Native Fish for the Home Aquarium

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On serious collecting trips you will, of course, need containers for transporting fish. (A general rule in the aquatic sciences is "You can't have too many buckets.") And always carry at least one clear glass jar, in the largest size convenient, for unobstructed viewing of fish.

If you're going to be collecting specimens, almost any clean plastic or glass container of suitable size, equipped with a non-tight-fitting or perforated lid, will do. Except for trips of less than an hour, metal containers are suspect unless you know they're nontoxic. Don't use galvanized pails: They're fish killers.

If you have large containers, few fish, and a short trip to make, you should be able to get the catch home alive without any fancy technology. In nature, oxygenation occurs through contact between the water surface and the air, aided and abetted by normal splashing. However, long hours in transit, warm weather, delicate species, dirty water, or crowding all dictate that you provide some form of aeration for newly collected fish. Inexpensive battery-powered circulators ' and compressor pumps are available for this purpose. Another excellent tool, fairly wellknown in angling circles but not among aquarium hobbyists, is a device known as Otab, which is a small metal canister containing barium peroxide detoxified with calcium sulfate, which-when placed in water-gives off oxygen for at least eight hours.

Some of the equipment mentioned here can be bought from sporting goods dealers. A larger selection of nets can be had from the net and twine companies. Two that have given me satisfaction are Memphis Net and Twine Co. (P.O. Box 8331, Memphis, TN 38108, 901/4582656) and Netcraft Co. (2800 Tremainsville Rd., Toledo, OH 43613, 419/ 432-9826).

Proper handling is important, even if you just want to get fish back into the water without injuring them. The best procedure when you're dealing with tiny aquarium fish is to remove them from the collecting net with a premoistened aquarium net and thenwithout touching them with your handstransfer them directly to the traveling or observation container. From then on, you can treat them pretty much as you would tropical fish bought at an aquarium store (instructions are to be found in the standard aquarium texts).

The most critical factor in keeping native fish is water quality. You need to hold pollution by fish wastes and excess feed to a minimum while maximizing the dissolved-oxygen content of the water. Half of the battle is prevention: not overfeeding or overstocking; the other half is filtering and aeration. With strict attention to sanitation (including periodic water changes), you can-without mechanical filters-manage small numbers of fish in such small containers as the traditional goldfish bowl. However, in larger tanks, filters are mandatory.

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