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Re: Etheostoma Spawn.
On Sat, 21 Dec 1996, robert a rice wrote:
>
> Please include the how toos on the orangethroats ...Where was the
> original strain from?? I can get you some blackbanded darters if you are
> interested in a little trade action....BTW did you catch my orangethroat
> article in TFH a feww months back....????
>
The how tos on spawning E. sp. "Cavespawner" is simple, put them in a
tank. Take out the fry. i don't know what causes them to breed or how,
but I keep getting spawns out of them! :-) The E. spectabile are from
the White River Drainage, Mo. The method for spawning them was taught to
me by Dr. Goldstein. A male and several females are placed in a 10-20
gallon tank. The fish should be conditioned (which can be done in
virtualy any tank.) A cup of pea-sized gravel is placed on a rock in teh
tank, which the filter overflows into. The male will take over this cup
(HOPEFULY, I had a spawn in the gravel at the other end of the tank.
I've found that making this the only option seems to work well [i.e.,
make it a bare-bottom tank.] Once or twice a week, remove the cup and
check the grabel for eggs. The eggs are then incubated in shallow
dishes of gravel. The eggs must remain in the gravel or they
rot.... hatching takes place 9-10 days later. The fry eat nauplii
(either Brine shrimp -- which I hate as a fish food - or daphnai),
grindal worms, etc. The fry grow amazingly fast. I've been having
trouble keeping them alive. I've had several spawns and my one original
pair is still alive, but the fry only seem to want to live at best 6 mos.
This is their second spawn to get to a decent size but the numbers are
dwindling..... I'm beggining to wonder if there might not be some sort of
genetic flaw or maybe I just cna't raise fry. :-) (Probably the latter.)
I did read and thourouly enjoyed the article on them in TFH, so rare that
native articles appear. I'm working right now on three native articles
myself. One is jsut a general introduction to natives I'm writing for a
club. The others are an article on Darters and an article on general
natives. Are you talking about Percina nigrofasciata as the blackbanded
darter? I'm awful with common names.... Thats the only fish I could think
of with Nigrofascia... in its name..... :-)
<><
J. L. Wiegert
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