NANFA-L-- Chrosomus firing up

Gerald Pottern (gbpottern-in-yahoo.com)
Fri, 2 Dec 2005 14:33:26 -0800 (PST)

Hi Todd - My original chrosomus (from centreville AL) lived-in-room temp for five years and spawned good eggs year-round (not continuously, but on & off without respect to season) from about age 2 to 5. Seasonal chilling is not required,-in-least for the warmwater pops (dunno -might be different in cool stream pops ??). My 2nd & 3rd generation rainbows behave simialrly. Spawning usually occurs in the morning, and the fish turn translucent hot pink with a bright silver lateral band just before & during spawning - looks like they have internal lighting. Apparently the melanophores all contract down to nothing so there's no trace of dusky color. Female bodies get even brighter than the males, but they have less blue-violet in the fins & head. They do lots of playful chasing & flashing all the time -- so watch for that translucent change that indicates breeding (you may need sunglasses to watch). So who's claiming they die after spawning ? --gerald

Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2005 12:42:21 -0500
From: "Crail, Todd" <tcrail-in-UTNet.UToledo.Edu>
Subject: NANFA-L-- Chrosomus firing up.

Hi gang,

My rainbow shiners are really showing the magenta flecks, the females
look gravid and all of them are rooooosy. I can see a little lateral purple
on the dominant males. How much pre-spawn flash have they done for you folks
who've spawned them? Is this an indication of a spawn, or are they just
feeling sassy and large? It's not like they got cold or anything (just down to
62 the last three weeks), so I'm not even sure the eggs will work if they do.

I'm looking forward to the color and photographs, but not so much the
swan song they apparently sing a week later. Fort Payne is a loooooooong
way from here.
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