I've had aquariums off and on throughout my life.  In the last few years I've started several aquariums with native fish and natural surroundings. My current setup is a 29 gallon with a whisper power water filter and air pump. Starting in spring I will go down to the local park and catch a few different species of fish. Then in the fall I disassemble the aquarium and let the fish go back in the same water system where I caught them. I've found that the native fish of the upper Midwest make the best aquarium pets. Bluegills adapt the best and are very intelligent fish. They can be aggressive and territorial towards each other, but tolerate other fish species much better. Bluegills quickly learn when feeding time is and will swim eagerly to the glass in anticipation. Native fish will eat bugs, worms, and even bread crumbs. Though I can imagine that the latter is not as good for them.

Bluegill

Bluegill

Bluegill

Other native fish do very well in aquariums, including large mouth bass, rock bass, and green sunfish. I've also had crawfish in my aquarium, but they tend to eat the natural vegetation and end up being eaten by the fish anyways. Even a bluegill will eat a good size crawfish. 

Large mouth bass

Rock bass

Green sunfish

Once a week I do a minor cleaning, which includes scrubbing the glass with a scrub pad, water vacuuming of the gravel (this takes out around 5 gallons of dirty water), and I rinse the filter. I've learned not to clean the filter hard because a healthy community of bacteria grows on the surface of the filter which helps to clean the ammonia from the water. Then once a month and a half I do a major cleaning which is essentially the same as a minor cleaning except that I might vacuum up half the water in the tank and replace it with clean filtered water. Cleaning is critical for the health of everything living in the tank. So far I've never had a fish die in my care.

The aquarium is a great educational tool and it's also great fun to learn each fish's unique personality. This is great alternative to expensive pet stores selling exotic fish that were obtained, in many cases, by questionable means. This also helps to stop the spread of invasive species in our environment, if the fish are obtained from local water ways.

A couple different configurations are shown below. 

Check with your State's Department of Natural Resources to verify that it is legal to keep native fish and plants in an aquarium.