Mackerel tank?

[pishposh]

Anyone ever try or know anyone who tried making a mackerel aquarium? My friends think it's a dumb idea, but it has always been my dream to have an aquarium with pacific gamefish. Unfortunately, most of these fish are too big to keep in a home aquarium, and the small ones feed on plankton, which I would rather stay away from :?

I go fishing often on my kayak and make bait mackerel all the time, which I keep in my bait tank (on the kayak). At the end of the day, I occasionally have some left over and just end up dumping them back into their world. But this got me thinking...

Mackerel is considered to be bait, but i think it would be awesome to have a large tank with a school of small mackerel swimming around. What do you think? I believe they're pretty hardy little fish too.

I know this board is based on warm water setups, sorry if this is an inappropriate topic, but believe me i searched and couldn't find any cold saltwater aquarium forums.

 

[Anonymous]

The impracticality and sheer expense of it keeps the VAST majority of the population at bay with something like this. - Especially if you live somewhere that gets warm (which is just about everywhere right now..)

Kudos to you if you have the ability to overcome mere financial constraints. - I'm sure someone from the Industry forum can help you if you're serious however...

 

[Meloco14]

GD is right. It can be done, but it isn't by any means easy. First you will need a large tank with a lot of steady current. Actually, you may even need one of those round tanks that you see in public aquariums where they can continuously swim in the same direction; much like in a normal bait tank. Next you will need a chiller. You know how cold the water is off our coast. You will need a very good filtration system. I'm sure you are familiar with how they can eat all day and night and how messy they can be. And finally, I know when you are making bait sized mackeral they are pretty small, but they grow very quickly and can get to a good foot an a half long. Now if you can overcome all of this I think it would be a great display. Mackeral are quite attractive with thier reflective sides and black jagged stripe pattern. And they seem to be pretty hardy as well. If you have the means to do all this good luck and be sure to share pics and details of the system. But if you are looking to do a regional tank it might be easier to do an intertidal system. Or if you want to stick to gamefish you could go with something more benthic like sand bass, rockfish, or even calicos. You will still need a very large tank, chiller, and good filtration though. HTH