21 replies to this topic

[Sean Phillips]

May have been a headstrong mistake taking home a White Sucker I collected yesterday but I'm fully prepared to upgrade aquaria for this fish as it grow. It's currently 6-6.5" in a 30 Long (36"x12"x16"), after that it'll go into my 75 gallon (48"x18"x20"), before finally going into an 8'x7'x4' pond I'm 100% building in April. It's tankmates are 1 Female Green Sunfish (3.25") and 4 Creek Chubs (5") with currently water changes being 50% every week, I'll up that as needed. I feed the tank twice a day (6:20 AM and 7:45 PM) and before I added the sucker yesterday I was only feeding flake. I've never kept suckers and heard they can be a challenge but I feel I'm ready to start moving into to more difficult natives since I've been successfully keeping Greenside Darters among several other species since the beginning of May with no deaths other than "fishicides" by jumping out which has been fixed for a while now.

Getting to my point, I tried feeding brine shrimp last night and bloodworms this morning (both frozen) with the sucker touching either, I theorize that's because it's getting adapted to it's new environment but I could be wrong. I'm going to keep trying frozen until it's successfully eating it for a while before attempting to convert to shrimp pellets and algae wafers. There's plenty of uneaten flake from my messy chubs in the bottom which I'm hoping it will also graze on throughout the day. Any opinions on what to feed this fish and how often would be greatly appreciated!

Point two, how fast can I expect growth? Tank it's in now is running 70-72 F with a pH of 7.6.

Thanks guys!

[Michael Wolfe]

Sucker growth is slow. Substrate us very important. You need something sandy that they can sift through. Not gravel. Best food from my experience is sinking shrimp pellets. They won't eat them right away, but neither will the shiners or darters. But they will eat the partially dissolved pellets that are "melted" on the sand.

[Sean Phillips]

Sucker growth is slow. Substrate us very important. You need something sandy that they can sift through. Not gravel. Best food from my experience is sinking shrimp pellets. They won't eat them right away, but neither will the shiners or darters. But they will eat the partially dissolved pellets that are "melted" on the sand.

Thanks! That'll give me plenty of time to enjoy him in this tank . Yeah I know gravel isn't the best substrate but the stuff I have in will have to do for now but it's very very loose however. I got it to eat about two or three of the 25-30 pieces if brine shrimp I squirted right into it's face so that's a start. I noticed it has a habit of laying on top of my sponge filter facing the back wall for some reason. I'll try to get him onto shrimp pellets after a week of eating frozen.

[Sean Phillips]

Just wash and pour in sand. it will fill all of those places in the gravel that just sit there and suck. No more food or feces going to places that they cannot be filtered out. Gravel is what we all know, but it is the worst.

I might eventually but the sucker is having no problem sifting through the gravel as of now, it's currently my biggest fish in all my tanks.

[Sean Phillips]

Will white suckers eat any algae? There's plenty on the large slabs and glass in there if it will eat it.

[littlen]

....then you'll need Stonerollers.

[Sean Phillips]

....then you'll need Stonerollers.

Do you mean for algae purposes? I didnt get the sucker as an algae eater but it would've just been a bonus.

[littlen]

Stonerollers graze on algae. Suckers sift through fine sediment looking for invertebrates.

[Sean Phillips]

Tried feeding bloodworms but no interest from the sucker. I guess this is why people say they're hard to keep. I'll keep trying though.

[al10]

Looks nice, here's some other food to try, baby brine shrimp, frozen or live, cyclops, live, mysis shrimp, mosquitofish larvae, alage wafers, earthworms, it should eat one of them.

[Michael Wolfe]

I don't want to beat the old drum too hard. But I have to tell you it took months to get my jump rock to eat anything. But with a sand bottom tank he was sifting sand within a day or two. Food that melts into the sand (like wardley's shrimp pellets) is the best or most natural way for them to eat. They graze the sand. That's all they really know to do when they are hungry.

[Sean Phillips]

I don't want to beat the old drum too hard. But I have to tell you it took months to get my jump rock to eat anything. But with a sand bottom tank he was sifting sand within a day or two. Food that melts into the sand (like wardley's shrimp pellets) is the best or most natural way for them to eat. They graze the sand. That's all they really know to do when they are hungry.

I might put sand in soon then. It's way better than gravel I'm finding from my tanks with sand in them. I'm going to try a nightcralwer tonight and put in sand early next week. Is pool filter sand ok? I use it in my other tanks and it does not change ph.

[Michael Wolfe]

I have not used it. I have always just used playground sand from Home Depot. It's only about $3.50 for a huge bag.

[Sean Phillips]

I have not used it. I have always just used playground sand from Home Depot. It's only about $3.50 for a huge bag.

Oh, my stuff is free, found 12 gigantic bags of clean stuff behind my shed . Would it be ok to use it though? I've been told that because it's not round shaped that you can get some methane buildup if you don't stir it up enough but with a sucker siftin through it I doubt that'd be a problem.

[Michael Wolfe]

I don't know for sure. Search the forum for "pool sand". I seem to remember we had talked about it here. But don't have any direct experience.

[al10]

If you're worried about build up under the sand try some malaysian trumpet snails, they can becoe out of control but they sift sand/burrow which sifts it.

[Sean Phillips]

If you're worried about build up under the sand try some malaysian trumpet snails, they can becoe out of control but they sift sand/burrow which sifts it.

I've thought about it in my other sand tanks. I've got a whole colony of 200+ breeding in a 14 gallon bin on my back deck that I use as darter feeders so I'm not short on them .

[Sean Phillips]

None of my devices will let me upload pics for this tank, they all say the picture is to big even though it's the same size as every picture I've ever posted on here.

[Sean Phillips]

I think I'm going to change the substrate to pool filter sand next week.

Here's a picture of the fish by the way.

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