Bigfish1966

I've been doing this for years. Have often kept small Mirrors and commons in my 4 foot aquarium indoors. Feeding them on a range of different foods that I would use as bait such as hemp, various pellets, pieces of boilies etc. It's a great way of finding out if a new bait interests them or not and good fun. Once the fish get to around 6 inches (12 ounces or so), I would suggest moving them out to either a pond (which I do) or to a local lake (which I have done in the past). The reason for this is the bigger fish obviously eat more and cr*p more and therefore your filter gets very full up quickly - especially if you have 5 or 6 fish around 6 inches. I found I had to clear the filter every 2 or 3 weeks, instead of every 2 or 3 months. It's best to stick to several smaller fish. Up to 10 or 12 around 3 inches long. If you keep bigger fish then have less of them 2 or 3 max. I rotate them by moving the bigger ones out to my ponds in the garden around spring time. If my fish have bred in the pond and have babies, I then put these in the aquarium. I've recently (last November), added a few koi to my tank (around 1 to 2 inches). These are much harder to keep alive - have had a few casualties, but 4 or 5 of them seem hardy. Never had problems with mirrors, commons, or even grass carp - they are much more hardy.