Re: NANFA-- Re: Fundulus blairae

R. W. Wolff (choupiqu_at_wctc.net)
Fri, 6 Sep 2002 13:59:32 -0700

If anyone wants to try to play with these species with little effort, here
is an outline of my killi pond. I have had it set up for about five years
now. It is a seasonal pond, and throughout the months of late March through
early November it produces good numbers of North American killifish. A
similar set up could be stocked with blairae and dispar and the results
could be watched. Unfortunatly dispar is listed endangered in Wisconsin and
I cannot take this upon myself to try.

The pond is roughly 9 by 15 feet made from EPDM liner and edged with brick.
Its deepest point is a hole nearly three feet. The shoreline is shallow,
with a step down a third of the way from one end to about two feet, and the
last third has the nearly three foot hole in it. The shallows are either
rock work, wood roots, or carpets of shallow nearly emmegent weeds.
Driftwood is used as an anchor point for bushy aquatic plants like milfoil
and bladderwort, and some water lillies also provide surface cover. The wide
shallow end is a forest of catttails, horsetail and other emegent growth.

http://www.fortunecity.com/greenfield/bigmama/111/id17.htm
The pond in the top picture is the one I am discussing, the other two shots
are ancient pics of the beginnings of gar river, and the bottom shows an
example of a tub in the elassoma farm set up in the vegatable garden. The
web site has not been updated for sometime, and due to problems I can not
longer access it to work on it further. Hopefully I will have my new site
up and running this winter with updated photos of the ponds, and maybe some
other cool marsh stuff and fishroom stuff.

I have no filters but do have an airline that sometimes roils the surface,
and other times does little.

I stock the pond with chrysotus, cingulatus/rubrifrons ( not sure which),
pulverus ( this year, other years confluentus), sciadicus, j. floridae, l
ommata and l goodei. I also have some darters , pygmy sunfish ,dwarf type
sunfish, small crustaceans ( gammurus, grass shrimp and the like) and dwarf
crawfish. All the killis produce many young, and sometimes the other fish do
as well. Some years I feed the fish flake food and pellets, some years I am
too busy and they find plenty to eat on their own. Chrysotus is always a
big producer, and the other fundulus are strong some years, and other years
produce only a few young. The ommatas, goodie, and floridae always produce
tons of young.

I move the fish back into the fishroom in November and grow them out
through winter. I stock fish in March ( well usually, this year was screwy)
and do it all over again. Its like the bulb gardens that you dig up in fall
and store in a cool dry place, but the fish are neat to watch all winter
unlike the bulbs.

Ray
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
/"Unless stated otherwise, comments made on this list do not necessarily
/ reflect the beliefs or goals of the North American Native Fishes
/ Association"
/ This is the discussion list of the North American Native Fishes Association
/ nanfa_at_aquaria.net. To subscribe, unsubscribe, or get help, send the word
/ subscribe, unsubscribe, or help in the body (not subject) of an email to
/ nanfa-request_at_aquaria.net. For a digest version, send the command to
/ nanfa-digest-request_at_aquaria.net instead.
/ For more information about NANFA, visit our web page, http://www.nanfa.org