If you were wondering about IF you can take a live fish home and put it in an aquarium, the answer is "YES, if you fit into one of the below situations."
Transport of fish for display in a home aquarium is legal under the following conditions: – Game fish purchased from an authorized licensee transported with the necessary documents (such as a sales receipt). – Anglers 16 or under may transport legally caught largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, yellow perch, rock bass, black crappie, white crappie, bluegill, pumpkinseed, green sunfish, orange spotted sunfish, and black, yellow, and brown bullhead. No more than four of each species may be transported at any one time, and any individual fish can be no longer than 10 inches.
Transport of fish for display in a home aquarium is legal under the following conditions:
– Game fish purchased from an authorized licensee transported with the necessary documents (such as a sales receipt).
– Anglers 16 or under may transport legally caught largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, yellow perch, rock bass, black crappie, white crappie, bluegill, pumpkinseed, green sunfish, orange spotted sunfish, and black, yellow, and brown bullhead. No more than four of each species may be transported at any one time, and any individual fish can be no longer than 10 inches.
Minnesota DNR Fishing Regulations 2006, page 11 under "Transporting Fish".
Now to have you can stock up your aquarium, but keep these in mind and remember it would take a pretty big aquarium to handle many of these fish.
You can also find some awesome home made aquarium designs online too. I think I would talk to a couple of our members that work for the Great Lakes Aquarium or the people at Underwater Adventures in the Mall of America (one of our sponsors).
Really fish in an aquarium are pretty easy. We have had a crappie for over a year. I bring the extra minnows home from fishing and it really puts on a show. But don't put too many in, and if you put minnows in from freezing water they have a hard time.
Remember that for a walleye you would need a special license. So stick with the bullhead, crappies and other fish allowed by the DNR rules listed above.
Yeah the fish are very easy to care for and a blast to watch when they put on the feed bag after a few days without. They pound down the minnows and they have the same problem as people when they are too hungry. Their eyes can be bigger than their stomach. We have had our crappie take in 6 minnows, and when trying for more watched minnows swim out of its mouth. He's a little smarter now and it happens less, but they are very cool to watch. You will even see that they will attack a small shiny object if you place it near the tank. For some reason they shy away from me, but will go nose to nose with my son sometimes. I don't know why for sure. He may do it more than me.