Native Fish for the Home Aquarium

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Keep in mind, too, that fish from flowing waters don't usually need a current to survive (though they may be unable to reproduce in standing water), but they need more oxygen than pond fish do. The current is nature's aerator. As a rule, then, you can treat fish from standing or slow-moving water like tropicals with respect to aeration. Fast-stream fish will need lower population densities or more aeration.

A claim that tropical-fish enthusiasts make against native species, with some justification, is that the homegrown species are usually more difficult to feed. While some native fish will take the standard dry-flake or powdered tropical foods from day one in the aquarium, others must be coaxed and trained, and some never learn to accept anything but live foods. Catching or raising live foods for pets can be fun . . . or it can drive you into a frantic dither, especially in winter.

It's in aquascaping that native-fish aquarists really come into their own. Some tropical-fish fanciers go for sunken wreck replicas and plaster castles, so I suppose native fish can be kept in that kind of environment, too. If you'd derive particular pleasure from watching a blacknose dace swim around a bubbler disguised as a deep-sea diver, don't let me stop you. But I prefer constructing a replica of the fish's natural environment.

The aquascaping process really begins at the collecting site. On your first collecting trip an observation period is useful not only for watching fish and plotting their capture, but also for making notes about the, appearance of natural habitats you may want to imitate. And if it will make you happier to bring something home from the first trip, you can collect a few rocks or pieces of driftwood that strike your fancy, and perhaps some plants.

Though the bottom of the fish's natural body of water may be composed of anything from mud to bedrock, you should depart from nature by providing a gravel substrate in the aquarium, particularly if you'll be using a subgravel filter. It's better to buy clean gravel from an aquarium store than to attempt to wash creek gravel. To create a realistic appearance, choose gravel of a natural color, and buy a mixture of sizes, perhaps further supplementing it with rockwork.

There's nothing wrong with including almost any rock or piece of driftwood that catches your eye, but the most natural appearance will result from items that you have collected on site.

If you have a large tank, you may be able to extend the illusion of naturalness further with a combination aquarium-terrarium, incorporating a planted dry-land component with such animals as frogs or turtles. But most of us will have to be content with a totally underwater scene. Even in a really huge tank, it would be impractical to attempt to encapsulate a complete ecosystem, because that would involve a complex of predator-prey relationships impossible to accommodate within the confines of an aquarium. In nature, you see, reproduction usually keeps pace with predation, but in the aquarium a prey creature is quickly exterminated.

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