Native collecting

[WadeLP]

I'm looking for a nice spot near La Porte to collect natives. I'm new to natives so I'm rather ignorant to all of it. Any and all help/advice will be very much appreciated.

[barrettsline]

Native collecting

Any bayou, ditch, creek or stream and a cast net.

[mistahoo]

Any bayou, ditch, creek or stream and a cast net.

+1 Any body of water you can find. Bring a cast net and a minnow trap if you're going to be catching fish for a while. You could even use a small rod with a small hook.

[Sea-agg09]

oh boy... give me a few and I will write something up...

Are you looking for big stuff (bass/sunfish/pickeral/gar) or smaller stuff (darters, minnows, etc)?? There is a big difference in your method depending on what you are looking for.

[WadeLP]

For sure seeking little guys. I have a 10 gallon that a few people on aqua advice said would be perfect for a native theme tank.

[mistahoo]

For sure seeking little guys. I have a 10 gallon that a few people on aqua advice said would be perfect for a native theme tank.

Little guys as in fish that stay little? Or fish that are little and get bigger? Most of our fish supposedly get big and would outgrow a 10 gallon.

[WadeLP]

Stay little. Like killis and livebearers. I'm not a large fish guy.

[mnemenoi]

Native Killifish can work in a smaller tank, but are surprisingly aggressive. Golden would be your best bet or some bluefins...
Livebearers - I would try your best to locate some dwarf livebearers, they do perfectly in a tank that size.
Perch - Pygmy banded sunfish stay terrifically small, they can be tough to feed. My recommendation is build a planted tank and acquire cherry shrimp that are breeding crazily, add the pygmy's and you should be good. You could try Gammarus (scuds) as well, but would need a well planted tank.
Glass shrimp - quite common, but are nearly impossible to breed. Decent residents otherwise
catfish - tadpole madtoms could work in a setup that small if managed correctly.

I recommend researching what you'd like to have and investigate long term captive care. NANFA (North American Native Fish Association is a wonderful place to start, though I will warn you that they take the care of native fish just as seriously as we take tropical fish.

[Sea-agg09]

For little guys, it is actually really easy. The number 1 rule is to try every body of water you can find. You would be surprised as to what you catch, and every body is it's own ecosystem. I've caught crappie (black, white, and hybrids) in the medians around a country club, darters in a drainage canal. Red shiners are common, but I've been in some places where you don't catch a single one, and there is a long series of posts about the big texas cichlids I've found.

The most consistent way of catching little guys is to use a really fine mesh net (even a big aquarium net will work). Find any body of water that has water hyacinth or water lettuce. Scoop from as low as possible and come straight up. All those small fish hide in the dense roots. They are constantly watching up (for birds), but not below. Scoop up plants and all. I find the best way to sort through it is to grab the top of the plant, since it was out of the water, and shake it in the net. Anything in there falls out. Most common fish to find in there are pygmy sunfish and killifish. You can sometimes spot killi's (topminnows) skipping along the surface. You can follow them into the brush and net them out. The killi's big enough to be in the open are generally too big for a 10. Blackstipes are pretty common, but are pretty mean and have killed some of my other fish.

[decal]

Dipnetting is indeed the most consistent thing around here. You've gotta really work it sometimes to find the interesting stuff, but it's almost always more productive than cast nets, minnow traps and even my shiner scoop. I haven't had much luck with darters in this region, but if you head up 59 north a lot of the gravel/sand bottom creeks have dusky darters... they're probably a little much for a 10 gallon though.

If you wanna try something different, look for naked gobies near the coast. I have three from Galveston that I've acclimated to Houston tapwater. They are estuarine fish that tolerate a broad range of salinity and have even been introduced to some freshwater systems in west Texas. Mine took to flake almost immediately, and while slightly territorial they do not damage one another nor their tankmates (including Amano shrimp). Alternatively, you could just go salty and get an assortment of gobies, diamond killies, and/or blennies.

[allysangels]

i have a native killie, about 4 inches, that you can have... it doesn't look like much, just plain silver. living now in my 45g with 6 jade sleepers, and not showing any aggression. i did not catch these fish myself, they were given to me, but i frequently go down to the many creeks and bayous in my subdivision with a cooler and a dipnet and catch western mosquitofish by the dozens to feed my big fish and to keep in my fountain outside to.... dun dun dun... eat the mosquito larvae! i know there are bigger fish in the water, as they occasionally break the surface, but i've never caught one, nor do i know what they are.

[WadeLP]

I would love to try the salty idea but have absolutely zero experience with salt water at all..I've looked into it but it confuses me exponentially. Lol

[decal]

According to Goldstein's American Aquarium Fishes (imo a must-have for native enthusiasts) you can keep and breed a lot of saltwater natives in very simple setups. Basically just saltwater with a sponge filter. If you put some chaetomorpha (a type of macroalgae) in a HOB power filter with some light you probably wouldn't even have to change the water all that much. Just don't bite the bug and start playing with corals... that's where it starts getting complicated.

[allysangels]

i had a customer tell me he had been running a 5g eclipse system with salt, fish only, for several years with nothing but the built in filter and light. i was amazed that such a simple system could work so well.

[mistahoo]

Me and my bro caught some minnows and some massive mollies at a creek that runs though my parents' land. There's usually a lot of random stuff that goes through the creek since it's fed by some lake/reservoir? (forgot which one).