Re: NANFA-- algae filter

Moontanman_at_aol.com
Wed, 21 Aug 2002 20:32:38 EDT

In a message dated 8/21/02 7:24:48 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
wally_at_wallybillingham.com writes:

<< If you could get my Grass Pickerels to eat nonliving things that would be
great. On the other hand watching them stalk, lunge, turn, then swallow a
fish half their size is also very cool :-)
>>

Watching red fin pickerels eat gambusia is satisfying in more ways than one!
I am not a big fan of gambusia. I have also so noticed that red fin pickerels
seem to prefer the melanistic gambusia over the normal color and that
populations of gambusia with less than normal predators have more black
gambusia. I had thought the black coloration was connected to gambusia living
in polluted water and the most active gambusia predator (red fin pickerel)
not being very tolerant of polluted water. But by transferring black gambusia
into a controlled non polluted environment the black ones are picked off by
red fin pickerels much faster than normal gambusia. While black gambusia kept
in similar conditions but with no predators turn up more often by a factor of
several times greater than normal gambusia. All this is anecdotal and would
need more controlled conditions to really be called an experiment. Any way to
return to the subject, so far I haven't been able to get red fin pickerels to
eat anything but live food with a preference for gambusia in my area. In
waters where the only available prey is gambusia the red fin pickerel are
smaller (on average) than red fin pickerel that occur where there is a wider
variety of prey items.

Moon
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