--------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 229 AQUARIUMS Ref: F5G00046 Date: 04/28/98 From: ROBBY DITTMANN Time: 08:12am \/To: JOHN J. RICE (Read 1 times) Subj: HOLE IN HEAD JJR> Thanks for your suggestion about Clout. Will try it this weekend. Let me know if it works. Robby --- Maximus 3.01 * Origin: Red Shift BBS, Home of Mamoosoft! ... (770) 979-9467 (1:133/8003) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 229 AQUARIUMS Ref: F5G00047 Date: 04/28/98 From: MORTEN OERITSLAND Time: 05:03pm \/To: ERNIE POLAND (Read 1 times) Subj: CRACKED CORNER IN TANK > www.thatpetplace.com fluval 303 $58.99 good price from what i've seen > retail In Norway F. 303 costs around 100 dollars. =((!) --- BBBS/L v3.33 How * Origin: Errors HQ: Prog/Emul/Linux/Demos, +47-55590830 (2:211/16) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 229 AQUARIUMS Ref: F5G00048 Date: 04/27/98 From: MIKE THOMAS Time: 10:37pm \/To: CAROL SHENKENBERGER (Read 1 times) Subj: RE: CRACKED CORNER IN TANK Thank you for the information Carol, I was just thinking today of putting about 10/15 more in the tank. I transferred them from a 10 gallon to a twenty gallon tank two days ago and one of the goldfish looks like he is not going to make it. He is constantly swimming perpendicular in stead of level. He swims at the top of the tank all of the time. I just started this fish thing. I am fifty two and sort of lonely and I wanted some little friends to keep me company. I enjoy watching thing swim back and forth in a pack[the other four do] and I have Goldfish flakes to feed them and sosme guppie food which came with thew ten gallon tank. Are Gold fish sensitive to light? The tank has a big light in the hood and when I turn it on they go into a serious panic darting at full speed back nd forth. I have stopped using the light until I find out for sure I do not want to hurt them.I i HAVE A HEATER for the tank but the temperature stays around 70 witout the heater. Am I correct in assumming that will be o.k. until it gets cold gain? I AM GOING TO GET A FILTER THIS FRIDAY. i HAVE A CIRCULATION SYSTEM THAT CAME WITH THE 10 GALLON TANK BUT IT DOES NOT FILTER THE WATER properly. It is one of those foam rubber things. The filter moves the water so fast it is constantly stirring up the bottom, and the fish swim in front of the exhaust and get blown across the tank. It looks to me that they are doing it intentionally, for fun! Are you e-mailing from a bbs? Thanks again, Mike Thomas --- FLAME v1.1 * Origin: 20/20 TBBS * Chicago * 312-769-2020 (1:115/769) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 229 AQUARIUMS Ref: F5G00049 Date: 04/27/98 From: ROBERT RICE Time: 10:56am \/To: ALL (Read 1 times) Subj: Banded Sunfish.......... * Original Area: NANFE * Original From: Bill White (1:3615/50) * Original To : All (1:3615/51) This message was from ROBERTRICE@JUNO.COM to BILL WHITE, originally in conference Netmail and was forwarded to you by BILL WHITE. ------------------------- From: 1:135/110.1 Apparently-to: 110.sunshine.com!Bill.White To: nanf@actwin.com, Bill.White@110.sunshine.com Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 16:23:51 +0000 From: robertrice@juno.com (robert a rice) SUCCESSFULLY SPAWNING AND RAISING THE BANDED SUNFISH (Enneacanthus obesus) By Peter R. Rollo 2308 Cedar Lane Secane Pa, 19018 1-610-543-1660 In their native habitat in South Central New Jersey, spawning generally begins in May or when the water temperature approaches 70 F. On July 21, 1994 ten adult Banded Sunfish were collected from the same body of water as the Blackbanded Sunfish I collected. The water conditions found at this time of collection were no measurable hardness, pH of 6.0 and a temperature of 75 F. >From the literature the spawning process proceeds in typical sunfish fashion. The males construct a nest in the substrate and await a ripe female. With the approach of a female, the male begins to display with fins fully extended. The pair circle each other and after a short time the pair stops circling, the female releases her eggs and the male simultaneously fertilizes them. The males then remain on their nests to fan and guard the eggs. The adult Banded Sunfish are housed in a 20 gallon high aquarium and spent their summer in my shed. It is equipped with a thermostatically controlled exhaust fan to prevent heat buildups. Filtration is provided by an internal power head attached to a sponge filter and an air driven corner box filter. Lighting is provided by a florescent tube situated on top of the tank. By pushing the light to the back of the tank the light intensity can be lowered to appropriate levels. An inch and a half of gravel is provided along with a flower pot turned on its side. There are no plants in this tank. To aid in the wintering process and to insulate it from the summer heat the tank is enclosed in a plywood box with a removable lid insulated with styrofoam. An air space of about 4 inches surrounds the sides and top of the tank. In the winter minimal heating is provided using a voltage regulator connected to heat tape. The heat given off by the heat tape warms the air space. This warm air is pumped into the tank by the air pump and effectively prevents freezing or major drops in temperature. The heat is manually controlled and used only when excessively cold. Initially I tried to acclimate the Banded Sunfish to my tap water, which is hard and has a pH of about 6.8. They started off doing well but within two weeks their health started to decline. Their appetites decreased and the most noticeable change was that they lost most of their color. Since it was clear they would not thrive on my terms I went to work turning their tank water into a close duplicate of their natural habitat. The first problem to solve was how to soften the water with the least effort. I decided to use a rechargeable ion exchange softening pillow, which is placed in the filter box. Using a five gallon container and an extra power filter, I softened the water to levels that could not be measured by my test kit. I also added Blackwater Extract to the softened water. The softening process takes about one and a half to two hours per five gallons. Prepared water is stored in five gallon bottled water containers with lids. When I had prepared enough water, I changed the water and observed any changes. Within 48 hours the fishes natural color returned and they became active and hungry again. Softening the water appears to be a very important factor for maintenance of healthy fish. The next problem was how to acidify the water. While softening the water, I added pH Down to the water till I reached a pH of 6.0 to 6.2. The fish were slowly acclimated to this new water. Once completely acclimated I sampled the tank water pH and found it to be 6.8 instead of 6.0. I had neglected to consider that my tap water has a high buffering capacity and the pH will rebound to higher levels unless you exhaust the buffering capacity of the water. The next time I made water and adjusted the pH to 6.0 I waited several hours and checked the pH again. It had rebounded as it had in the tank. The pH was adjusted again and let to sit overnight. This time the pH remained the same. As an aid to the acidification and conditioning process, I also filter the water through peat for 24 hours prior to storage or use. The completed water is tea colored, as it is in their native habitat, and takes a day to make five gallons of water, but with the results I have gotten it is worth the trouble. In the summer the sunfish are fed moderately every other day, and in the winter they are fed sparingly every three or four days whenever the water temperature rises above 50 F. Below 50 F the food in their stomachs digests so slowly that it can actually spoil before digestion is complete, killing the fish. Besides, I am trying to recreate their natural environment, and minimal feedings in the winter is part of it. The foods offered in the summer include frozen and freeze dried bloodworms, frozen glassworms, small live crickets, small live cut up garden worms, live daphnia, frozen shrimp, live mosquito larva, live black worms and any other small insect I can catch. The winter diet for these fish will be the same as that in the summer except for some of the live foods that cannot be cultured indoors, caught or bought. As with my experiences with breeding Green Sunfish, the fish endured an average summer temperature of about 80 F and will experience average winter temperatures of about 40 F. Thirty- three percent water changes are made once a week spring, summer and fall. Twenty-five percent water changes are made about once a month in the winter (when water temperatures are consistently below 55 F). Don't be lax with water changes. These fish may be small but they have big appetites and produce large amounts of waste. It is extremely important that all water added to the aquarium during water changes be the same temperature, pH and hardness as the water in the aquarium or you run the risk of stressing or killing the fish. It is now early November and all is going well. I noticed that some of the Banded Sunfish appeared heavier than normal, but thought it a result of regular feedings. Several days later on November 6, 1994 at about 10 AM I noticed that one fish, with colors more intense than normal, was hovering over a small depression in the gravel, but not allowing any other fish near it. Upon closer examination I noticed another fish in the act of spawning with the hovering fish. I was not lucky enough to witness the entire spawning sequence but I imagine their spawning ritual is similar to that of the Blackbanded Sunfish. Apparently the dominate male had spawned with all ripe females and was guarding the eggs. All fish that appeared heavy the day before were now thin. The fertilized eggs are adhesive, perfectly round, colorless and between 1/32 and 1/16 of an inch in diameter. The male constructed a shallow circular nest typical of sunfish. I quickly removed all the fish and put them in a reserve tank I had set up in the house. The spawning females were a bit ragged with torn fins but otherwise in good shape. The power sponge filter and corner box filter were removed and replaced with an air driven sponge filter to ensure that none of the eggs or fry would be sucked into the filters. Air flow was high enough to cause a light current in the aquarium. The current prevents any harmful material from settling on the eggs and wigglers. A 25% water change was also made. I now anxiously waited for the eggs to hatch. No chemicals were added for egg protection. Clean, well filtered and aerated water is sufficient. Based on my reference books the eggs of this type of sunfish hatch in 3-5 days depending on temperature. On November 9, 1994 the Banded Sunfish eggs finally hatched. It * SLMR 2.1a * Give people the benefit of the doubt! --- Maximus/2 3.01 * Origin: Emerald Coast/2 (1:366/47) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 229 AQUARIUMS Ref: F5G00050 Date: 04/28/98 From: ROBERT RICE Time: 06:13pm \/To: ALL (Read 1 times) Subj: collecting.. * Original Area: NANFE * Original From: Bill White (1:3615/50) * Original To : All (1:3615/51) * Original Subj: Untitled This message was from ROBERTRICE@JUNO.COM to BILL WHITE, originally in conference Netmail and was forwarded to you by BILL WHITE. ------------------------- From: 1:135/292.1 Apparently-to: 110.sunshine.com!Bill.White To: roger@minnow.demon.co.uk, nanf@actwin.com, Bill.White@110.sunshine.com Date: Sat, 25 Apr 1998 23:21:11 +0000 From: robertrice@juno.com (robert a rice) Collecting: A Family Affair By Robert Rice When I first brought up the idea of a family collecting trip\vacation my wife rolled her eyes at me in that oh no not again way and said "I'll think about it ".You see I have a 3 year old daughter, a wife , and a 130 pound Rottwieller named Magnus and last but not least a 85 Toyota Tercel hatchback. So the logistics of fitting all the aforementioned living things along with our clothes and my collecting weapons seemed a little far fetched. As usual though, I did not let that stop me , I dug out maps of the Missouri Ozarks and began to scheme. My goal the Cardinal shiner or its cousin the Bleeding shiner. After some serious thought I came up with a plan. If I could somehow tie this together with a day of trout fishing I was sure everyone would agree. So i made my move ,"Honey I said You know we ought to go trout fishing since we are so close to the Ozarks now" Suddenly a strike "Hmmm trout fishing in the Ozarks I've never trout fished before that sounds kinda fun lets go....." at last my carefully laid trap was sprung and the trip was on. Then as luck would have it came the most ingenious twist in my plan. My n'er do well brother in law kept hinting we should go trout fishing .So I said sure, by the way do you still have your old station wagon? With that a home was found for my collecting gear and the date was set. After a little research it was decided that Bennett Spring State Park would be our base of operations and to satisfy the wife a cabin was rented for the week .Now we were in business. So the big day came the wife , the kid, and the big Dog were all folded carefully into my little car and we rattled and hummed the 4 hours to Bennett Spring State Park. Just as we settled into our cabin my brother in laws death wagon with its GM primer peeled paint job came lumbering in to let us know they were camping just down the road.As luck would have it my brother in Law also noticed our cabin had a full kitchen and he began checking out the food. I'm sure making mental notes on his menu choices. So after we fed everyone we made the trip into the state park and to the hatchery. I met a DNR Biologist and we talked for awhile about native fish.He seemed to only want to talk about trout (surprise). Did you know that we put in 2.25 trout for every tag sold the previous day? He told my wife with a smile? She was surprised," You mean all the fish come from here ?" Yep he said with pride . Most of the onlookers were very impressed I on the other hand was slightly nauseated. On the drive back to the cabin my wife said ."So fishing here is like Amusement Park fishing anyone can catch a fish if they pay for it heck you should just fish in the hatchery? "Yep afraid so." .......she shook her head in disbelief. Since we were supposed to be here on a trout fishing trip we planned our fishing trip tomorrow would be the trout day , the day after the hiking day (really scout for fish) and the last day would be our relax day before heading home (really collection day). So just before bed I plunked down the 35 $ for everyone's fishing licenses trout tags etc. then dozed off to bed. I awoke at 5 a.m. left everyone else sleeping and went to the head of the spring and waited ,it was beautiful. I saw the sun rise , the smell of the crisp air was invigorating as it mingled with the spring water. I watched and took mental notes as I had set myself a 1 hour time limit on these Amusement park fish. Eventually a few other fishermen made it in time for the starting whistle and we were off. In typical park fashion about half the people had strikes their first cast and in the course of my hour I caught several trout keeping 4 large ones for the table that night. I made it back to the cabin around 7:30 a.m. just in time for my brother in law to make it over for breakfast. It was agreed that today should be trout day and everyone should take their try at this amusement park fishing! So I spent the day changing lures and offering tidbits of advice to my wife and child as they tried their hand at trout fishing .As it turned out my daughter caught the big fish for the afternoon and made the trip a success it really was a great day. That evening we poured over maps and decided Rubiduox creek outside of Waynesville in Pulaski County provided the best opportunity to collect. After we had finalized plans we watched the evening news with some chagrin as they announced a cold front was screaming in from the north and in 48 hours it was gonna be a Noah type day.So instead of 1 day scouting and 1 collecting we were now down to 1 day collecting. We left at 7 a.m. and arrived on site at 9 a.m. to say this was an extraordinary site would be an understatement .It is attached to a city park with a playground and all the stuff to keep kids happy . Then there is a winding 200 yard gravel bar that leads to the secluded creek. Its waters are a mix of spring and river waters and support a brown trout population which the locals protect with vigor.As a matter of fact they have designated much of the creek as catch and release trophy trout waters. As I approached the bank darters scurried in all directions and I began to foam at the mouth. Within a few moments we had pulled out the seine and begun to make a pass with my dog taking the role of the beater driving the fish to our nets. The creek itself is about 15 feet wide with the first two thirds being a gentle slope that drops of at the base of a limestone shelf where it gains it's maximum depth of @ 6'. We were working the first two thirds in about 3 feet of water over gravel riffles in a moderately fast stream with a measured water temp of 61 F.The air temp was mid 80's and about perfect. When we pulled our first seine up my brother in law gasped it was literally filled with 3-4 inch silvery fish with red heads. We had found the bleeding shiner! We now had a new problem what do you do when your first seine full fills all your storage buckets! Well within 30 minutes we were no longer collecting but were identifying and packing. We found the predominate minnow to be the Bleeding Shiner (Luxilus zonatus), other species included Plains Top minnow ( Fundulus sciadicus), the Central Longear Sunfish (Lepomis Megalotis) and a variety of sculpins that were released. We also found Orangethroat Darters (Etheostoma spectabile ) in abundance. After several detours we took our catch home they seemed to be fine but within 48 hours the bleeding shiners began to show fungus that resisted treatment with CLOUT and over 80% died within 10 days. A very frustrating end to our trip and I hope the launching point of better follow up care of captured species. Those that survived are doing excellent feeding well on frozen brine shrimp and blood worms and have really livened up the 55 gallon tank they inhabit. Overall the trip was a big success and my Wife calls it our best vacation ever .We plan on doing a repeat in the spring of 1995 until then good-bye and good fishing! All material within this document is copyrighted to the author Robert Rice unless otherwise noted. I am the National Membership Director of NANFA (North American Native Fish Association) an organization devoted to the keeping native fish in the aquarium. If you are interested further in Native fish I recommend you check into the following resources Peterson's Field Guide to North American Fishes by Larry M. Page . If you would like to reach me I can be reached at fido address 210\112 * SLMR 2.1a * My desk is not messy... It's randomly organized! --- Maximus/2 3.01 * Origin: Emerald Coast/2 (1:366/47) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 229 AQUARIUMS Ref: F5G00051 Date: 04/28/98 From: ROBERT RICE Time: 06:13pm \/To: ALL (Read 1 times) Subj: Re: Re: NFC Chat this S * Original Area: NANFE * Original From: Bill White (1:3615/50) * Original To : All (1:3615/51) This message was from TGREENW900@AOL.COM to BILL WHITE, originally in conference Netmail and was forwarded to you by BILL WHITE. ------------------------- From: 1:135/292.1 Apparently-to: 110.sunshine.com!Bill.White From: TGreenw900 Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 07:54:02 EDT To: robertrice@juno.com, nanf@actwin.com, Bill.White@110.sunshine.com, Noturus@aol.com, schmi178@tc.umn.edu, prollo@juno.com, dwightmoody@hotmail.com, mcclurgl@washburn.edu, Marc1230@aol.com, DHFujika@hei.com, cochpa@sncac.snc.edu, littled@cris.com, bloomin@indy.net, rhondawi@m6.sprynet.com, shireen@stsci.edu, daniels.todd@mayo.edu, darrowcs@sover.net, fishman@golden.net, mcclurgl@acc.wuacc.edu, davis@sahs.stjohns.k12.fl.us, rravary@provide.net, gwsnr@sunflower.com, mbinkley@earthling.net join nanf ___ GIGO+ sn 164 at sunshine vsn 0.99.950801 * SLMR 2.1a * Do not steal this tagline. It is equipped with LoJack! --- Maximus/2 3.01 * Origin: Emerald Coast/2 (1:366/47) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 229 AQUARIUMS Ref: F5G00052 Date: 04/28/98 From: CAROL SHENKENBERGER Time: 07:47pm \/To: ERNIE POLAND (Read 1 times) Subj: Re: CRACKED CORNER IN TANK *** Quoting Ernie Poland from a message to Carol Shenkenberger *** CR> I do use a large filter though, the fluval 303. Before I used a small CS> CS> Good filter unit. I've been considering getting one. EP> www.thatpetplace.com fluval 303 $58.99 good price from what i've s EP> retail Yeah! Thats 20$ less than the local store. xxcarol --- Telegard v3.09.b17 * Origin: SHENK'S EXPRESS Norfolk VA 757-486-3057 28.8 Dual (1:275/100)