Be careful of sculpins around anything they can swallow. They're voracious
and I've had some actually choke to death on tesselated darters that were
too big for them to eat. I've also watched them stalk crayfish that were
far too large for them to swallow. (The crayfish usually stayed intheir
burrows to keep away from the sculpins.)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Neely" <rheopresbe_at_hotmail.com>
To: <nanfa_at_aquaria.net>
Sent: Friday, February 20, 2004 7:46 PM
Subject: RE: NANFA-- Guppies as sculpin food
> Todd,
>
> Tank size will only be a problem if one of your sculpins is smaller than
> about 40% of the body size of another, and spawning won't have anything to
> do with it.
>
> Sculpins have an exceptionately well-tuned system of lateral-line sensors
> all over their head, and they rely on these to feed as much as they do
> vision. It's worth noting that the largest pores are those at the tip of
the
> chin and at the front of the canal that runs right above the upper jaw.
> These things are designed to sense minute movements of water and
triangulate
> exactly where the fish should strike.
>
> I have had zero success getting them to take anything but live food, or
> something that you actively move in front of them. It sounds like your
guppy
> factory should work fine. I used to use Gambusia to maintain sculpins, and
> they worked great, especially if you keep the water in the sculpin tank
> fairly shallow. Another alternative is to use their live food requirement
as
> an excuse to go out every week or so with a d-frame dip net and gather
> stream inverts...
>
> Mottled sculpins from Ohio should be able to handle temps into the low 70s
> for short periods... the best study on thermal tolerance in sculpins to
date
> (Walsh et al. 1997) found that mottled sculpin from north Georgia had
> minimal mortality when acclimated to 20 C (68 F) and withstood brief
periods
> of up to 33.8 C (almost 94 F!!) before losing equilibrium.
>
> The guppies should be able to cope with water in the high 60s or low 70s,
> but the rate of reproduction is going to drop dramatically, and since you
> want nice fat sassy sculpins, you're probably better off keeping them at
78
> F.
>
> cheers,
> Dave
>
> Saint Louis, MO
> --
>
> Walsh, S.J., D.C. Harney, and C.M. Timmerman. 1997. Variation in thermal
> tolerance and routine metabolism among spring- and stream- dwelling
> freshwater sculpins (Teleostei: Cottidae) of the southeastern United
> States. Ecology of Freshwater Fish 1997(6):84-94.
> offer! http://click.atdmt.com/AVE/go/onm00200359ave/direct/01/
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