Re: NANFA-L-- California Natives - They're All Threatened or

J. C. (hillbillynursery-in-yahoo.com)
Tue, 23 Aug 2005 14:22:11 -0700 (PDT)

Hi Jerry,

I have been trying to catch/find a fish locally that
is endangered. My reason is I want to raise them in
aquaria for rerelease. According to my local wildlife
people they are extinct in my county. But I think I
caught one a few years back. If I can prove they are
still here and show a high quality fish room the state
will allow me to raise them in aquaria. I am not a
native fish buff like alot of the people on this list.
But I am a killifish nut and there are alot of native
killifish that I would like to keep.

I think I made one person upset with me because I am
trying to catch and photograph and endangered fish
good enough to prove they are still here. After you
give the state photo proof they will send in the group
over this fish(currently in Chattanooga and near
Knoxville) to try and catch some of the fish for
breeding in aquariums to release. They do let the
public raise the fish for them. But I think what gets
under alot of peoples dander about this is you are
removing some of the few that are in the wild to begin
the process. Right now the conservation effort has a
few different locations. I just want this area better
protected. I want the cattle fenced out. The cattle do
not need to get to the spring pool. They has access to
the whole river(which I understand in not good for the
river either). Very little of the vegatation that used
to be in this pool is still there. I went back to this
pool to get an aquatic plant I had in my tanks years
ago to find it no longer there when I started getting
back into fish(college stopped my hobby, wife and kids
kept me from getting back into it sooner).

I am awaiting a settlement for a back injury. I
plan on building a house with a full basement. The
basement is going to be one large fish room. The
property has a 35 X 80 barn which part of will be used
in warm weather for fish. I also plan to have 10 500
gallon concrete tanks outside for summer use. Alot of
people say I am nuts but I used to make alot of
spending cash from a few 10 gallon tanks inside and
about 15 cast iron bath tubs out in the woods. My idea
is to raise tropical aquarium fish for proffit.

BTW marbles are the best substrate for some fish.
The eggs slide off the round structure of the marble
and get down so the adults can not eat the eggs. When
raising barbs I used tanks with 3 marbles deep as the
substrate with a corner air suplied box filter. These
tanks did get did get regular water changes and the
adults were not in them very long-in-a time. I hate
the bright colored fixtures like your pink castle
quote. My wife has a bright pink/green/blue cave thing
in the kids goldfish tank. The sunken ship with a
bubble opening chest can look cool if in the right
tank, but my tanks are drift wood and alot of aquarium
plants with pea gravel as my substrate. Most of my
killifish breeding tanks are bare except for the
breeding mop or container of peat moss for deposit of
eggs with no filtration(killifish in general do not
like water movement). With no filtration I am doing
30% water changes every 2 days on 10 gallon tanks with
2 to 6 guppy sized fish in them.

So do not let a few people puffing up-in-you for
wanting to do this stop you. If they will not listen
to reason that you are really looking out for the
fishes well being just walk away or delete the emails.

Later, John TN

>
> Like I said before, I have had 15 years experience
> in keeping fish from
> marine reefs to Amazon biotope tanks. I can speak
> pH, turbidity,
> salinity, ammonium ion concentrations, ion exchange,
> and CO2 gradients
> across gill membranes with anyone here. I only
> mention that to dispel
> any fear that I might be some guy who saw a picture
> of a "cool"
> endangered fish and want to put it in his 10 gallon
> tank with the pink
> castle and air-operated pirate chest (don't forget
> the marbles for
> substrate).
http://mail.yahoo.com
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