Wally
----- Original Message -----
From: <Moontanman_at_aol.com>
To: <nanfa_at_aquaria.net>
Sent: Wednesday, August 21, 2002 8:32 PM
Subject: Re: NANFA-- algae filter
> 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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