# Darters, Madtoms?



## LilSiman/Medina (Nov 30, 2010)

I have a 30 gallon fish tank and wanted to put some natural fish in it, I saw a post with a few darters and a madtom in one. I was wondering how I could find some of these critters. I live on a 48 acre farm with 3 creek bottom valleys running through it. The creeks are about 3-6 feet wide with some 2-3 foot holes in areas. Some are in some pretty swampy areas where I've seen fish swimming around in them when on deer hunts. Would these be good places to try to net them? Little waterfalls and mini rapids? I have no idea and would like to know where to find these little critters.


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## Smallmouth70 (Mar 11, 2007)

You should be able to catch some jonny darters in those areas. Generally, I'll stand downstream about 15 feet or so with a seine touching the bottom and slowly walk forward as another person kicks over rocks and stirs up the bottom upstream of me. Usually the shallow, slow moving areas hold the most jonny darters. Sand and/or gravel bottoms are usually best. 

Hopefully you can find some greenside darters and banded darters too. They might be the prettiest freshwater fish in North America. During breeding season, the males of both species turn bright green, and the greensides will also have orangish stripes. Look in the faster moving, deeper water for those. It's probably a little late for breeding season though. Banded darters are more common in Southern Ohio. 

I would advise against keeping them in your aquarium for more than a day or two though. They are very tough to acclimate to an aquarium, and even tougher to feed...unless you have a steady supply of water fleas, copepods, and small larvae. You could try brine shrimp, but I don't know how long they could survive on that alone. The bigger darters will eat small snails, too. They are very cool little fish, and definitely worth trying to catch.

Madtoms are much easier to keep in aquariums, but they are very rare to find in small creeks. They are much easier to find in larger creeks and even rivers with lots of rocky hiding places. If you go to a bigger river, like the Maumee, Grand, or Cuyahoga, try to find some shallow water riffles and use the same technique as you would with darters. If you happen to catch any madtoms, make sure they are not on the endangered species list before you take them home. Ohio has 6 types of madtoms, but 3 types are endangered. You can feed madtoms anything you would feed darters, plus maggots, wax worms, red worms, small crayfish, and small minnows.

Hope this helps and good luck! Be sure to post some pics of your tank once you add the fish.


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## heron153 (Apr 30, 2008)

I did sampling with an ichthyology class once. The darters stay in the oxygenated water - we got them right up against the face of rocks that caused break in current - as if you were to net against the riser of a stairstep. I don't know if you could keep enough oxygen in a tank for them, though.


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## creekcrawler (Oct 5, 2004)

I've had native tanks for over twenty years now.

Get a seine and you'll scoop some cool fish up!
Darters and such will be ok - if you have a lot of current in the tank (you can't overdue it) and if - the tank is in a basement or somewhere where it won't get too warm. They can learn to eat frozen bloodworms. Thaw them out in a cup fo water and dump them in the current.
Lotsa good info here - http://forum.nanfa.org/index.php?sid=5ae7aa7dced0aad3d00b4f5b9b33b774




























http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O0S4HjRZEE&feature=youtu.be

http://youtu.be/3O0S4HjRZEE


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## I_Shock_Em (Jul 20, 2008)

Seining is your best option for getting darters and madtoms. Focus on the riffles. If darters are in the stream, this is where they will be. Focus on the tailouts of riffles for madtoms. As for keeping darters in an aquarium, as creekcrawler said, current is key. Clean water is also very important too. Take care of those two things and keeping darters is not a problem. Madtoms will have no problem living in this environment either. Hope this helps


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## Smallmouth70 (Mar 11, 2007)

Nice tanks creekcrawler! What do you do to get enough current in your tanks? I used multiple powerheads along with power filters in the past, which seemed to do a pretty good job. Just curious to see what you do.


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## Lowell H Turner (Feb 22, 2011)

A word of caution; some madtoms are endangered, but ALL types of madtoms have SUPER sharp pectral fin spines; sharp enough to go thru most leather gloves ! Use EXTREME CARE handling these very small catfish; they pack a VERY NASTY punch if you are "stuck"...by the way, they are very good walleye bait...


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## creekcrawler (Oct 5, 2004)

Smallmouth70 - I've got two big power heads behind the rocks and a
pump under the tank that's good for 1100gph flowing through a chiller unit from a commercial lobster tank.
Right now the tank is holding @ 55 degrees, hehe.


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## creekcrawler (Oct 5, 2004)

Pic under the tank ( a little bit of plumbing...)


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## Smallmouth70 (Mar 11, 2007)

Thats awesome creekcrawler! I always wanted to buy a chiller unit, just could never force myself to pull the trigger.


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## creekcrawler (Oct 5, 2004)

I got lucky and scored the chiller unit off E-bay for $50.

I think it uses @ $5-10 a month in electric though.


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## Smallmouth70 (Mar 11, 2007)

That's a steal! The ones I looked at started out around $500 and went WAY up from there. Never thought to look on Ebay. I'll have to check it out, thanks for the tip!


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## NateTessler13 (Nov 5, 2007)

creekcrawler said:


> I got lucky and scored the chiller unit off E-bay for $50.
> 
> I think it uses @ $5-10 a month in electric though.


Does the unit have an adjustable thermostat? Or, do you regulate the temperature by restricting flow to the unit?


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## creekcrawler (Oct 5, 2004)

Howdy Nate.
My bud offered to rig up a thermostat, but I have it on a heavy duty "light timer" type switch. By pulling/pulling tabs, you can change its on/off time every 1/2 hour.
In the winter, I run it 1/2hr off, 1 hour on and it holds around 46-50 degrees. In the summer I back of the run times and usually let it warm up during the day just like a real stream would and bring it up to low 60's. 
Only problem I have is when humidity get up there the tank fogs a bit. The trout don't seem to mind though.


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## LilSiman/Medina (Nov 30, 2010)

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Netted this behind my house in a small creek. Couldn't find any descriptions of madtoms that matched this little guy. 

Creek is tiny and barely has a few 1 foot holes in it. It flows into a pond type stretch about 100 yards down where I caught it. A few years back, a pond about half a mile up stream was drained and it had bullheads in it. Any suggestions if they could be reproducing somewhere? Anyhelp would be thanked. 

I can put up better pictures tommorow.


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## Lawman60 (May 17, 2010)

That little guy is a bullhead. Can't tell the color, but it looks like a brown.


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## NateTessler13 (Nov 5, 2007)

Hi LilSiman/Medina,

Your fish looks like a *tadpole madtom* (_Noturus gyrinus_), although a better picture is required to be 100% certain. This fish is often mistaken for young bullheads. Here's a good way to distinguish between tadpole madtoms and young bullheads; take a look at the adipose fin. A tadpole madtom's adipose fin connects to its caudal fin (take a look at my picture of a tadpole madtom to get a better idea of what I'm talking about): http://gallery.nanfa.org/v/members/Nate+Tessler/nativenorthamericanfreshwaterfish/Ictaluridae/Noturus/gyrinus/Tadpole+Madtom_+Blanchard+River_+8-12-10_+NT.jpg.html?g2_imageViewsIndex=1

Whereas the adipose fin of a bullhead does not connect to its caudal fin: http://gallery.nanfa.org/v/members/Nate+Tessler/nativenorthamericanfreshwaterfish/Ictaluridae/Ameiurus/melas/Black+bullhead+_gravfemale__+EB24_+6-25-11_+NT.jpg.html

For more information, consult this species' profile on the ODNR website: http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/Home/species_a_to_z/SpeciesGuideIndex/tadpolemadtom/tabid/21791/Default.aspx

A side note: Be careful when handling them! They are one of the most venomous North American freshwater fishes. Their pectoral spines contain a mild venom that causes a reaction similar to that of a bee sting (<-- from experience).


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## NateTessler13 (Nov 5, 2007)

At second glance...the adipose fin of this fish may not be connected (need a better picture). If that's the case, then it's a bullhead. To distinguish between yellow, black, and brown bullhead, you need to take a look at the chin barbels. What color are they?


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## BobcatJB (Mar 30, 2005)

Nice to see some native fishkeepeds in here-let's see some more pics of everyone's setups. I'll be stocking a 30 gal this week

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## mishmosh (Jul 22, 2007)

I have a darter in my sunfish tank. I plan to get a couple more. I use small freeze dried plankton for food or break up kill. One of my canister output cycles water to the short end of the tank and the flow brings the food down to gravel level from the darter to feast. Crayfish are nice to have in the tank too.


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## LilSiman/Medina (Nov 30, 2010)

More pictures..








He has white barbels too for better info and a golden/white shiny stomach.


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## PolymerStew (Feb 17, 2009)

Looks like a bullhead, but tough to say for sure from the blurry photos. If you keep it awhile you'll find out. Bullheads grow fast in the aquarium. I've caught baby ones in the 1-2" range and had them grow to 6-7" size after a year.

These were yellow bullheads



















PVC pipe makes good, cheap hiding places that bullheads like










I have a yellow bullhead, channel catfish, and rock bass in my aquarium at the moment.


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## LilSiman/Medina (Nov 30, 2010)

I just caught what I believe to be a 2'' rockbass. Hopefully he grows in their. He's already following the lil bluegill around and eating regular fish food.


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## BobcatJB (Mar 30, 2005)

Netted some rainbow daryers for my tank last night. Males are in prime breeding condition and a few of the females are gravid. Have you guys been able to get your daryers to eat flake food?

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## NateTessler13 (Nov 5, 2007)

BobcatJB said:


> Netted some rainbow daryers for my tank last night. Males are in prime breeding condition and a few of the females are gravid. Have you guys been able to get your daryers to eat flake food?
> 
> Outdoor Hub mobile, the outdoor information engine



On a few occasions, I've been able to get rainbow darters to eat flake food. I find it's easiest to do when there are minnows in the tank that are already trained to eat flake food (that way the darters learn to associate the flakes with "food"). If you only have darters in the tank, the fish seem to ignore the flakes, as they don't really know what to make of them. It is my experience that not many darters will take the flakes, however, I have been able to get rainbow darters to accept flakes (the only other two darters I've had take flakes are fantail and orangethroat darters).

FYI, if you're interested in learning more about North American native fishes and their captive care requirements, consider checking out the message boards at NANFA.org (North American Native Fishes Association).


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## creekcrawler (Oct 5, 2004)

Never got them to eat flake food, but never tried.
Breaking off a chunk of frozen blood worms isn't that much work.



> If you keep it awhile you'll find out. Bullheads grow fast in the aquarium


I was thinking the same thing!


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## creekcrawler (Oct 5, 2004)

These guys lived in my tank for quite a while.
Unforunately, they got ick from some aquarium feeders I 
gave them for a treat.
(These were not real natives, of course, got them from a hatchery)


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## LilSiman/Medina (Nov 30, 2010)

creekcrawler said:


> These guys lived in my tank for quite a while.
> Unforunately, they got ick from some aquarium feeders I
> gave them for a treat.
> (These were not real natives, of course, got them from a hatchery)


Thats too bad! That would be pretty cool to have some brookies in my tank.


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## BobcatJB (Mar 30, 2005)

Nats I've been trying to register for a week. Haven't received my confirmation yet.

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