Re: [Killietalk] welaka

[Scott Davis <unclescott at prodigy_net>]

Years ago Tony Terceira bred them and published a report in NANFA's American Currents. Don't know if he related that elsewhere. Al, if that was Charlie's fish, drive around the corner and ask him if he has bred it yet.

Of course I wouldn't put it past Jim-Bob if such a feat were to be eventually accomplished by him. Others in the aquarium hobby (killie, NA native enthusiasts are likely culprits) have had them breed too.

Matt. I've heard of that Florida 'species of special concern" classification too on the NANFA mailing list. They also were quite concerned when a survey team slugged a lot of them out of a hole in another area. They have no quarrel with taking a couple of specimens for either scientific or aquaristic purposes, but worry about one case where great numbers of welaka were evidently taken from a stream. I'm sure the issues sound familiar to killinuts.

Page and Burr suggest that they are also found in SW Georgia, a couple of areas in Alabama, the Florida panhandle and SW Mississippi. Distributions look quite disjunct.

Tony may have written a couple of accounts. The one short one I could find tonight, on the first CD of the two containing most of the back issues of their journal, was a pretty brief article. He set them up in a room temperature tank with a water sprite cover and foxtail at one end to receive the eggs - which they obligingly provided. The fish took a variety of foods, including dry foods.

If Tony catches this, he might be able to recall the temperature and water chemistry at the time of spawning.

In Dr. Bob Goldstein's (with Rod Harper and  Richard Edwards) American Aquarium Fishes it is suggested that the instructions for spawning Pteronotropis hubbsi, the bluehead shiner,  will do for spawning Pteronotropis welaka, the bluenose shiner. In the case of hubbsi, they are found in backwaters of blackwater streams. They feed on insect larvae and small crustaceans like Daphnia. So far this sounds familiar for those used to working with cool water Aphyosemions and Diapteron.

However the females should be separately conditioned at about 65 F and gently raised to about 75 F. I assume the same would be beneficial for males. In a 29-gallon tank they can be put together. Fry are very tiny and will need micro-foods.

In the wild it is noted that hubbsi spawns in the nests of warmouth (Lepomis gulosis). Among each other males are territorial. A number of cyprinids seem to spawn over some sort of sunfish nest. The fry seem to grow together for a time. One could guess an advantage to both is that predators would take some but not all of them.

In the aquarium one might use plants or mops to receive the eggs. As with killies, if one spawning surface is not there in the 29-gallon tank, another may do. Spawning should commence after a few hours and continue for several more.

They sound challenging, but if any of you want to take the space, condition them properly and feed tiny fry, I don't see why they can't be raised. A school of them must look terrific in a 20 or 29-gallon (or larger) aquarium. A hobby population of welaka sounds like a good thing to me.

Hubbsi is also neat fish, though not quite so stunning. Protected in Arkansas, exterminated, pardon me, extirpated in far SW Illinois, it is found in NE Louisiana and northeastern Texas not too far into the state and far SE Oklahoma.

Go to Google and do an image search for Pteronotropis.

Jonah's Aquarium  offers the Pteronotropis hypselopterus, sailfin shiner, and Pteronotropis stonei, lowland shiner for sale. Perhaps one could try with the fairly attractive sailfin shiner and if they did well with that, go for welaka.
 http://jonahsaquarium.com/picpteronotropis01.htm

All of those species were moved out of Notropis some time back. So also look for them under that genus in older books.

Long before Matt moved to the Pacific Northwest, there was an AKA Convention there in '74. Interestingly, that's where Tony first saw welaka.

Ah! Naturally after looking elsewhere, I went to the NANFA (North American Native Fishes) site and searched for welaka. One will get Tony's article followed by a bunch of other references (articles and e-mail list comments).

http://www.nanfa.org/

Hope that helps!


matt kaufman <igotadose at hotmail_com> wrote: Has it ever been bred in captivity? 
 
Is it protected (appears as a 'species of special concern' on a Florida site, but I thought the 'good' welaka populations were in Louisiana.)

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