so has anyone ever kept a pickerel as a pet? the biology teacher at the highschool i work at gave me one of her fish tanks when i told her i wanted to catch a small pickerel and keep it as a pet lol. the tank is pretty big , im not sure how many gallons ill have to measure it and do the math but its about 2 feet tall and about 5 feet long and weighs damn near 50 lbs lol. im putting it in my basement which i have to clean first so i have plenty of time to read up on the subject before i actually go out and catch my future pet but i was curious if anyone on here had any first hand info like water temp, ph, how often they need to eat , any kind of water treatments to keep a healthy slime coat, how often to change/clean water ,blah blah blah. as stated i wont have this thing til there is open water enough to actually catch one on rod and reel cause i dont wanna take an ice fish home with me id be afraid of putting him into shock if his water gets too warm too quick. maybe in late march or so is when i plan on nabbing one. and yes i understand that it is technically illegal to transport a live fish like that so i dont need the moral and ethical lessons please lol. any info is appreciated thanks
also upon reading my original post id like to add a few things to scoff any controversy lol. i would like to trap or catch as small a pickeral as possible for many reasons the 2 most obvious being that 1: i would like for my fish to have plenty of space to grow before i need to upgrade to a bigger tank and 2: although im not 100% against it id hate to take a mature gamefish from his natural habitat and subject it to tank life although im sure he would have an easier life at my house and would be fattened up nicely i would just feel kind of wrong taking an adult but i guess it depends on the average size of pickerel i end up catching in my quest for a new pet. if i catch a 1/2 to 1lb fish i may end up keeping it for fear of not getting anything smaller. there were a few other things i planned on posting along with this but cant remember from the time i thought of them til the time i got to the keyboard lol, just want any environmentalist hippy types to realize that yes i am fully aware of the fact that these fish need special care and i will do all of my research before attempting to keep one and i have no malicious or evil intent behind my choice of pet, i am very fascinated by the esox genus as a whole and am more than willing to pay special attention to whatever needs the fish may have and i assure any who may be concernend that it WILL be going to a good home and be well taken care of to the best of my abbilities.
almost all fish taken from a lake or a pond will have parasites so you will have to treat for that. i have 2 sunfish in my tank that i bought from a store that actually sells bass, pike, sunfish, perch and other local freshwater fish. i feed mine everyday. they eat bread, worms and bugs. i clean my tank every other week.
almost all fish taken from a lake or a pond will have parasites so you will have to treat for that. i have 2 sunfish in my tank that i bought from a store that actually sells bass, pike, sunfish, perch and other local freshwater fish. i feed mine everyday. they eat bread, worms and bugs. i clean my tank every other week.
Cool. What store did u buy from? I would rather 2 grass or redfin pickerel rather than a chain pick mostly due to maximum growth size but I can't find anywhere online that sells them and I'm not sure if I would need special permits to legally buy /own such a fish which is why I planned on catching a small local pick
mean it. Hot dogs, chicken fingers, other fish, my fingers, etc. 
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at the beginning of the summer i found a small area at my spot that had tons of lil baby larry's swimming around that were all in the 1 to 3 inch range so i grabbed a few in a minnow net and took them home for my brother in law who i rent my upstairs apartment to. he has 3 of the original four bass and the horn pout i coughtt him also, the larry's are getting big the biggest is about 6 inches with a nice pot belly and the others arent too far behind. they are really cool pets and im up there all the time just studying them lol.i want a pickerel though cause i am fascinated by them and aquatic predators in general so as easy as it would be for me to just go dip net some more baby bass this summer id rather catch a nice little snot rocket to take home.
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at the beginning of the summer i found a small area at my spot that had tons of lil baby larry's swimming around that were all in the 1 to 3 inch range so i grabbed a few in a minnow net and took them home for my brother in law who i rent my upstairs apartment to. he has 3 of the original four bass and the horn pout i coughtt him also, the larry's are getting big the biggest is about 6 inches with a nice pot belly and the others arent too far behind. they are really cool pets and im up there all the time just studying them lol.i want a pickerel though cause i am fascinated by them and aquatic predators in general so as easy as it would be for me to just go dip net some more baby bass this summer id rather catch a nice little snot rocket to take home.
so has anyone ever kept a pickerel as a pet? the biology teacher at the highschool i work at gave me one of her fish tanks when i told her i wanted to catch a small pickerel and keep it as a pet lol. the tank is pretty big , im not sure how many gallons ill have to measure it and do the math but its about 2 feet tall and about 5 feet long and weighs damn near 50 lbs lol. im putting it in my basement which i have to clean first so i have plenty of time to read up on the subject before i actually go out and catch my future pet but i was curious if anyone on here had any first hand info like water temp, ph, how often they need to eat , any kind of water treatments to keep a healthy slime coat, how often to change/clean water ,blah blah blah. as stated i wont have this thing til there is open water enough to actually catch one on rod and reel cause i dont wanna take an ice fish home with me id be afraid of putting him into shock if his water gets too warm too quick. maybe in late march or so is when i plan on nabbing one. and yes i understand that it is technically illegal to transport a live fish like that so i dont need the moral and ethical lessons please lol. any info is appreciated thanks
I kept a pickeral (about a 12incher), a largemouth and a small mouth (both about 8, 10 inches) all in a decorative pre form plastic pond (I bought from Home Depot) that I had in my yard, the pond was 8 foot long and only 2 feet deep (max) and that was only in like a 3 foot round area, the rest was about a foot deep
they all survived for the season ( I released them into a small pond I was stocking) I would throw crayfish and shiners in a couple times a week and watch them go nuts!
I had a 20 gallon in my basement I always kept a dozen small shiners in so my daughter (she was small at the time) and my little cousins could feed them when they came over the kids loved it!!
I didnt do anything special, the water had been sitting in the pond since I filled it, there was a small filter and pump in it but besides that nothing else
i had a bunch of shiners i a aquarium -suckers died like flies and i had pump filter and so on - at least every day i had to fish 3-4 out
My uncle did that before and even when they didn't die, the tank stunk and therefore the room stunk that they were kept in. Did the same with a small 6" bass and it jumped out a few times, knocking off the plexiglass cover in the process.
I cant imagine keeping a pickerel happy in a aquarium is much of a task. Like you said make sure the water quality is good(Just read online about the basics of keeping aquarium fish) and when you set up the tank let the water cycle for a week or so. You wouldn't even need a heater for a pickerel as long as the tank is in a area with stable temperatures. As for food it really depends on what you want to feed it. Some fish are finicky for certain food. Don't know about those toothy pickerel though. Obviously live bait is more expensive, but with a fish like a pickerel it's awesome to watch them chop away on their prey. Also if you want a healthy fish you need to give them a more wide variety of live bait rather then with pellets or frozen food that already come packed with the nutrition they need. 90gal tank should be fine for a redfin pickerel. Any smaller though and that's pushing it. Some people believe that keeping a fish like a largemouth bass in a 40gal tank is alright, but it's not. Fish need lot's of volume to grow correctly. Otherwise you'll always have stunted fish. That's just a bit of what i know from my brother so hope that helps. My bros a aquarium nut. He keeps exotic cichlids, plecos and other fancy fish from around the world. He has a 2gal, 40gal, 55gal, 120gal, and a 240gal all in the same room lol.
Heres some photos of one of his favorite pair of fish. Festaes or red terrors. Some sweet fish and they pair up for life Unless one of them turns on the other.
Heres some photos of one of his favorite pair of fish. Festaes or red terrors. Some sweet fish and they pair up for life Unless one of them turns on the other.
well i got my stuff today that i needed to set up my tank with, filter,heater,gravel, lilly bulbs and some kind of marsh grass bulbs i forget the name of them but i want as much natural plant life as possible to keep away from plastic plants that could scratch my fish as they swim threw,tap water treatment ,ect... im gonna fill the tank tonight and start running the filter and get the water treated then in a couple days ill put my plant bulbs in to start growing so within a month i should have a nice native fish environment in my basement lol.not looking forward to bringing 17 5 gallon buckets of water downstairs to fill it though lol. ill post pics once its running and hopefully sometime in march ill catch my pet, im thinking maybe start off with a few perch in there until i catch a small enough pickerel then ill freeze the perch for pike dead baits.syked cant wait!