Pics of my favorite fish in my tank

The Common Sucker aka White Sucker aka Catostomus commersonii.

Some tips for potential keepers.

1. They grow fast but I have never observed any aggressive behavior towards any smaller fish.
2. Blackworms seem like the perfect food for it (and everything else for that matter). Reason being, they burrow in the substrate after I dump them in to the tank and the sucker gets to feed as it would in nature. It sucks on the gravel and pulls the blackworms out.
3. Recently I witness they will adjust color based on substrate. Light substrate makes for a more light silver color. Dark substrate brought out a very nice dark gray.
4. This fish has a lot of personality. I love it.
5. Water quality dictates a lot of it's behavior. When I had severe ammonia and nitrite spikes it was very slugiish and stayed hidden and just appeared ill overall. Clean water is a must.

And here are the pics. Top 3 are recent. It is about 5 inches from snout to tail. I got it back in July and it was about 2 inches then. So in 6 months it more than doubled in size. Bottom 3 pics are from July/August.





Baby pictures

I had a white sucker once. I really liked it's behavior and look but it only lived for a couple of weeks. My tank is in much better shape now, I think I'll try another this spring.

I usually only try a fish twice and if it doesn't workout, I don't try. One of my favorite shiners is the Silverjaw Minnow. However, I can only keep one alive for about 2-3 months before it dies. I think it's a diet issue because I don't think it's water quality. I've had similar experiences some of the more delicate darters also (Emerald, Speckled, etc...).

I just had one end up on the floor. Twas a sad day indeed. I only had him for a few weeks but he seemed to be doing very well and was really enjoying the deep sand bed in my "Todd Tank."

What an awesome fish....Thanks for sharing

I bought it it's own tank and something went wrong and it died. I feel horrible but I had good intentions. Wish I knew what went wrong but what's done is done. RIP sucker. You were a cool fish and I enjoyed the time I had with you.