Niece gifts me a baby florida pompano/jack fish :/ Plz read b4 commenting

[IKD]

I live in Florida near Cape Canaveral. If you want to ship it to me I can release him back to the ocean for you.

 

[lavoisier]

Great excuse for a new build thread!

 

[reefluvrr]

If your local aquarium could not take it, I am curious if you had to put the fish in your tank would it's growth be limited due to size of tank?

You at least know have a great reason to ask your future wife for a legitimate tank upgrade!

 

[TheSaltyTech]

Wow thanks for the responses everyone! Some very good points.

As for returning it to the ocean I was planning on returning it to an area where it is not invasive but I did not think about the fact that it could pick up some form of disease or worm that could be invasive and even though i'm fairly certain my tank is void of such things it doesn't seem worth the risk.

The public aquarium option did not cross my mind. I will send an email to the Cleveland aquarium and see what they say. I totally agree that would be the best option and would definitely be cool to take her to visit!

The local reef store blue fish aquariums has a decent size fowlr tank 600ish gallons that could work as a step up from my 150 but inevitably I would have to find a permanent home.

Also not too worried about catching it as I have done this many times before with traps not always a fast option but with patience works pretty well.

I thought about caulking the walls of my house and filling it up with saltwater but I never liked water beds so nixed that idea..

@scott11106 I like the out of the box thinking but honestly I am kinda getting into the idea of finding a way to keep it alive ha

@Vette67 I live on the west side as well, near edgewater park lmk if you want to link up and trade sm frags!

@AlexKintner Good call. Yeah they all look very similar when they are so young. Mine does not have any colors other than silver and it looks like the pompano's usually have a little yellow on the finage but fairly certain its some form of fast growing jack.

@mtfish Yeah so true he is constantly booking it which is kinda why I feel like I should put him in the 150 grow out tank. He would be alone down there but he might still be running into walls cant really be sure until I put him in.

 

[User1]

You at least know have a great reason to ask your future wife for a legitimate tank upgrade!

Lol. Legitimate in bold because that is funny and well played

 

[Skynyrd Fish]

Sounds like you need to set up a 70 gal for a qt for this beast. Then find a new home for him.

 

[TerraFerma]

Ok,

So my fiances 7 year old niece got back from her myrtle beach trip and handed me a present of an unknown small silver fish. She has a huge smile on her face and is so excited to have gotten me a fish that she caught by herself with a small net on the surf. Every time the children come over she is the one that just sits and admires the tank for hours asking countless questions and just really enjoying it. Mind you we live in Cleveland so I don't have a way to easily return it to the ocean. Basically it looks like at least for the time being I will be caring for it.

After doing some research, I think it is a Florida Pompano fish (Trachinotus carolinus) and right now it is the size of a quarter but grows at an astounding rate of 1-2 inches per month coming in at around a foot by year one. This is a crazy amount of growth.. I have a picture below of a baby pompano and it looks exactly the same, also pictured below is a trophy sized catch just to show how big they can possibly get.

Florida pompano - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

My current system is 150g mixed reef display, 150 grow out/frag tank, 100g refugium, and a 150g sump. I have been reefing for around 10 years, have never had a crash, and have kept my original two clowns that I bought to cycle my first tank alive and they have been laying eggs since year one. I have also worked at a local reef store years ago so I am not a noob that is just ignorantly trying to kill fish or something though I am certainly not an expert on this type of thing.

My 150g grow out tank is stocked with only coral and live rock only right now. The idea I am currently planning on is letting him grow out there for now until I make it to the ocean to free it.

So far I have him in a 5g bucket to see if he can eat and figure out what to do. It immediately was crushing live brine as fast as i would feed it, next we tried frozen mysis which also worked well. The next day we went with pellet and after a few tries he was eating that too.

Basically looking for any type of insight on how best to proceed besides the obvious comments like he will outgrow the tank, and how bad a person I am for mistreating a fish. I would like to put him in the display but I read somewhere that they will eat anything that fits in their mouths which in short time would be my shrimp and hermits at the least so I guess that is off the table.

Thanks for taking the time to read the post!

Only problem with a temporary stay in your display is going to be catching him out. He will be too big for a fish trap, and whatever you do (net, etc) - he is going to flip around and generally behave like you caught him on a hook and line and brought him into a boat. And a hook and line might be the only way you can get him out.

They do like to eat crustaceans so your shrimp and non-hermit crabs may disappear.

That said I like really like the idea. Just need to figure out the back end.

 

[CollectOyster04]

We had four about that size that my young daughter had caught around the Galveston area years ago. I had an 8' long 300gallon tank(32" deep) at the time. Of course she wanted to put them in the tank ! After some research, I agreed(read that Pompano is like the steak of the sea). I joked with her about growing them out to eat like the lobsters at Red Lobster, lol. They did grow out at a fast clip the year we had them. They were extremely active, but very skittish. Before I knew better about having the tank covered, they all eventually made their way out of the tank(jumped). Had a small puffer from that trip too, but an anemone took care of that one.

 

[Skynyrd Fish]

I also forgot take the niece to the fish store! Have fun you are going to be the official favorite uncle.

 

[TheSaltyTech]

@littlebeard Yeah during my research I did see something about size laws for harvesting for food but not collecting for aquariums and it was well under that size but I'm kinda past that point now:\ And I did have a conversation with her about it and plan to keep growing her knowledge. But yeah I think that is the plan, grow it out for a few months till its big enough to go into a public aquarium.

@IKD Thanks for the option but I am worried about the possible implications with releasing it back into the wild.

@reefluvrr I do think the size is somewhat limited when in an aquarium, with this species I don't think it will be nearly limited enough.

 

[TheSaltyTech]

@Skynyrd Fish I actually took her there the day she gave it to me to show my old boss haha she had a blast, though was a little disappointed that she couldn't take anything home lol

 

[creativeballance]

agreed, its like that stupid kudzu plant....cant seem to kill that stuff, should have left it in Japan

Totally university of floridas fault. Or auburn. Or both.

 

[creativeballance]

My question is how did she get it to Ohio alive.

 

[justmee]

First educate your niece, grow it out, and have a wonderful feast...

 

[IKD]

@littlebeard Yeah during my research I did see something about size laws for harvesting for food but not collecting for aquariums and it was well under that size but I'm kinda past that point now:\ And I did have a conversation with her about it and plan to keep growing her knowledge. But yeah I think that is the plan, grow it out for a few months till its big enough to go into a public aquarium.

@IKD Thanks for the option but I am worried about the possible implications with releasing it back into the wild.

@reefluvrr I do think the size is somewhat limited when in an aquarium, with this species I don't think it will be nearly limited enough.

Ok. I believe they are natural fish in these waters by me so releasing it here wouldn’t be an issue.

 

[NashobaTek]

Lion fish come to mind as far as being released where they didn't come from.

Personally, the local aquarium is the best idea to keep it alive. Or, send it to someone else in Florida to re release it back where it came from.

 

[NashobaTek]

Lion fish come to mind as far as being released where they didn't come from.

Personally, the local aquarium is the best idea to keep it alive. Or, send it to someone else in Florida to re release it back where it came from.

 

[Squeaky McMurdo]

It’s not legal to release fish back into the wild after they have been relocated from their water of origin. I can’t even put a bluegill back in the river after keeping it in my tank. Yes, even to the exact spot it was captured. The logic here is that you don’t want to introduce aquarium diseases and hitchhikers into a wild body of water. The ethical course of action here is to enjoy it while you can and eat it or rehome it to another aquarist when it outgrows your set up.

 

[littlefishy]

It's always hard to tell the 4 y.o. nephew we can't keep the fish they catch or we cast net in an aquarium. I kept a juvie mangrove snapper for them once, it ate a basslet in the aquarium. I still feel guilty about releasing it bcs of what it could have picked up. We have screwed up our fw, sw, and forests here with invasives.

 

[nereefpat]

The logic here is that you don’t want to introduce aquarium diseases and hitchhikers into a wild body of water. The ethical course of action here is to enjoy it while you can and eat it or rehome it to another aquarist when it outgrows your set up.

I agree.