New England Native Flora & Fauna

Hello everyone,

This is my first post on NANFA. I don't collect any native fish, but I do enjoy looking at them in local lakes and such. I have a few years of experience with aquariums, mostly reef tanks. Lately I've wanted to try something a little different so I thought a New England native tank would be a good idea. I have a chiller and I could build a thick acrylic tank for insulation so temperature wouldn't too big of a deal.

I want a "natural" tank with lots of plants (fully aquatic, floating, and emergent) and lots of zooplankton such as daphnia and such. I'm leaning towards a tank around 75 gallons, with a low stock load of small fish.

Does anyone have any recommendations as to which type of New England (or any cold water fish essentially, but preferably native to N.E.) would be suitable for this type of tank?

Thanks.

Small pumpkinseed sunfish would be good. But even better would be banded killifish, Fundulus diaphanus. They're common in many ponds and streams, and are reasonably pretty fish in an understated fashion. Golden shiners would be good too, but can grow fairly large with time. You wouldn't have to deep-chill the water for these species.

Thanks.

Does anyone know where I can obtain some N.E. plants without collecting them myself?