I am trying to find a good species of minnow/shiner that I will be able to keep with my o-spotts when I order them from Brian Zimmerman and the tadpole madtoms I currently have. The tank will be/is a 125 gallon standard AGA. It will have a water lily in the middle, with vals and crypts on both sides. THere will be a large amound of driftwood to break up boundaries (roughly 1/3 of the total space available?? will be filled with driftwood/plants). I recently had purchased two FX5 filters, but both seem to not run, so I returned them to the manufacturer so they can tell me what was wrong and possibly fix it, so as of now, filtration will be done with 3x 55/75 gallon HOB filters until I get the FX5's back/working. Of course, the tank will be unheated. So this is where the question starts, what type of wisconsin native shines/minnows/suckers can I go out and collect to mesh with this type of set up (as it is now) that I have (planned)? I frequently find common shiners and topminnows, but was hoping for others to be suggested.

Any Cyprinella or Lythrurus shiner should be good. I'm not sure which ones you have up there. These guys are a nice medium size, hardy, and attractive. Pimephales species and pugnose minnows (Opsopoeodus emiliae) are typical minnows of vegetated habitats; I can't speak for pugnoses but Pimephales ("tuffies") are famous for hardiness. Golden shiners (Notemigonus crysoleucas) and chubsuckers (Erimyzon sp.) are also options, but they are bigger than the others mentioned and can be destructive to delicate plants.

I am trying to find a good species of minnow/shiner that I will be able to keep with my o-spotts when I order them from Brian Zimmerman and the tadpole madtoms I currently have. The tank will be/is a 125 gallon standard AGA. It will have a water lily in the middle, with vals and crypts on both sides. THere will be a large amound of driftwood to break up boundaries (roughly 1/3 of the total space available?? will be filled with driftwood/plants). I recently had purchased two FX5 filters, but both seem to not run, so I returned them to the manufacturer so they can tell me what was wrong and possibly fix it, so as of now, filtration will be done with 3x 55/75 gallon HOB filters until I get the FX5's back/working. Of course, the tank will be unheated. So this is where the question starts, what type of wisconsin native shines/minnows/suckers can I go out and collect to mesh with this type of set up (as it is now) that I have (planned)? I frequently find common shiners and topminnows, but was hoping for others to be suggested.

Have you thought about southern redbelly dace? I've not kept them before, but they are one of my favorites and I'm planning on some of them in my next set up. In fact, I was even considering the combination of orange spotted sunfish and SRBD. According to the Peterson field guide they should be in your area. I wouldn't think that an orange spot would eat an adult SRBD, but I could be wrong.

Steve.

Any Cyprinella or Lythrurus shiner should be good. I'm not sure which ones you have up there.

I have common shiners in my area which I love, I just always find mine in heavy current, which made me think they may not work. They definately have the flash I like, I also typically find these with creek chubs. There is a stream I regularly go to that supposedly has golden shiners, but I believe they are on the VHS list (will have to check there..) plus lake chubsuckers in the same area (never seen nor caught either.) I also see spotfin shiners and western blacknose dace when out.

as far as SRBD, they are west about 80 miles from where I am and I have never attempted to catch them.

Edited by NVCichlids, 13 September 2011 - 04:13 PM.

ok, i think I am going to aim to get spotfins and common shiners, will these work in this set up?

I should think so. Commons get pretty big, though, so if you don't want minnows bigger than your sunfish, skip them.