Not often that you will see a post in here from me but I just got my spring issue of "Wild Ohio" that features a rainbow darter on the cover and a nice little story on them as well.   If I were not so wrapped up in the reefs I could see me making a thin stream tank

seems like flow would be a big key along with getting the diet right (a lot like a good reef tank)

I would also love to go looking for some of these to collect.  Maybe someday a student will be crazy enough to want such a project tank

Buk and I went collecting one day and found a ton of darters. Don't count out the common Green Darters either. When the males color up, they are amazing!

Very easy to catch too. Put a sein downstream about a foot in front of a rock, then have someone "scoot" their feet across the bottom toward the sein, tapping the big rock. You'll have a bucket full in no time.

I just looked them up!!They are a very cool little fish.You got me thinking of setting up a tank for some.I'm definitely going to look more into these.Thanks for sharing.

Lee

I LOVE my native tank!  In fact, that's the tank that gets all the attention when people come over.  You can find some truly colorful fish in your own backyard.  Some of mine came from local drainage ditches, others from local streams and rivers. 

The darters aren't the only colorful natives.  The red belly and redside(I think?) dace are colorful too.  The red  bellies literally color up scarlet-- we're talking blood red, as do the sides of the redsides.  There are other dace that look tiger striped and spotted like little swimming leopards.

The darters are my faves.  Those little dudes have personalities you can actually interact with.  One of my blacksides I called "Mr Personality" because any time I'd go near the tank with a camera, he'd manage to be RIGHT up in front, like that annoying guy at the party.  My greensides get a bright emerald green.  The orange throats have stripes that are home depot orange, and the rainbows have coloration that includes brick red and forest green. The rainbows are FIESTY too!  The darters remind me of gobies in their physical mannerisms.

Another thing-- you'd think wild caught fish that come straight from the river into yourtank would be flighty and shy.  SO not the case with my natives!  They are fearless and I can hand feed them.

I'd LOVE to have a custom built tank at least 8 feet long, that I could have built to curve, to better mimic a stream with varying flow, and I'd use that foam to create underhangs and overhangs along the back wall, and I'd hve live plants emmersed as well as planted from the top...

Here's a link to the thread (with color pix!) that started my love affair with native fishes. www.traccentral.org/Forum/tabid/53/ptid/427/threadid/1905/forumtype/posts/Default.aspx

PS:

For those of you interested in learning more about native tanks-- most of our posts about them are under the "Coldwater" section of the forum. 

You've got to see pix of Susan's 6ft native tank setup.  It rocks!  FarmerTodd's former tanks are in there somewhere, as are threads with pix from Jimbo and from my tank early on in it's development.

Rainbow darters are great.  They are just perfect aquarium fish.  They have great personalities, they are beautiful, don't hide, and don't harass other fish.  I don't think flow is real critical with them.  I have several, and they are scattered around the aquarium, not just in the high flow areas, although they like it there best.  I haven't had any trouble feeding mine.  I rarely give them frozen food and they still look great.  I feed a variety of foods that sink to the bottom.

I have some Rainbow Shiners as well, they are as beautiful as any tropical fish.  Unfortunately they aren't found around here, I bought mine.  You can see them on the thread that Mary has a link to in the previous post.

I did get my orangespotted sunfish locally, I've had some of them almost two years and they are still under four inches.  Great aquarium fish.  They eat anything and come to the front of the tank to beg when they see me.

I am saving up for a chiller, the greensides don't color up well for me and I'd like to see that green color in my living room!

So where can you catsh somw of these fish you guys are referring too.I really think I'm going to start up a native tank now.

train9138 said :

So where can you catsh somw of these fish you guys are referring too.I really think I'm going to start up a native tank now.

Check out some of the threads in the coldwater section, we tend to post about our collecting adventures over there.  One of my favorite(and easiest to access) places is 10 mile creek in Sylvania, right below the Kroger's that's on Monroe/Harroun.  That's a great place to get orangethroat darters, and really cool flat rocks that are create for aquascaping.

Todd and Susan know much more than I do about where to catch what.  I just go happily along when they figure out where to go to get which fish.

I need to post some pix of my tank, but it's in serious need of cleaning and I can't do it for a couple of weeks yet(just had surgery).

train9138 said :

So where can you catsh somw of these fish you guys are referring too.I really think I'm going to start up a native tank now.

What area do you live in?  If you are interested, I can take you collecting in the spring.  I'm not as good at identification as Todd, but I know where to find a few things.  Look around on the NANFA site and see what you are interested in.

schambers said :

train9138 said :

So where can you catsh somw of these fish you guys are referring too.I really think I'm going to start up a native tank now.

What area do you live in?  If you are interested, I can take you collecting in the spring.  I'm not as good at identification as Todd, but I know where to find a few things.  Look around on the NANFA site and see what you are interested in.

Lee

train9138 said :

 

.What size would be a good tank to start with considering I like the darters obviously and some of the smaller sunfish.guess I need to start doing some reading.Thanks alot,.

 

Lee

Some of our fellow TRACers have experimented with different substrates such as peat, kitty litter and I forget what all else. My comptuer time is limited or I'd find those threads for you to check out. 

I'll go post a starter-thread under the coldwater and see if we can lure some more of the native-experts into posting. Susan's pretty darned knowledgable on keeping natives.  I'm not an expert, I'm just plain enthusiastic, lol.

Thanks alot pundam I was just posting in that thread you started.

Lee