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Re: NFC: Fishy Observations
I know a dandy little creek near me Martin that has
silverjaw minnows and SRBD would you like some????
If so how many?
--- archimed at netdoor_com wrote:
> Last week I took the opportunity on a warm sunny day
> to try my
> luck at Westville Creek near Pinola, MS. This creek
> is a tributary
> to the Strong River, which some of you will remember
> from the
> Jackson convention. I was alone, so I did not do
> any seining, but I
> had been told by Roy Weitzell (Mississippi Museum of
> Natural
> Science) that this was a good spot to find some
> silverjaw minnows
> (Ericymba buccata). Alas, I found none with my
> dipnet, but I did
> find two interesting fishes which are new to me.
> The first is the
> rough shiner, Notropis baileyi. This is a very
> striking minnow with a
> prominent black stripe, with a lighter stripe just
> above it. These
> guys are vigorous swimmers, let me tell you! I
> found them in
> shallow pools behind stream obstructions.
>
> I found no darters in the riffles (the stream bed is
> mostly sand, with
> plenty of pebble riffles) but I DID find the
> shallow, slow-moving
> areas to be teeming with Etheostoma stigmaeum. At
> first I wasn't
> sure what I had, because almost all of the
> individuals I found were
> colorless (by which I mean they had brown blotches).
> But I did find
> one male with some color, which cinched the ID as
> this species is
> hard to confuse with anything else. They have a
> pale body and
> bright blue bands along the entire body -
> spectacular fish!
>
> The darters, minners, and a few other assorted
> fishes went into one
> of my 20g outdoor tanks (the one I set up with an
> elliptical
> circulation pattern), which I dosed with
> nitrofurazone in order to
> prevent the notorious creeping white rot. Actually,
> I used Jungle's
> "fungus cure", which I discovered quite by accident.
> This great
> product contains two nitrofuran-type antibiotics,
> some salt, and a
> touch of KMNO4. Perfect for preventative medicine.
> Anyway, the
> fishes settled in quite nicely. The rough shiners
> were taking food
> immediately after being placed in their new
> quarters. I was a little
> worried about the darters, but my fear proved
> unfounded as they
> now eat bloodworms with evident relish. Alas, the
> one brightly
> colored male leaped to his death within 24 hours - I
> found his
> crispy dried body nearby. At first it seemed that
> quite a few of the
> other darters had evaporated in similar fashion, as
> there didn't
> seem to be many of them left. But when feeding time
> came, they
> sprang from the woodwork like fleas from a drowning
> rat!
>
> A few small crayfish went into my son's spotted bass
> tank as food.
>
> Here's an unrelated tidbit. I, along with a few
> others on this list,
> purchased the Hanna Total Dissolved Solids meter
> which was (and
> still is) available for $14.99. I assumed that I
> could use this meter
> as kind of a substitute for a hardness test kit
> (which I do not own).
> Although I have had fun with it, nothing could be
> farther from the
> truth! In preparation for collecting more bluenose
> shiners this
> spring, I bought some water softener pillows from
> Mark Binkley
> (AKA "Jonah") and used them in my indoor 34 gallon
> native tank.
> Now, I had previously tested welaka water at 13ppm
> TDS (!)*, and
> this tank read around 350ppm, so I thought I needed
> to soften the
> water. The pillow should have removed around
> 150-200 ppm of
> hardness, but after the first use the TDS reading
> had not changed.
> Ha!, I thought, since it is replacing calcium ions
> with sodium, what
> should I have expected? Indeed, after I recharged
> the resin and
> replaced it, still dripping with the strong salt
> solution I had
> immersed it in, my TDS level DOUBLED to over 700ppm
> within 24
> hours. This should have come as no surprise, since
> the calibration
> solution sold by Hanna Instruments consists of KCl.
> But now it
> seems I need a hardness test kit after all...
>
> * For those who are interested, D.O. was a mediocre
> 7ppm, and
> pH was an astonishing 9.2 (questionable, since the
> meter was not
> calibrated that morning).
>
> And so it goes. Maybe I'll hit the streams again
> tomorrow :-) I am
> looking forward to another trip this year with BG
> for some bluehead
> shiners (P. hubbsi). And, of course, my reliable
> flagfin and
> bluenose sites are always within easy reach. But
> dammit, I still
> want to find those silverjaws...
>
>
>
> Prost,
>
> Martin
> Jackson, MS
>
-----------------------------------------------------------
> Whenever I see an old lady slip and fall on a wet
> sidewalk,
> my first instinct is to laugh. But then I think,
> what if
> I was an ant, and she fell on me. Then it wouldn't
> seem
> quite so funny.
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