Bummer! That's the worst one I've heard since that guy's outdoor tank
broke last winter. If you need some starters, I'm loaded up with F.
stelifer right now. I'd be glad to send you some. I even have a couple of
longear, but I don't suppose you're interested in more of those. (-:
Steven A. Ellis
Kennesaw, GA
At 07:33 PM 5/25/00 -0700, you wrote:
>Well, of all my fish disasters this has got to be almost the worst. I
>have spent the last few weeks trying to run down an elusive welaka
>site in southern Mississippi. I have had no luck at all, even when BG
>volunteered to help me scout out the target area. I found lots of
>signipinnis, and several nice madtoms, which I added to my
>collection. Now, my house is very small so I maintain only two
>indoor tanks: a 110 which I have to share with my wife (silver
>dollars and tiger barbs, plus whatever natives I can fit in between)
>and a 34 which I use for smaller natives and darters. About a
>month ago BG and I made the long trek to Chemin-a-haut Bayou for
>some Pteronotropis hubbsi. We had tried earlier in the year and
>netted only a single specimen. This time we went home with about
>a dozen hubbsi each, but ALL females. Well, the next day I had six
>hubbsi left and a very fat and happy longear. So the longear got a
>free tour of the back yard and the remaining hubbsi diappeared one
>by one. No carcasses, no nothin'. Somebody ate 'em. The culprit
>didn't eat 'em very fast, but he had all day to do it (to quote
>Charley Grimes). So then there were none. Anyway, on one of my
>searches I went with BG to a known welaka spot in Louisiana, from
>which I took home 2 pairs (gorgeous, in top condition) and BG took
>several others. They were doing great - swimming happily, eating,
>etc. A few days later I notice Ich in the small tank wherein the
>welaka were (I wasn't about to make the mistake of putting them in
>the big tank like I did the hubbsi). Geez, when was the last time I
>had Ich? (No comments about quarantine, puleeze!). I dragged out
>some ancient Maracide and started treatment. So far I hadn't lost
>any fish; I had caught it before it got really established. But THEN I
>do a water change. A large one, which is what I always do when
>I'm treating a tank. I had filled the 34 and started on the 110, when
>I notice all the fish in the 34 are doing death spirals and gasping for
>breath. The ones in the 110 are starting to do the same (my wife's
>beloved tropicals seem unaffected!), so I stopped refilling before
>any more damage could be done. The water company claimed they
>had made no changes to the water, and it had tested OK the week
>before. Well, anyway I lost my welaka, most of my signipinnis, a
>few madtoms, and I don't even want to think about what else. It
>just makes me sick.
>
>So, as I get home from a hard day's work, and prepare to net the
>bloated, turtle-gnawed corpses out of my tanks, I just wanted y'all
>to think of me, and be glad it wasn't YOU!
>
>
>Prost,
>
>Martin
>------
>"Cry to it, nuncle. as the cockney did to the eels when she put
>'em i' the paste alive; she knapped 'em o' the coxcombs with a
>stick, and cried 'Down wantons, down!'"
>
>
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