native freshwater fish

Question
I am considering putting up a freshwater tank for me and a young friend of mine. I'm 47 and he is 8. We like to go to a nearby river and he catches frogs, tadpoles, crayfish and other river creatures. I would like to put together a tank to accommodate these creatures. I wonder if I were to start my tank with native river water? I have some experience with tropical freshwater fish but I do not have a clue what to feed the crayfish, the frogs and toads. I would like to add small sunfish and bluegill maybe a crappie. I need all the expert advice I can gather.

Thanks,

Kim

Answer

Dwarf Frog Hello Kim.  Although I LOVE the thought of you wanting to do this with your young friend, because it SURE sounds fun, I cannot condone the capturing of these animals born to and living in a natural environment to live in a tank.  Most of the fish we receive as hobbyists have been born and raised in tanks and we did not directly take them out of their "homes".

First off, in some states, catching and keeping "wild animals" is against the law, so please be aware of that. Do they really "enforce it", well, I'm not sure, but I know here in NJ the Dept. of fish and Game are quite visible!  Personally, I feel that wild animals are best left wild animals. I would think that you would not be able to build a natural enough environment to support any fish in a tank, because a lot of them live with the natural currents. You would have to replicate the frog's environment to a tee and know about what type of frog you were going to catch, because different frogs grow to different sizes and do different things (such as hibernate, change areas with the weather, what they eat, etc.).  So it's a very "iffy" type of thing to do.

Did you ever think of researching fish such as those in the cichlid family?  Take a look at these links.  These fish live in very very "natural" environments that would be fun setting up:  http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/lake_malawi_setup.php and http://www.bbayaquariums.com/fish-types.html .

Although it may not be "as fun", they do sell frogs and other neat critters in the fish store too.  The tank still needs to be "set up" (see: http://aquaticfrogs.tripod.com/id27.html) and you do need to be creative with that.  Putting developed frogs AND tadpoles to watch grow can be REAL fun.  I put tadpoles in my tank on year and my daycare kids watched them grow, then I put them out in my pond.  It was fun!

I also found an AWESOME site about frogs:

http://allaboutfrogs.org/info/doctor/first.html


So, like I said, even though it may not seem "as fun", it still can be fun setting up tanks for the frogs, etc. that are in the tanks at the fish stores just looking for good homes!!

I hope this helps in some way.

BEST OF LUCK with you and your friend.  It is such a sweet thing for you to want to do for/with them.  I think that's wonderful!!