27 replies to this topic

[Craig96]

Hi all, 

(unsure what area to post this)

 

I am considering setting up a 6ft Australian tank have been looking at barramundi and maybe a sleepy cod what other cool aussie fish are out there???

[Mattymak]

Mangrove jack

[Jarrod90]

Saratoga and murray cod

[malawiman85]

Barra and sleepy should get along - mine do. The other species listed above are solitary fish and should only be considered as single fish setups.
you could consider eel tail catfish, salmon tail catfish, try a coal grunter but in my experienc coal grunters are not suitable to a community tank either. The barra, sleepy and a catfish produce quite a lot of waste so make sure your filtration is excellent.
Sleepys are notoriously a pita to feed. Its not a big deal just annoying. Barra are hyperactive feeders and sleepys are the opposite.
Other fish to consider that havent been mentioned if you want to keep aussie preds and oddballs:
Freshwater sole - oddball
Sooty grunter - predator
bullrout - has venemous spines
Jade perch - Also known as barcoo grunter
short finned eel - gets very big!
Archer fish - Great with barra and sleepy cod
Mono argentus - apparently need brackish water as they mature.
scats: awesome with barra, sleepy and archers... they will eat plants though a guy I know reckons his dont touch his swords.

All of them are awesome mate. Native preds are the most fun ive had keeping fish!
One problem is that you need to limit your ambitions or buy a lot of big tanks because they are mostly angry buggers.

[Redevilz]

Good post MM.

I'd go:

Archers, barra, scats and maybe a sleepy cod.

[Jules]

Try get bull routs from over east.

[malawiman85]

Id quite like to try a barcoo grunter with my barra if I could find one 25+cm. I'm also looking for a Neosilurus Ater.

Jules  I would love to get hold of Bullrout... We've been talking about this for a while but none ever seem to come up locally and I cant find a decent sized one that anyone will ship from over east. Im hoping a sponsor might be able to help out one day. I might have to just get a smaller one.

Aussie Lungfish... Super cool but expensive as buggery and even dearer to keep for a long period of time.

[Jules]

bullrouts are native over east, don't think they can be bought over, I have asked several fish stores already.

 

can get lungfish between 600-2000 depending on the seasons, pretty sure there all CITES registered etc (as there an endangered/threatened species).

once they hit 40-45cm they slow off quite quickly, interesting and unusual fish, shame there isn't many left over here.

[Craig96]

Thanks all for awesome responses has definetly given me a really solid idea of what to aim for,
May be a silly question but is there any particular supplier of aussie natives or do I just have to look around?

[Jules]

golden pond fish farms normally have dam selective aussie species from memory, generally most LFS could order some things and some ppl on here will help out

[fuggers]

depending on the tank temp you could try bream or mulloway if you can find some aquaculture fingerlings

[malawiman85]

Oddly they can be hard to come by. Aquotix, Morley and Vebas can probably help out with quite a few species. There are one or two city farmers stores that have natives in stock from time to time. Other than that there are the online fish stores which come in handy.
Gumtree is good for fish 12 months - 2 years old... lots of people keeping barra in AP or as fingerlings in aquariums and have to sell them as they outgrow the tank. Ive only ever seen 2 sleepy cod on gumtree one i now own the other looked like crap with badly torn fins. Young sleepy's are cheap as chips but are very small.
There are a couple of people here on PCS that keep natives and are good to trade with but in honesty native preds arent that common here other than barra and archers.
Silver perch are used for AP but I dont reccomend keeping them unless in big groups. They are scatterbrained bloody things.... they may be the only native ive kept that I dislike. Bigger ones are good for keeping with murray cod because if the cod kills them, you havent lost much.
while your natives are small, you may also enjoy keeping marron or yabbies... I really like them but my fish would smash them in seconds now they are a bit bigger!
Put up a wtb in classifieds and im sure someone here will point you in the right direction via pm.

[malawiman85]

http://www.perthcich...showtopic=56010
There are some pics of some of my natives throughout this thread... check them out and add to it yourself when you get setup. Ive been meaning to write an article on aussie preds... I might get around to it soon.

[Craig96]

Thanks again getting more info than I bargained for thanks!!
One last thing on feeding I have american cichlids and have the hikari gold, carnivore sticks and few other hikari pellets, I'm guessing these are fine to feed to the barra along with some frozen blood worms and brine shrimp?

[malawiman85]

Barra fingerlings will go the brine shrimp and blood worms. I feed mine defrosted frozen prawns from the supermarket for a bit of fun... barra goes nuts.
I feed my natives pretty much any high protein foods.

[shayne]

scats: awesome with barra, sleepy and archers... they will eat plants though a guy I know reckons his dont touch his swords.
gday,  haven't tried the scats with actively growing swords but mine certainly don't eat older tougher discarded leaves.Recently found that they don't like milfoil either [ not generaly an indoor plant]   I fed  my guys a heap of catterpillars delivered on a few sprigs of milfoil from an outdoor pond, them and all the others absolutely smash the grubs but 2 wcs later[2 weeks]  the milfoil is still there
sorry people not good on computers top line should be attributed  to mm from a previous post
 

Edited by shayne, 23 June 2014 - 12:47 PM.

[malawiman85]

Thanks for clearing that up Shayne... Hows the cod and scats going?

[shayne]

gday MM   all doing fine mate, scats are thriving and have a fast grow rate, great contrast to the reds and silver dollars. Havent got the cod to eat pellets yet that ive noticed. my fault for relying so heavily on the daphnia/ mossie larva and the bloodworms, if it doesn't wriggle they just look at me with disdain.

[malawiman85]

HAHA, yeah they were a total pain to get onto pellet. In the end they just thought bugger it, he's not gonna feed us anything else.

[shayne]

Doing that now to the 1 that's nice and warm in the shed but still feeling sorry for the 4 shivering on the patio