NANFA-- Darters R Us

Bruce Stallsmith (fundulus_at_hotmail.com)
Fri, 04 Aug 2000 11:58:24 EDT

In between worrying about the state of the planet I've been keeping fish...
In particular, my most recent project is 2 groups of Etheostoma kennicotti
(stripetail darters). The older, larger (4-5 cm) group of 3 is in a 29 gal.
tank with various shiners and killifish and have all learned to relish
freezedried bloodworms; they hang out under the Biowheel filter and ambush
bloodworms that have been forced down in the current. They're all sleek and
well-colored and a gas to watch as they move around in a little gang. In an
8-gal. tank I have another group of 4 stripetails, all young-of-the-year
about 2 cm long. They're too small to easily handle the bloodworms, so I've
started up a brine shrimp hatchery for the first time since moving to
Alabama. They were quick on the uptake the first time they were fed BBS,
making short lunges to grab passing shrimps. The rosefin shiners in the same
tank also like the BBS, but I think the darters are better at snagging them.

If you're in the market for either bloodworms or BS you should check out
brineshrimpdirect.com who sell excellent products for a good price. The BS
I'm using were bought as a 6 gram vial, with what seems to be a high hatch
rate. This only cost $2.50, if I remember correctly. Since I'm not running a
fish hatchery it's worth buying a small amount for now, since the world
brine shrimp market is in an unpredictable flux. The Big Hope on the
KillieTalk list is Russian brine shrimp but they still seem to be an unknown
quantity for both price and quality.

--Bruce Stallsmith
The Lawnmower City, AL

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