies to larger fish such as oscars or something of that size.
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Jakson

[diademhill]

Have you upgraded from the 50 gallon tank?

This is too small to think of adding any larger fish with the bullheads.
An Oscar can grow to well over a foot long and 75g is considered a minimum sized tank for one kept alone.

[UncleWillie]

I am pretty familiar many state's regulations regarding keeping / transporting fish for aquarium and bait use (this is a very interesting subject to me). In MN you can keep bullheads for aquaria since they are not considered game fish (if they are under 7 inches they actually fall under the minnows category) so you have no problem there. Gamefish, however, can only be kept if they were purchased, or if you have a kid under the age of 16 with you. So as long as you have your fishing license, you're good as long as you don't keep gamefish.

You don't need a huge tank yet if your bullheads are still small (<2''). Just know that in a few years they reach 6-8'' and you might want to consider something like a 75+ gallon tank (any tank with a large/wider footprint than the standard 55 gallon tank for swimming and turning around space).

I caught two snail bullheads (one of the smallest bullhead species) just a bit over a year ago at 2'' each. They have been living in a 20 gallon long tank since then by themselves. They are now about 4 and 5 inches after only a year, and need to be moved soon.

[multiplepets]

Thank you UncleWillie you explained my loop hole perfectly. My parents do have a fishing license and I am a few months away from turning sixteen. It appears we both must have found the same information. I do intend on upgrading the size of my tank to a 100g when money is available (I need to get a better paying job). And I do know the speed of which these bullheads grow my cousin is a professional fisherman and he went to the DNR (before the shutdown) and got approval to keep some baby bullheads after a year and some heavy feeding they just reached 2.5inches!
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Jakson

[UncleWillie]

Good deal. If you get decent pics, let's see those babies. I just redid my snail bullhead tank yesterday. I only see these fish when the lights go off (which is hard), but after I redid the tank yesterday and put in some floating plants, they are out and about during the day (I think the lower light levels is encouraging them to come out during the day). I'll have to share pics one day when they settle down.