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Posts: 72
| I need help settling a debate with a friend. Do musky not survive well in captivity? The topic got brought up because of rarely ever seeing them in the large tanks of Cabela's/Bass Pro. Thanks for any info you might have. |
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Location: Elko - Lake Vermilion | No |
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| Absolutely not. |
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Posts: 72
| I appreciate the answers, but could you expand any further? The reason I brought this up was because my fishing partner got a big idea that he wanted to keep a few muskies to put in one of our local sporting good store's tanks. I was completely against the idea, as I had heard before they did not survive in captivity, but I didn't have anything concrete to back up my argument. I need some ammo to get the idea out of his head. Thanks again. |
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Location: Elk River, MN | Well first and foremost it is illegal to transport a live muskie out if any body of water. |
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| Cabellas has 4 muskies in east grand forks. I feel bad for them cause there snouts are scared, bruised and malformed. |
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Location: MN | They have a couple in the Great Lakes aquarium. They seemed to be doing okay. They were in a tank with a bunch of other fish-trout, salmon, walleye, panfish, etc. and it made me wonder how often they tbone one of the other fish. |
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| They need too much space, eat too much, grow too large, and make too much waste to be practical in any normal tank environment.
If you look at population densities in their natural environment, that paints a pretty good picture of how much space they need to be healthy.
It would be a really cool pet, but unless you have a pond to put it in, I don't see that working out very well. |
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Location: varies | I hear Todd has 50's living quite well in his circle drive fountain pond in front of his mansion. Not sure if its the re-purified, imported Evian vitamin water or the team of 24hr marine biologists living in the back 40 maids compound that makes them thrive at year round, late-fall weight.. |
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Location: oswego, il | I did but they always seem to wriggle out of their shackles which reminds me, I have to go to lovers lane to buy more maid outfits, got a couple new hires.
Edited by ToddM 5/16/2015 11:48 AM
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Location: The desert | Lester Neigard - 5/15/2015 10:50 PM
I appreciate the answers, but could you expand any further? The reason I brought this up was because my fishing partner got a big idea that he wanted to keep a few muskies to put in one of our local sporting good store's tanks. I was completely against the idea, as I had heard before they did not survive in captivity, but I didn't have anything concrete to back up my argument. I need some ammo to get the idea out of his head. Thanks again.
The fact that this would be very illegal should be all the ammo you need. |
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Location: The desert | rodbender - 5/16/2015 11:21 AM
I hear Todd has 50's living quite well in his circle drive fountain pond in front of his mansion. Not sure if its the re-purified, imported Evian vitamin water or the team of 24hr marine biologists living in the back 40 maids compound that makes them thrive at year round, late-fall weight..
No wonder Todd can't catch a 50, he hired biologists that specialize in salt water. |
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Location: NE PA | Our MI50 chapter raises advanced Muskies to stock at the local cabelas... They require a lot of care. |
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| Guys, thanks for the answers. First off, it is not illegal in our neck of the woods. The tanks they would be going on are the massive tanks at Bass Pro/Cabelas. I had previously been told it was very difficult for adult muskies to be taken from the natural environment to the tank life (captivity) at the major box stores, but I never saw anything to back that up. I can't imagine survival would be that great, but that is what I'm trying to find out... |
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Location: varies | Lester, Try getting a hold of the curator at the great lakes aquarium. Im sure they could give you the best insight.
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Posts: 323
Location: Elk River, MN | Drive to Petsmart and ask someone in the fish department if buying a fish and putting it through the process of getting it to your home tank is stressful on the fish. Now imagine that, only 10x as hard on a Muskie and being put in a tank that's not big enough. You've also already got 10 responses saying it's a terrible idea |
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Posts: 72
| Hey Espy,
I appreciate your help and insight. As for the 10 responses remark...you might need to recount. And even if it was 50 responses saying it was a terrible idea, I was looking for someone with a little knowledge on the topic as opposed to "it's a bad idea" opinion. My original posts made it clear I thought it was a terrible idea. |
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Location: Elk River, MN | Exactly why I said to hit up your local pet shop. Call the local DNR office and I'm sure they will tell you all about it as well, straight from the experts. Asking a group of Muskie fisherman online who are dedicated to the conservation and preservation of the species are obviously going to tell you it's a bad idea. Fish in captivity are very prone to disease and bacteria, especially when baitfish are introduced weekly. Recent news about places like SeaWorld will even tell you that animals in captivity don't live nearly as long as animals in the wild. A better idea for your friend would be to find a local hatchery and see if you can't get your hands on a couple muskies born in captivity and people could watch them grow in the tanks, rather than watch an adult taken from the wild slowly die. |
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Location: Elk Grove Village, IL & Phillips, WI | We kept a baby Redfin Pickerel in a 60 gallon tank. He only made it about 9 - 10 months. It went from about 1.5 inches to about 6 - 7 when it died. It was doing great and appeared healthy to the end. The day before it died it started jumping in the tank, which it never did before. We're thinking it hit the lid and must have suffered some internal injuries. The next day it couldn't keep upright. My son tried all he could, but the fish expired anyway. I couldn't imagine keeping a musky because of how big it gets in pretty short order.
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| I had a 5" smallie that jumped and hit the lid and broke its back. |
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| Here at the Cleveland Zoo, they had several muskies in the pond area of our wolf exhibit. Over the years, they have looked worse and worse and last year I did not see any. After asking someone where they went, they had a very hard time keeping the muskies healthy. Not sure why. |
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Location: The desert | Lester Neigard - 5/16/2015 6:09 PM
Guys, thanks for the answers. First off, it is not illegal in our neck of the woods. The tanks they would be going on are the massive tanks at Bass Pro/Cabelas. I had previously been told it was very difficult for adult muskies to be taken from the natural environment to the tank life (captivity) at the major box stores, but I never saw anything to back that up. I can't imagine survival would be that great, but that is what I'm trying to find out...
I just assumed with the name you might be in MN. Where are you located?
If he really wanted to do this, the purchase from a hatchery is likely the best idea but likely won't be the size your buddy is looking for. I'd try google scholar if you really wanted to get in depth, but I'd think you could use the rationale of the fact that there aren't many kept in captivity in general is likely due to them being fairly difficult to raise/keep alive.
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Location: Elko - Lake Vermilion | The answer is Still No...Just kill the fish now.. It won't survive. |
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Location: Detroit River | With as much crap that they leave on the floor of my boat, why would anyone want to deal with cleaning up after them? |
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| The "Lake Wisconsin" aquarium at the Milwaukee Zoo has 2-3 muskies of around 30 inches in it along with all kinds of Wisconsin fish. When my kids were young we were at the zoo many times each year and I always spent time observing those muskies. Quite often I'd stop there early in our visit and return later in the day - sometimes 4 hours later - and the muskies would almost always be in the exact same place -- probably waiting for a lunar window to open.  On successive visits, it would always take me awhile to find them, but they were always in there and seemed to be in good shape.
Not sure if they still have it, but Guides Choice in Minocqua used to have a large aquarium with bigger muskies in it and customers used to enjoy watching them at feeding time.
Our Richfield, WI Cabelas has had some mid-30" muskies in their aquarium, too, but those always look pretty beat up.
A friend from our muskie club obtained a DNR permit to purchase a few muskies from a hatchery many years ago and raised them in an aquarium for several years. |
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Location: Des Moines Iowa | 20 years ago had one in a 100 gal aquarium. Lived about 2 years. about 7" fish at first. Do not remember how long he got. |
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| sounds like a terrible idea. leave the fish in the water for us to catch!!! |
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| i wonder what fishing the BPS tanks would b like and if anything would bite |
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| I believe that musky can survive in captivity. Even if it's big, I think that such a fish can survive in multiple situations. |
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| When I was younger we had a small one in a ~20 gallon tank, was a lot of fun feeding goldfish. Would devour until they were swimming from its gills. Grew extremely fast, had it in there for maybe 3 months before it jumped out and found dead on the floor. Based on that if the tank is large enough to keep up with the fish I see it being no different than any other fish, just requires the appropriate work to keep alive like anything else. |
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Location: NorthCentral WI | Wildwood Wildlife Park in Minocqua has muskies in the pond outside the entrance. We were there with the kids a few weeks ago and can't say I saw any but the sign clearly states it is a musky pond. I would estimate it's about a .25 acre pond, who knows how deep. If you call them and talk with the right person they may be able to provide some insight.
Now I see the OP was fromo 2015. Either the guy tried it or moved on from the idea.
Edited by MartinTD 8/4/2020 11:33 AM
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| MartinTD - 8/4/2020 12:30 PM
Wildwood Wildlife Park in Minocqua has muskies in the pond outside the entrance. We were there with the kids a few weeks ago and can't say I saw any but the sign clearly states it is a musky pond. I would estimate it's about a .25 acre pond, who knows how deep. If you call them and talk with the right person they may be able to provide some insight.
Now I see the OP was fromo 2015. Either the guy tried it or moved on from the idea.
If water's cool enough thru the summer heat and perhaps is spring fed and can't freeze down it's possible they could survive in the pond if well fed. I've seen a few small lakes i.e.: Casasdagua that support a natural musky population but were taking > 200 acres
Edited by NPike 8/4/2020 4:55 PM
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Posts: 72
| To follow up on my post that was revived, my FORMER fishing partner and I had a great disagreement about this because he wanted to keep some and give them to Bass Pro to put in their aquariums. Many, many years ago, I heard muskies did not do well in captivity, but I was looking for some kind of evidence to be able to show him. Sadly, he had to learn the hard way. He turned a few over to the BP aquarium personnel, but they couldn’t get them to survive. This all went down about five years ago, and he has not been on my boat since (we used to fish a couple times a week together). |
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