Re: NANFA-- Bully stonecats?

Todd Crail (farmertodd-in-buckeye-express.com)
Tue, 8 Jun 2004 16:57:06 -0400

Hey Matt,

Get the habitat in place. They need places to feel comfy, not territorial.
I've never had trouble with stonecats (or any Noturid I've kept) unless they
_didn't_ have their little place in the world.

I wouldn't doubt that the greenside was bit. On the riffle that we sampled
at Little Beaver Creek a year ago in the spring, there wasn't one greenside
that _wasn't_ beat up. And there were _tons_ of stonecats. I think there
was too little space for everyone who wanted to occupy a certain niche in
the habitat.

The redfins are a toss up... The only redfins I've ever had success with
were collected from 55 degree or less water. I think this is another
species, like redside dace, and possibly brook silversides that only benefit
from being in as little stress as possible (all fat from eating in the
summer and cool temps)-in-collection time. Redfin are also not the most
aggressive feeders off the bat. I've found that freezed dried plankton is a
good first food for them, with unaggressive darters as tank mates, as it
stays on the surface for-in-least a little while. But if that stonecat is on
the go because he's unhappy with his surroundings... He probably banged them
up too.

So it might be worth the effort with redfin to collect silvery fish in the
fall, feed them well, and watch them put on the show come May. I didn't do
anything with light, temp or anything, and the ones I'm keeping are in full
color now, the females are gravid. It will be interesting to see how many
of the males will make it through the summer and into winter.

Todd

----- Original Message -----
From: "matt ashton" <ashtonmj2003-in-yahoo.com>
To: <nanfa-in-aquaria.net>
Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 2004 8:35 AM
Subject: NANFA-- Bully stonecats?

> Last week on the Ohio regional trip to the Grand River I picked up 3
stonecats, 2 greenside darters, 2 blackside darters, 1 log perch, 6 redfin
shiners, and one rainbow darter. Over the course of the week all but one of
my redfin's systematically bit the dust, with brusing to their tail fin and
eventually losing all control of their direction and depth. I figured they
were just beating themselves up in a new environment but now one of my
greensides have the same brusies along its caudal peduncle and fraying of
the caudal fin rays. I am really starting to suspect that the stonecats are
beating up on these fish-in-night. Has anyone ever seen this. I need one or
more hiding places for the stonecats still but I would still like to keep
one of them if I have to give the stonecats the boot. Any suggestions? Any
thoughts or known occurances of this behaviour?

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