This might be kind of dumb, but I was thinking of putting minnows in my 55 gal. aquarium. A decoy sucker, Rosy Reds, Redtails, Gold and Silver Shiners, and maybe even a couple of Fatheads. Has anyone done this and if so will they eat flake food or what do you feed them?

I put fatheads into my gar tank and they eat junk (waste from fish/algae) off the bottom. I would suggest you have the tank set up for a month or so before you put much for fish in it if it is a new setup.

The minnow family as a whole make excellent pets in the aquarium. Corey has become the master of keeping native minnows in aquaria, but I have kept many diffeent species with excellent results. While I prefer to catch my fishes in the wild, bait shop fish can also be good tankmates. Often shops sell "rainbow chubs" which are actually finescale dace. They are good in a tank, hearty and colorful, but maybe a bit boring.
This species as well as many shiner species will take flake food or frozen/freeze-dried bloodworms very well. White suckers are tough. Fatheads are asy to keep but very boring in my opinion. Corey and I have gone to bait shops and run across rare darters in the tanks, and the owner is always willing to net them out for you. Also, look for mudminnows......they look like a tiny bowfin kind of (umbra family) and make great pets. Avoid the sticklebacks, they will attack everything in the tank and are not worth it. Get some SMALL shiners or finescale dace. Feed them bloodworms. They will be good pets for a long while. ~andy

Thanks for the info.! Where do I find bloodworms? Pet shop?

I've had the tank set up for quite a while and have a Pecostomus, 4 Red-eyed Tetras, a Zebra Tetra, and a Neon Tetra in there right now. I need more fish in there and thought I'd start with some minnows and work my way up to other native species.

I tried out 2 small Bluegills this summer and they never ate anything I tried to feed them. They ended up dieing after about 4 days. I didn't try natural food because I didn't want to hurt my Tetras, but I tried floating pellets, and flakes. They just would'nt eat them.

Any ideas as where to get some 3-4 inch roughfish? I think it would be sweet to get a Carp or a Redhorse, but I've never caught or seen one less than about 10 inches.

Frozen bloodworms are excellent food for most native fish under 4 inches. Some pet shops have them, some don't. I say you take a dipnet down to the river and see what you can catch for the aquarium. Bait shop fish sometimes carry disease, and it's a lot cooler to know right where the bugger used to live too. ~andy

I saw a guy doing that about 2 weeks ago. He dipped his net in right in the corner of the Sylvan dam and litterally had hundreds of minnows in one dip. He said that the minnows were spawning, but I have never seen so many in one net. I used to siene some small streams and would usually get 5-20 minnows in one lift but never the quantities he was getting. I think I might try it. I'd have to get a dip net though; all I have is landing nets. Thanks for the great idea. It would be alot better to net my own rather than sort through a bait tank.

I thought you should know that those bluegills didn't starve to death. I have had fish go 2 weeks with out eating (Christmas vacation) and never lost one. 4 days is not enough time to starve a fish. Also, when I had green sunfish I converted them to chiclid pellets pretty easily.

I would highly recommend mudminnows. I have one in a small tank on my desk at work. They will eat frozen bloodworms and chopped night crawlers - but not flake food. They are very hardy little fish, mine has survived almost a year with out aeration or a water filter - just semi regular water changes.

And I have to second the opinion on stickle backs. very aggressive fish which will gladly terrorize tank mates twice there size. When mine finally died I was glad.

Yeah you can call me minnow-man, I have a 38, 75, and 55 gallon. I got a bunch of minnows from Missouri in addition to Minnesota. My species list is: Golden Shiner, Bleeding Shiner, Red Shiner, Southern Redbelly Dace, Spotfin Shiner, Whitetail Shiner, Fathead Minnow, Mimic Shiner, Plains Topminnow, Blackstripe Topminnow, Central Mudminnow, Banded Killifish, Rainbow Darter, and Bluespotted Sunfish. I feed flake food to everything except the darters and sunfish, which get frozen bloodworms. You should be able to easily catch northern redbelly dace in small streams in your area, along with various types of shiners including the emerald, spotfin, spottail, common, and golden. A school of big golden shiners in a 55 gallon is pretty impressive; I've only got two.

I had a central mudminnow (from a bait shop) and it did great in my 55gallon with the other critters. Unfortunatlly due to technical probs, every thing is dead, except for my plecostomous, which is 9-10 inches and looks like it will out live me. I had pumpkin seeds and bluegills in various stages of success. The big problem I had was with aggression. I had one pumpkin seed that would not let any fish in the tank move! It pummeled the other sunfishes. the only fish that was unbothered (other than the pleco) was a huge albino oscar.

I would love to do pumpkin seeds again in a huge tank with lots of "structure". They are spunky and so gorgeous. I would also like to learn more about orange spotted sunfish. I'm guessing that their ability to live in less than perfect waters, their diminuative size and their good looks would make them awesome for the tank.

Anyone want a huge pleco? I have one who is healthy, happy and looking for a new home. i need to get rid of my big tank for now. Send me a PM and I'll send a picture of the fish if you're interested

How is that dumb? You can get all sorts of different behaviors from different species! I'm doing it right now with a 220 gallon with about 6 species of minnows (amongst other nifty critters), and they look great in there.

We've fed ours a mix of bloodworms and regular flake food. Some minnows, especially things like red shiners or emerald shiners, adapt really quickly to flake food, while others may hold out or even refuse flake food.

Hey Corey, how well do your dace do in aquaria? We just moved about 15 to a 220 gallon expecting some die offs (we had to transport them nearly 130 miles), but we lost almost all of them immediately. I think 2 might have made it. The other fish were doing fine last night, except the ozark minnows. We lost all of them as well. I haven't been up there today, I'm kind of afraid I'll find a tank full of dead fish from the ozarks. I'd love to keep some in my personal tank, but the idea of transporting that many to loose most of them is kinda harsh.