7 replies to this topic

[butch]

I'm interested into acquiring some young drums for a goldfish pond but I hasn't got a clue about what I should feed them and what is the pro/con on the drums?

[Sean Phillips]

Drum are a species I've been meaning to keep for a long time (we catch them all the time in erie at about 16-30", sometimes smaller and sometimes larger) but from what I've heard on here they're very difficult to maintain. If you wanted to keep one I'd get it at 6-12" and start it out in a 75 or 100 gallon feeding frozen or live foods like bloodworms, blackworms, mysis shrimp, small earthworms, small fish, etc. They also have pretty strong pharyngeal jaws so they'll happily eat things like mussels/clams and snails as well. They grow slow but will eventually get 20" or more so be prepared to put it in a large pond or tank.

[Matt DeLaVega]

I have no experience with them, but suspect that if you started with very small fish that you could get them trained to pellets eventually.

[Evan P]

Sean, I think advising someone to take home any fish over 3 or 4 inches is bad advice. Fish adapt best when very small. Small drum should be relatively easy to find over sandy shallows and should take well to frozen food.

[butch]

Sean, I think advising someone to take home any fish over 3 or 4 inches is bad advice. Fish adapt best when very small. Small drum should be relatively easy to find over sandy shallows and should take well to frozen food.

I don't have any problems with fish over 4" adapt to aquarium life and took prepared foods.

[Matt DeLaVega]

I agree with Evan. Small fish adapt better. However it depends on the environment and the fish species. I once put a 5-6 inch hog sucker in my 240. Lasted about a week before I lowered the water, netted him out and put him down. That fish was never going to acclimate to tank life. Frantically bashing into the tank sides at any sign of movement. Very similar situation with sauger. It is just bad practice to take larger fish and expect them to get used to our hobby. Start with juveniles and you won't go wrong, or are at least much less likely to. But I am sure you will figure it out Butch. Drum may do fine at a larger size. Lepomis do, but to be on the safe side, and due to the lack of info, I would start as small as you can..

[dac343]

Just from experience at our hatchery. We often attempt to use drum for mussel infestation. We have determined that we need to use them as quickly as possible because we simply don't have luck keeping them alive over time. They have good feeding responses but seem to stress easily in aquariums and succumb to disease rapidly. We have only had long term success keeping them in 1200 gallon raceways (4-5" individuals are usually our target size).

[Sean Phillips]

Sean, I think advising someone to take home any fish over 3 or 4 inches is bad advice. Fish adapt best when very small. Small drum should be relatively easy to find over sandy shallows and should take well to frozen food.

I meant that because I've personally never been able to find a single drum under 10" in my life, at least in Lake Erie. I'd definitely say get it as small as possible but small juveniles in my experience are simply difficult to find.