Conference wahoo::fishing-v2

    What does your friend want to put in the aquarium?
    
    That will make a major difference in the kind of advice you want/need.
    
    Local fish (e.g., bass, sunfish, eel, hornpout) won't require a heater
    for the tank. Trout will require a cooling $y$tem. Tilapia have their
    own set of requirements. 
    
    There is an aquaculture mailing list your friend might be interested in
    subscribing to. Your friend will have to have internet access to get
    the mail, but it is a treasure trove of info for people interested in
    raising fish in a controlled environment.
    
    John H-C

    John
    
    He is interested in putting in bass etc.  He thought it would be
    interesting to observe bass habits.
    
    Brian

    Hi, Brian,
    
    Back in the seventies, when I was teaching second grade, I used to keep 
    tiny freshwater fish - bass, perch, and sunfish - in a 10 gallon
    aquarium in my classroom.  
    
    They were easy to keep, I used river gravel and clean rocks to provide 
    some structure and ran a regular airstone-driven filter ($7.00 or so).
    The kids and I fed them little earthworms.  
    
    We quickly learned that we couldn't keep two bass in the tank because one 
    would dominate the other, chase and nip it endlessly.  But two bluegills 
    and a bass worked okay.  The bluegills each established a home base and
    negotiated boundaries.  The bass roamed more & was king,
    
    These fish were 1 1/2" to 2" long.  During the winter we couldn't get
    earthworms, so we'd release the fish, then catch more in the spring.
    
    Catching involved skin diving with a "net" I fashioned with window
    screening and a long leveraged handle I used to force it through the
    water fairly quickly.
    
    We found them to be as easy to keep as goldfish - run an aerator, don't
    overfeed, clean the tank now & then, keep a top on it so they can't
    jump out and drown.
    
    Jack
    
    

    Good comments from Jack, Brian. 
    
    I've found that all fish get bored with a single food source (e.g.,
    earth worms). Your friend will have pretty good luck feeding them
    guppies when the fish are small and then tuffies and then goldfish as
    they grow larger. Intersperse these with earthworms and the fish will
    almost always feed. Your friend might want to add a crayfish to the
    aquarium. They'll consume any guppies that die before they are eaten as
    well as any earthworms the sunfish won't touch because they're tired of
    that food.
    
    This assumes the bass and sunfish are large enough to keep the crayfish
    at bay. I lost three yoty smallmouths to a Winnipesaukee crayfish that
    acquired the name "Flash" as well as a preference for food-on-the-fin.
    I moved Flash in with Felix the catfish from Lake Winthrop, and they
    stay out of each other's way.
    
    John H-C

    Checkout Topic 880 "My Pet Bass" in the archived conference (here).
    -donmac

    and isn't there a fish-as-pets conference somewhere?

    Yeah, there is, but nobody over there knows what a bass is except to
    say that it may be some kind of grouper.

    ;-)
    

    The fish-for-pets conference is CSVM14::FISH   Hit <select>.  I think 
    there's a note in there about setting up a fish pond.  Could be a neat 
    idea if your bass outgrows the 65 gallon tank.
    
    The fish-for-food conference is TURRIS::COOKS  mmmm!  ;-)
    
    
     -- Jeff

    Was it Vermont F&W that had the 30-foot-lomg aquarium at the shows 
    this spring? they regularly keep bass, trout, salmon, etc. Might  
    want to drop them a line and ask for hints.