Loaches Online Forum

Glad to hear it Tom. Yes, please do keep us all updated. We are all hoping that everything goes well for you this time around.

The darters are eating the following:
Frozen Bloodworm
Frozen Brine Shrimp
Frozen Mosquito Larvae
Frozen Mysis Shrimp
Freeze Dried Daphnia
Freeze Dried Krill

A few have eaten flake, but I feed that so the Pimephales promelas don't eat as much of the good stuff. The hillies still seem to be out and about way more than before the darters were added. The darters also appear to be attempting a spawn.

Still very happy I put the darters in with the hillies.

UPDATE!!! 3 hillstreams made it through and seem to do well in the company of many local native fish species. I got bit by the native fish bug bad, I have expanded my collection of fish and reduced tropical / non natives down to my 75 gallon and the 3 hillies in with my darters / riffle fish.

This works well because darters as well as many ohio fish species require very similar conditions as hillies.

Hope this finds you all well.

Tom

Very interesting Tom,

(I would still love to find some darters.....Perhaps one day you'll decide on breeding and selling them...)

Out of curiosity: you mentioned deworming darters....but do you have any evidence that the parasites are actually present in wild-caught fish? (My sense is that most of parasites and especially the nastier kinds we encounter in loaches are coming from improper farming or collector practices...)

A few of the native fish I collected have had internal / external parasites, so you never know where they come from. PM me for more info on finding darters.

Great news Tom

Any up to date pictures of the darters

I'll have to get some. I also now have 2 grass pickerel that have a tank to themselves.

Ooooh lovely, baby pike are great

I had a couple in a 3 foot tank many years ago and they went nuts for chopped earth worms. I gave them to a friend who manages a large lake when they got to around 12".

Grass Pickerel (Esox americanus vermiculatus) seldomly exceed 10 inches in an aquarium or 12 inches in the wild. Perfect Esox species for aquaria, Mine are only about 6 inches.

Its a pity we only have the one species Esox lucius, it would be nice to have some of the smaller species here.

Lovely looking fish, keep us updated as to their growth

Good to see you back, Tom. I was up your way in early August at fish club meetings in Akron and Cleveland.
I love the grass pickeral. Its always been a desire of mine to set up a tank with some of those guys.
What other native species do you have?

I have :
bluefin killi
green sunfish
rockbass
blackside darter
johnny darter
greenside darter
rainbow darter
fantail darter
American-flag fish
blacknose dace
redside dace
fathead minnow
mimic shiner
orange-spot sunfish
grass pickerel
assorted other minnows for pickerel chow

I'm sure I missed some

If you ever want pickerel, just come on out this way, and we'll let you catch your own.

That's quite a list. My favorite lfs got some bluefin killies in a shipment of ghost shrimp recently. They were really attractive fish. I read that they used to be fairly popular in the hobby in the '50's but fell out of favor as more tropical species showed up on the market.
I was tempted to take some, but didn't have the room. One of the store employees took them, so they got a good home.
Thanks for the pickeral offer but I can find them locally. A small stream in Yellowwood State Forest about 15mins from me has them as well as longear sunfish, and rainbow darters as well as another darter species I haven't ID'd yet. It also gets a stocking of rainbow trout in the spring.
By the way, do you keep the dace in with the hillstreams and darters?
Do they keep their color?

[quote="Jim Powers]By the way, do you keep the dace in with the hillstreams and darters?
Do they keep their color?[/quote]

I keep blacknosed dace, shiners, fathead minnows in with the hillies and darters.

The darters I have keep their color mostly, it fades as the temp rises above 70, luckily my wife keeps out house 68-72 all year so the temp stays pretty stable.

thanks tom for showing me your darters MATE.
we can't get them over here,
i did once have a pair of rainbow darters about 15 yrs ago, but i think they come in under the counter, know what i mean, but none since.


mick