Native fish at home

Hi all,

As I sit here watching "doc" (my Murray Cod) chase mudeye left over from 2 unsuccessful days trout fishing at Dartmouth around the tank I was wondering:

How many people here keep Australian native fish at home?

I used to keep tropicals but went away from them due to high loss rates and maintenance costs. I bought "doc" as a 5 cm specimen from a pet shop about 2 years ago and he is now a substantially larger 22 cm or so.

The kids (2 daughters) love him as he is quite attentive at times following fingers on glass, and they love going to the pet shop to get him a bag of gold fish (much to mums disgust!). He loves shrimp when they are in season and I just drop the net in the river for a bit when walking the dogs to get those. Much cheaper to feed him in summer than winter. He's not keen on worms unfortunately - just leaves them to worm into the gravel where I guess they drown.

Keeping a cod has certainly taught me much about a fish I spend quite a bit of time fishing for (C & R of course) in the Murray & Goulburn Rivers.

Do you keep natives - either in tanks or stock your dam with them???

If you do keep them and you travel for extended periods who or how do you look after them? I'm off to Arkaroola for a few weeks in October and I'm not sure what I'll do.

Just curious.

Dave