Anyone in here have/had kept other stickleback species beside brook stickleback? I noticed that there's not lot of discussions about how to keeping them except brook sticklebacks.
Stickleback Keepers?
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, Sep 21 2008 06:44 PM
22 replies to this topic
#2
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Posted 22 September 2008 - 08:56 AM
I've kept fourspine many times, threespine a few times and ninespine once. The first two I have kept in both fresh and salt. Only the fourspines were ever actually collected in fresh.
Fourspines are indestructable, threespines a bit more sensitive. The ninespines seemed timid and didn't compete well for food in a community setting. All are aggressive to varying degrees but a male fourspine at breeding time pretty much needs a tank to himself. For breeding you need LOTS of hiding places and a few females to share the beating.
Fourspines are super abundant and easily collected in a variety of habitat.
You might find my collecting technique for threespines interesting. In the fall when I'm at the shore for the striper fishing, I will go out on a dock at a local marina at night. I shine my flashlight around the pillings until I find a school of bait fish sleeping. Usually they are mostly silversides with small mummies and some rainwater killies mixed in. Looking down from above and carefully examining the shape of individual minnows, I find that for every 50 - 75 minnows, there are a half dozen threepines mixed in. They apparently join the schools to blend in, and it works. Unless you look really close and recognize the slightly different shape, you'd never know they were there. The one time I ever found ninespines, they too were mixed in with the little bait fish.
Fourspine collected in freshwater.
Threespine collected in saltwater in fall. They have more color in spring.
Fired up male threespine from mosquito ditch in saltmarsh.
Ninespine.
Fourspines are indestructable, threespines a bit more sensitive. The ninespines seemed timid and didn't compete well for food in a community setting. All are aggressive to varying degrees but a male fourspine at breeding time pretty much needs a tank to himself. For breeding you need LOTS of hiding places and a few females to share the beating.
Fourspines are super abundant and easily collected in a variety of habitat.
You might find my collecting technique for threespines interesting. In the fall when I'm at the shore for the striper fishing, I will go out on a dock at a local marina at night. I shine my flashlight around the pillings until I find a school of bait fish sleeping. Usually they are mostly silversides with small mummies and some rainwater killies mixed in. Looking down from above and carefully examining the shape of individual minnows, I find that for every 50 - 75 minnows, there are a half dozen threepines mixed in. They apparently join the schools to blend in, and it works. Unless you look really close and recognize the slightly different shape, you'd never know they were there. The one time I ever found ninespines, they too were mixed in with the little bait fish.
Fourspine collected in freshwater.
Threespine collected in saltwater in fall. They have more color in spring.
Fired up male threespine from mosquito ditch in saltmarsh.
Ninespine.
#3
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Posted 22 September 2008 - 10:49 AM
Wow Mike, the stickleback you listed look cool, do they need live foods or frozen foods? Theres not lots of information about keeping sticklebacks in the aquarium on interent (and this forum 
). I was thinking about setting up stickleback tank. Usually i can get brook sticklebacks from bait shop and the creek where my uncle lives nearby, and i was thinking to mixing stickleback species into same tank. The tank will be heavily planted (mostly plastic) and few elodas. The tank is 20gal and will have some mosquitofish with. I have no idea what stickleback/mosquitofish combine would be work out as both species are aggressive and fin nipping.
I checked out Minnesota laws about keeping three spined stickleback in aquarium since they are exotic species but they are not on probhited species list. Mostly likely I wont collect three spined sticklebacks because I had no time for take a trip to the Lake Superior (im currently student in college for Natural Resources and want work with fisheries)
). I was thinking about setting up stickleback tank. Usually i can get brook sticklebacks from bait shop and the creek where my uncle lives nearby, and i was thinking to mixing stickleback species into same tank. The tank will be heavily planted (mostly plastic) and few elodas. The tank is 20gal and will have some mosquitofish with. I have no idea what stickleback/mosquitofish combine would be work out as both species are aggressive and fin nipping.I checked out Minnesota laws about keeping three spined stickleback in aquarium since they are exotic species but they are not on probhited species list. Mostly likely I wont collect three spined sticklebacks because I had no time for take a trip to the Lake Superior (im currently student in college for Natural Resources and want work with fisheries)
#4
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Posted 22 September 2008 - 11:24 AM
They all take the usual frozen stuff. Blood worms especially.
It's funny you mention keeping sticklebacks with mosquitofish. If I would compare the fin nippiness of sticklebacks to anything, it'd be mosquito fish. My guess is that sticklebacks would have the advantage because they use their spines as defensive weapons and can keep other bothersome fish from getting too close.
It's funny you mention keeping sticklebacks with mosquitofish. If I would compare the fin nippiness of sticklebacks to anything, it'd be mosquito fish. My guess is that sticklebacks would have the advantage because they use their spines as defensive weapons and can keep other bothersome fish from getting too close.
#5
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Posted 22 September 2008 - 12:21 PM
The reason why mosquitofish as their tankmates is because they can handle with fin nipping. However I had no idea about how the sticklebacks get along with mosquitofish and other stickleback species in same tank. I like the looks of male three-spined stickleback in spawning mode.
#6
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Posted 23 September 2008 - 11:43 AM
Of the sp. you've kept which do you think is the most colorful/interesting/best suited to captivity? Would 9 spine do well in a species tank like elassoma?
Here in CA threespines are quite abundant, but as with all natives illegal for aquarium collection. I've collected them(as bait) in several ways. Most obvious and least effective is to target the schools of juveniles swimming just out of reach in schools. The best way to get the bigguns is to find potholes or similar sheltered yet somewhat oxygenated areas and scoop up a bunch of dead leaves etc. with your net. I've found some around 3 inches this way...both sexes though oftentimes you get mostly nesting males.
I'd love to take a shot with either threespines from somewhere else or one of the other species.
Here in CA threespines are quite abundant, but as with all natives illegal for aquarium collection. I've collected them(as bait) in several ways. Most obvious and least effective is to target the schools of juveniles swimming just out of reach in schools. The best way to get the bigguns is to find potholes or similar sheltered yet somewhat oxygenated areas and scoop up a bunch of dead leaves etc. with your net. I've found some around 3 inches this way...both sexes though oftentimes you get mostly nesting males.
I'd love to take a shot with either threespines from somewhere else or one of the other species.
#7
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Posted 23 September 2008 - 02:15 PM
Of the sp. you've kept which do you think is the most colorful/interesting/best suited to captivity? Would 9 spine do well in a species tank like elassoma?
They are all very interesting. The fourspines seem the most hardy and adaptable. This is reflected in their wide distribution across widely ranging habitats. I have found them in super dense populations in overwash pools that go from fresh to salt overnight after a big storm. These are stagnant, algae packed, low oxygen mudholes that reach temps in the 80s or more in summer.
I have also collected them in pristine spring fed cold streams that hold isolated populations of wild native brook trout [no PMs please, if I told you, I'd have to kill you
].Threespines are more fragile but will do well if carefully acclimated to freshwater [unless, obviously, if you have access to freshwater populations]. They are not as relentlessly nippy as the fourspines [except for males at breeding time]. They're fun to watch in a school because of the way they unsheath their spines to fend off aggressive school mates. Looks like they're fencing.
I could not vouch for ninespines with elassoma. I'd be afraid they might torment the little elassoma by picking at them. The ones I kept were timid but they swam with a rough crowd.
Are threespine native in Ca? Can they be used for bait? What's to keep you from renaming your native tank "bait tank" and storing some bait for future use?
#8
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Posted 23 September 2008 - 02:41 PM
All of this talk make me want get some four spined and three spined stickleback! 
#9
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Posted 24 September 2008 - 12:01 PM
CA F&G laws mean it is illegal to transport fish taken under the authority of a fishing license alive.
I meant, could 9 spines be housed similarly to Elassoma?
I'd love sometime to try some species of stickleback, besides the brook stickleback which I here tell doesn't like high temps and is hard to maintain over the course of a few generations in captivity.
Do 4 spine not school the way 3 spine do?
I meant, could 9 spines be housed similarly to Elassoma?
I'd love sometime to try some species of stickleback, besides the brook stickleback which I here tell doesn't like high temps and is hard to maintain over the course of a few generations in captivity.
Do 4 spine not school the way 3 spine do?
#10
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Posted 24 September 2008 - 01:59 PM
CA F&G laws mean it is illegal to transport fish taken under the authority of a fishing license alive.
Does that mean live bait is illegal? Or is like the VHS states where you can only use the bait in the place you take it?
I meant, could 9 spines be housed similarly to Elassoma?
Having only limited experience with ninespine and none with Elassoma, I'd have to say a definate maybe. The habitat where I found the ninespine was full salt, strong current, mixed with bait fish in quiet pockets around dock pilings. Pretty similar to the captive setup I put them in. Not very Elassoma-ish. I do know they are found in vegetated freshwater so that's where the "maybe" comes in.
I'd love sometime to try some species of stickleback, besides the brook stickleback which I here tell doesn't like high temps and is hard to maintain over the course of a few generations in captivity.
Fourspines are not sensitive. Most native keepers should have no trouble with them. I've had them build nests but never attempted to care for fry. I hear they're easy to raise though.
Do 4 spine not school the way 3 spine do?
Although I find them in dense concentrations [half a dozen or more in one dip of the net, usually in thick weeds], they don't seem to actively school together in the open like the threespine. I almost think they're too quarrelsome to work together in an organized fashion.
#11
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Posted 26 September 2008 - 05:55 PM
Yes, you can only use bait in the water it came from.
#12
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Posted 27 September 2008 - 08:43 PM
Sigh.
I was so excited. I just got back from my first collecting trip... and now I don't know what I have! I was told if I stuck to the shallows of the streams, what I would catch would be threespine sticklebacks. But now that I have a photo, I know that ain't what I got.
I'm further confused that Butch calls them "exotic". Do you mean "exotic" to your parts? I thought they were natives, at least in Oregon.
I was so excited. I just got back from my first collecting trip... and now I don't know what I have! I was told if I stuck to the shallows of the streams, what I would catch would be threespine sticklebacks. But now that I have a photo, I know that ain't what I got.
I'm further confused that Butch calls them "exotic". Do you mean "exotic" to your parts? I thought they were natives, at least in Oregon.
#13
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Posted 27 September 2008 - 09:18 PM
Hmm...ain't 3 spines the only sp. on the West Coast? Remember they are quite variable.
#14
Guest_butch_*
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Posted 27 September 2008 - 09:28 PM
Sigh.
I was so excited. I just got back from my first collecting trip... and now I don't know what I have! I was told if I stuck to the shallows of the streams, what I would catch would be threespine sticklebacks. But now that I have a photo, I know that ain't what I got.
I'm further confused that Butch calls them "exotic". Do you mean "exotic" to your parts? I thought they were natives, at least in Oregon.
Three spined sticklebacks aint native in Minnesota, they were mostly likely released in waterways with baitfish and are pests at Lake Superior fishing deck just like round goby and ruffe.
#15
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Posted 30 September 2008 - 11:51 AM
You know, just Sunday I was fishing around the mouth of the Back River into the Chesapeake Bay when I saw what I thought might be 4-spined sticklebacks from the top. Of course, I can't be sure they were sticklebacks at all, since I had forgotten my sunglasses. But it got me thinking that I might like to try a small tank of them.
I saw them on a sand bar, where dip netting would be difficult. I could use a cast net, but I wonder if they would be too small. There are marshes nearby too, where I can try dipnetting against the spartina.
Mike, what would your suggested collection method be?
I saw them on a sand bar, where dip netting would be difficult. I could use a cast net, but I wonder if they would be too small. There are marshes nearby too, where I can try dipnetting against the spartina.
Mike, what would your suggested collection method be?
#16
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Posted 30 September 2008 - 12:06 PM
There are marshes nearby too, where I can try dipnetting against the spartina.
Mike, what would your suggested collection method be?
You answered your own question.
Dipnetting around the spartina as well as dragging the dipnet through any clumps of algae, eel grass, rockweed etc. You don't have to see them, they'll be in the thick stuff.
Just be warned, you are going to catch all kinds of other cool stuff. You never know what you're gonna get. You may find that your need to add more tanks will increase.
#17
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Posted 30 September 2008 - 12:26 PM
OK, will do. Thankfully, I can't keep anything until AFTER we close on a house, hopefully at the end of November.
Gads, that always happens to me... At least in the new house I would have my own fish/garden shed attached to the garage!
Just be warned, you are going to catch all kinds of other cool stuff. You never know what you're gonna get. You may find that your need to add more tanks will increase.
Gads, that always happens to me... At least in the new house I would have my own fish/garden shed attached to the garage!
#18
Michael Wolfe
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Posted 30 September 2008 - 08:52 PM
At least in the new house I would have my own fish/garden shed attached to the garage!
Congratulations, are you still going to be in Virginia?
Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. - Benjamin Franklin
#19
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Posted 01 October 2008 - 10:24 AM
Congratulations, are you still going to be in Virginia?
Thanks! Moving to Hampton VA, on the Penninsula. About 2 or so miles to Grandview Nature Preserve. At the end of the block there is a put-in for the kayaks into the Harris River.
Let's just hope the inspection goes well on Friday. It's a 1922 house with slate roof, so there could potentially be some problems.
#20
Guest_butch_*
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Posted 01 October 2008 - 03:33 PM
Funny thing is that three spined sticklebacks are popular European native fish, I've seen them in the the aquarium books. If I obtained three spined sticklebacks from saltwater then convert them to the freshwater, can they breed in the tubs?
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