CichlidFish.com - Fish That Think.

What are people's thoughts on keeping a largemouth bass? How would it differ from keeping fish like oscars? I live in Alabama so it's relatively easy to catch them here, so they'd be pretty easy to get. I don't know if you're allowed to keep them in captivity, but I think it would be pretty cool to tell your friends, "Yeah I have a 10 lb. largemouth bass...in my aquarium." What would ya'll think?

I´ve heard of it happening...but not from an entirely reliable source...

My grandfather (who is inclined to story telling...lol) told me about a friend who had a tank with about a really big largemouth bass. He said that the tank was probably 5 or 6 feet long...that comes out to around a 110 gallons (if it is a foot and a half wide and 2 feet tall). He said she had it for years...my suspicion is that that wouldn´t be big enough for a ten pounder... How long does a 10 lb bass get? Do you think you could expect it to get 10 lbs?

Another consideration you need to take is what you would feed it. It wouldn´t be too hard to get it to take flakes...but that might be difficult at first. Do Largemouths eat any vegetation, or are they strictly predatory? I´m not really sure...It would be important to give it all of its naturall nutritious needs, especially if it were born in captivity.

I once (before I knew ANYTHING about fishkeeping) kept one in a 10 gallon tank with 2 red eared sliders and a Whisper Filter (that I have to this day...Man, I love Whisper...) that is rated for a 50 gallon tank. The poor fish was maybe 3 inches long, and lasted 5 days...poor thing. I don´t know if the turtles killed it, or if it was killed by ammonia/nitrates/any other nasties that would float in a tank like that. But enough of my story...

It sounds like something you might be able to do with enough planning. Hit up dogpile dot com or any other search engine and search for something like ´´Keeping largemouth bass micropterus salmoides aquarium´´. I haven´t the time to do the research (check the news section), but I would like to hear what you find out.

in order to get a largemouth to get up tp huge size, youd have to have an aquarium that would be the size of a large room!!!!!!! I think it would cost way more than its worth to have a tank of this size made. All of that aside, to my knoledge its illeagle to possess a game fish of that sort that does not meet department of natural resources size requirement. I live in ILLINOIS, and here I think its like a $500.00 fine for each game fish under size limit. So I think Id check with concervation department before doing so if you would like to try it. But personally I dont think that it would survive because they are a preditory fish and as far as I know they dont feed on any type of vegitation. I sure it might be possible if done right, but im just not sure how easy it would be

If you were to do it, I would think an outdoor pond would be the place, for a fish of ten pounds, (assume it was that size, you would be looking at a small tank size, of say 375 gallons (to even much bigger). The usual rules of fishkeeping would apply, and as for food, well I have no idea if it wold eat pellets, otherwise live food, such as crickets, water bugs, tadpole, worms, leech's etc etc. (thinking of a 10lbs fish in a small tank.....seems like a disaster waiting to happen.):confused:

It would take alot of food to stuff that bad boys belly, I just dont think that it would survive safely in a domestic environment. I would think, that you would almost have to replicate its natural surroundings in order for it to even have a shot at survival