My own experience-in-home supports an aquarium life
span of around five years.
The mechanism for their rapid deterioration after
spawning hasn't been adequately explained to me,
though I remember Bruce S. writing about some of his
Centreville specimens spawning and then literally
falling apart before his eyes. My males did this at
age five.
Fish being annual in the wild and having a much longer
life span in captivity isn't an unusual occurrence.
Cardinal and Neon Tetras are annual fish in the wild,
but live much longer in captivity, when they have a
constant food source supply.
Klaus
--- Gerald Pottern <gbpottern-in-yahoo.com> wrote:
> 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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