# The fathead minnow thread



## Cheapskate (Mar 24, 2010)

hey. I recently got a couple common fathead (feeder) minnows to help clean up my small African Dwarf Frog tank and have completely fallen in love with these fish.

I spent $.50 and got change back at petsmart for 2 of these little guys. They are active and attractive little fish geat for a coldwater tank. I have also heard they are easy to breed and display interesting breeding behaviour.

has anybody tried these before? 

how do they compare with white cloud minnows?

are there any other coldwater fish that will stay relatively small like these, like some sort of coldwater tolertant rasboras or something?


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## Eden Marel (Jan 28, 2010)

These are Rosy Reds right? I got a couple of them, my sister bought them as food for her crayfish, but some of them wouldn't get eaten and eventually grew bigger so she got attached to them. Now they live my goldfish. One of them is like 3" long nad the other is about 2" and they do have fat heads lol.

Not sure about breeding, I think I got two females. Probably a little stressful live with my big goldfish. WCM are cuter and smaller and require a minimum of 6 in a school. Rosy Red like to be with eat other too, but probably can live in smaller group. I don't they stay small... they can get to 3" if you take good care of them! I think my 3" one thinks he is a flying fish, sometimes she spazes out and starts darting around and jumping in the tank.


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## Cheapskate (Mar 24, 2010)

Yes! they are the same as the rosy reds, but when you go to the pet store there will usually be a few grey/green or brown ones which is the 'natural' fathead coloring. They have a lot of personality for little feeders.


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## Eden Marel (Jan 28, 2010)

Oh yea, I've seen brownish ones. My sis didn't pick any specific ones, she just told the person to get her X amount since they all were supposed to get eaten anyways. I think they are so cute, they look kinda tasty xD


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## Cheapskate (Mar 24, 2010)

since I wanted to keep them i decided on the natural coloring, the pink ones look kind of strange to me.

I will post some pix of my bowl tomorrow.


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## Cheapskate (Mar 24, 2010)

*Here's my tank*









*A nice shot of one of my fatheads*


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## RiverWatcher (Feb 27, 2010)

Nice setup! At my work we have a 29 gallon aquarium with about 6 fatheads, a batch of crayfish, a sunfish and a bullhead. They are simple to take care of, and don't need much love. We caught all the fish in that tank from the Poudre River. The tank has an underpowered hob filter and gets fewer wc than it should, but they seem to be fine. At some point I can take pic's if you want. Snow day for the school districts, so I'm don't have to go in!


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## Cheapskate (Mar 24, 2010)

the snow is starting to melt on the road down here, and the sun is shining.

I would love to see pix of your tank, sounds pretty cool.


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## RiverWatcher (Feb 27, 2010)

Pic's of the tank tomorrow. Here is a teaser.















Caught these while they were breeding. There was a ton of them right off the dock at my work. There was almost no room for water in the bucket.


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## Eden Marel (Jan 28, 2010)

Wow cool!! where is this?? I've never really considered catching or taking fish or plants from the wild, but it would be cool to try to catch them and release haha.


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## MWBradshaw (Mar 21, 2010)

Fathead Minnows are sold as bait for crappies here in MN and they work awesome in the summer! I am setting up my 36 gallon tank and am going to buy some small sunfish and a crappie or two, then I'm gonna get a couple bullhead from a local pond and a couple crayfish and I'll be all set! Sounds kind of like the tank at your work RiverWatcher!



Eden Marel said:


> Wow cool!! where is this?? I've never really considered catching or taking fish or plants from the wild, but it would be cool to try to catch them and release haha.


Just take a peek in your states fishing regulations, I know here in MN it's illegal to catch gamefish (sunfish, crappie, bass, northern, walleye, etc.) from the wild to use in an aquarium if your over the age of 16 (seems kinda weird to me that there is an age limit) but you can use non-game species (like minnows, bullhead, bowfin, etc.) or you can purchase game fish from a licensed retailer, I just found out I have one 15 minutess from my house!


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## RiverWatcher (Feb 27, 2010)

I'm kind of afraid to expose my work, not because of the limited number of fatheads that we have, but becuase I believe that we don't have permits to display them and other fish. We work closely with the Colorado Division of Wildlife on a number of things, they even stock our lake for us every year for free with Rainbow Trout. We do have a permit to display a stuffed bald eagle (there is a nest nearby), but I'm not sure about the fish. Our DOW guy has never said anything, but I also think we get away with stuff because we are an educational facility serving almost 10,000 learners annually. These fish came from our lake, but there are several intersting species in the river. From the Poudre River I have caught brook sticklebacks, juvi sunfish and bass. The sticklebacks seem to hang out under undercut banks, and can be caught using D-Nets. They are very intersting, and apparently related to sea horses.


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## Eden Marel (Jan 28, 2010)

MWBradshaw said:


> Fathead Minnows are sold as bait for crappies here in MN and they work awesome in the summer! I am setting up my 36 gallon tank and am going to buy some small sunfish and a crappie or two, then I'm gonna get a couple bullhead from a local pond and a couple crayfish and I'll be all set! Sounds kind of like the tank at your work RiverWatcher!
> 
> 
> 
> Just take a peek in your states fishing regulations, I know here in MN it's illegal to catch gamefish (sunfish, crappie, bass, northern, walleye, etc.) from the wild to use in an aquarium if your over the age of 16 (seems kinda weird to me that there is an age limit) but you can use non-game species (like minnows, bullhead, bowfin, etc.) or you can purchase game fish from a licensed retailer, I just found out I have one 15 minutess from my house!


Oh yes, fishing limit is 16 here as well, you'll need a license to go fishing. I like to go fishing haha, when I was younger I take off the weight and hook a worm and toss the line in front of the bass and it would slowly sink and the bass would go for it. I could never catch the bass when I had a weight on it.

Well I don't want to keep them, I think it'd be kinda fun and exciting just to go to a pond with an aquarium net and try to catch them, and then release them. I caught some very baby trout or bass with my old aquarium net in a pond one time and tried to keep it in a tank but it died. So I don't really feel like keeping a wild animal in captivity, cuz its just gonna die and make me feel really bad.


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## SearunSimpson (Jun 5, 2007)

Just be careful adding too many fish at one time or else your biological filtration might not be able to keep up at first. Maybe add them in small bunches of the course of a couple of three weeks.


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## RiverWatcher (Feb 27, 2010)

Watch out for wild caught fish! Not sure what was going on with this guy, but we see it frequently in our lake. 

















This was after they bred. Aparently, the male will guard the nest, foregoing food, until either the eggs hatch or he dies. We see this happen yearly.


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## RiverWatcher (Feb 27, 2010)

Sorry it took me a while to post this tank. It's at my work, and fish keeping is not what we do there. I have asked for more funds to upkeep the tank, but we have a strict budget, so I might have to wait awhile. It gets a couple hours of sunlight in the morning, so we have ongoing algae issues. Also, no plants in here yet, but I might see what I can pull out of the river in the near future. We also have a 55 gallon, a River Tank, 3 snakes and 2 turtles. Sorry for the bad reflections, couldn't close all the windows and turn off all the lights...

This is the inspiration for the tank: We call it the "Learning Lake"









So this is the tank...









And some fish...









More fish...









And a little bullhead









I'll take any advice that is offered... We are working on building a built-in bookshelf that will move the tank away from the window. Like I said before, no funds for upgrades anytime soon, so keep that in mind.


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