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Where does the wood come from?

fish keeping with fish caught locally.

Like most people I stared with pond life and sticklebacks. My father was a keen angler and also kept fish tanks and in the winter months would sometimes come back with very small fish in a wet rag. They typically survived and out grew their tanks and then the old bath tub. They got relocated to the local marl pit, a fantastic place as it was also the cooling water for a large steam boiler and associated machinery. The pit was also know by us kids as 'The Steam Pool', a section of which never froze and was always stuffed with plants and pond life.

As a teenager I have kept chub with silver orfe in an aquarium and chub are very attractive but grew rather fast. Stone loach from the local canal were always a better bet and loved small worms.

My first book on 'Aquariums' was my fathers and was written pre WWI, it even had a section on how to make aquariums. It was written for adults but contained chapters on pond life. It even had a Tropical Chapter which I followed. The water was heated with a small paraffin heater under the tank which sat on a converted wooden apple box. I cracked the bottom glass in a hard winter with the wick too high. Oh misery.

As an adult I successfully keep locally caught minnows in a small garden pond. Minnows in breeding colours are very beautiful.

Most native aquatic pond plants grow well in the home aquarium, typically low tech. Aquatic plants from rivers and brooks are difficult to impossible to acclimatize ie pond water crowsfoot grows well, floating leaves as well as submerged leaves; chalk stream crowsfoots no floating leaves, I found difficult. Water parsnips impossible. May of cause be different with a CO2 system. The chalk stream plants have a constant flow of bicarbonates around their leaves and this may be key to their growth.

The high oxygen fish like trout will need a chilled tank. I have seen a large set up when on a visit to the Social Club of a chemical works many years ago. The system ran through a beer cooler. The tank was hard- scaped and plant free.

Happy memories.

PS where I currently live, my wife and I have a garden pond, no fish, just lots of 'stuff'.
 
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Hi all, They have quite high water quality requirements, you only find them in relatively highly oxygenated flowing water.

cheers Darrel

Not entirely true I was under the impression that they are abundant where there is water (in the south), but they are highly active fish - I did keep a handful as a kid in a larger tank and they didn't last too long (tank was about 100l). Edit - on second thoughts, I have no idea how oxygenated a fishing spot of my youth was is. Though you're more likely to find them in a river than a lake.

@dean as for why they die, I think that's covered in the above sentence. I'm not a biologist so I don't know really. I suspect if i had a 3000L tank they'd do just fine.
 
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