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Re: NFC: Fishy Observations
ohhh flagfin one my ole favs wanns do a deal for a dozen or two ?
Robert Rice NFC President
Save those Fishes, Join the Native Fish Conservancy
http://www.nativefish.org
On Tue, 6 Mar 2001 14:48:49 -0600 archimed at netdoor_com writes:
> 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.
>
Robert Rice NFC President
Save those Fishes, Join the Native Fish Conservancy
http://www.nativefish.org
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