Hi! Well, let's see. I'm from Minnesota. Fish have been a part of my life as long as I can recall. I enjoy going fishing, as well as eating them, but I also enjoy keeping fish. The first native fish I had was a minnow that I caught with an ice cream pail on the end of a string when I was around 9. The little guy lived for nearly 3 years in a goldfish bowl on our coffee table!

As of late I've kept mostly freshwater angelfish and bettas. Not exactly North American. The more I've heard about them the more interested in them I get. I'm thinking of learning more about some of them and hopefully trying my hand at keeping them in aquariums. If there's a place to learn more about natives, this should be the place.

Looking forward to meeting you all!

Hi! Well, let's see. I'm from Minnesota. Fish have been a part of my life as long as I can recall. I enjoy going fishing, as well as eating them, but I also enjoy keeping fish. The first native fish I had was a minnow that I caught with an ice cream pail on the end of a string when I was around 9. The little guy lived for nearly 3 years in a goldfish bowl on our coffee table!

As of late I've kept mostly freshwater angelfish and bettas. Not exactly North American. The more I've heard about them the more interested in them I get. I'm thinking of learning more about some of them and hopefully trying my hand at keeping them in aquariums. If there's a place to learn more about natives, this should be the place.

Looking forward to meeting you all!

Welcome to the forum!

If you've spawned angels, you probably know that most of the time the parents will gladly assist the other fish with eating the eggs. Sunfish are much better parents, and have quite a few similarities with South American cichlids. You might want to check them out.

We may not have anabantoids, but we do have our own air-breathers: gars, bowfin, and mudminnows.

You might want to check out the minnow section too, and learn a little about some of the cyprinids that are near you.

Again, welcome to the forum!

Steve

Gars are air breathers?!!! That explains something I've wondered about since I was a kid! My family was camping and, of course, fishing. At a spot a few 100 yards off the Mississippi some people were catching gars and shoving them into a metal garbage can and chaining the lid on so the kids in the park wouldn't get hurt. Aside from the fact that this practice didn't sit well with me and that my voicing of my opinions just prompted the grow-ups reminding me I was just a kid and didn't know what the dangers were. They even had to put a lock on the chain after they caught us trying to release them. Anyway, back to what I was talking about. (I guess I still haven't gotten over it.) Those gars in the garbage can stayed alive for many hours. We knew this because we would go up and knock on the garbage can and they would start thrashing around in there. Awesome creatures! I couldn't understand how they could do that, and still don't. Humans sure have messed up a lot of species.

Yep. So are bowfins. If you like bowfins, but don't have the room, get a mudminnow. They have just as much personality in their little body as a 2' bowfin.

I couldn't understand how they could do that, and still don't.

Ignorance. One of our favorite topics Glad to have you here!

Tom