Guess what! I filled my empty tank with ( drum roll please ) Stickleback ( TADA! )
Stickleback are small fish that don't get more than one or two inches long. They are cute little guys, and here is how to take care of them!
*****STICKLEBACK CARE*****
1) First you need a tank. One with a volume of 10 gallons is good. Maybe even something smaller, but it is easier to maintain a larger tank, and your fish will have more room to swim.
2) Next, get some water! It is easier to just use the water from an unpolluted pond or stream, instead of your tap water. Why? Tap water has chlorine in it, and you need to wait a week for the chlorine to evaporate for it to be safe. Plus, you're fish will stay in the water that they would live in in the wild. While you're at the pond\stream get some plants or rocks too.
3) Now to set up you're tank! The best stuff to put on the bottom is gravel. Preferably smooth gravel. You can buy it cheaply at any pet store. Wash the gravel, then dump it in and arrange the plants and rocks to your liking.
4) Now you can get your fish ( hurray! ) Go to a pond where you know stickleback live. They are gray, sometimes with a pinkish/reddish belly, and they have 3-9 spines on their back. Here is a picture.
They can look pretty different from this, but if it has spines, it's a stickleback. If you have a net, they should be pretty easy to catch. It is possible to catch them with a bucket, but it's a lot harder. Get no more than 5 fish if you have a ten gallon tank. Though they are small, they are very active, and it can be difficult to feed a ton of fish. Make sure you get at least two as they are social.
5) You can just leave them alone for the next day or two. After that, you can start thinking about feeding them. One of the problems about stickleback is they eat live food, which can be sorta annoying. The good thing is they are not picky about what live food they eat. Their favorite food is mosquito larvae. Mosquito larvae is EVERYWHERE. If you have a bird bath, there is probably mosquito larvae in it. The easiest way to collect them is set a plastic container with a couple inches of water in it, set it outside in the sun for some algae to grow. Mosquitos will lay their eggs there, which will hatch into larvae in a day ( i think. ) Make sure you collect them before they hatch into mosquitos. Feed your fish every one or two days.
6) Every 2 weeks you should change some of the water. The nice thing about stickleback, is you don't have to change the water constantly. If you change 20% of the water every 2 weeks, the water will stay very clean, but water changes ever month will do if your tank doesn't have many fish in it. Stickleback come from still water, so they don't need a filter.
7) It is easiest to keep them outside, because water above 68 degrees will kill them. They prefer water under 62 degrees.
7) I have never kept a Stickleback for more than a year, as i always let them go in the fall, but i assume you can keep them in the house over winter, as long as it doesn't get to warm.
Chow!
