"the various marine and brackish killies will usually do well in hard
fresh water. They'll even survive in soft fresh water, but certainly
won't reproduce or look quite as good"
I am sorry to disagree with our esteemed President but I have found this
to be incorrect as far as Fundulus pulvereus is concerned.
In May of this year I caught some F, pulvereus in Kiln,Ms. in brackish
water.
I brought them home and established 1 male and 2 females in a bare 4
gal. plastic "kritter keeper" with a corner box filter and a ton of java
moss. They were kept in brackish water conditions. Over the next 2
months I changed 50 % of the water _every_ week with tap water with
Amquel and NovAqua to remove the chloramine and chlorine. At the same
time I replaced less and less of the salt. The water from our faucet has
a TDS of 245 and after adding AmQuell and NovAqua it rises to 528 TDS.
This figure only rises more each water change until it gets to the
liquid rock stage.
I then tried to replace the water with distilled water, this did reduce
the TDS to the soft stage but as Dr Stallsmiths stated the male's color
started to fade and egg production completely stopped. So I theorized
that salt water has a high TDS value so I stopped changing the water
with all distilled water and blended mostly tap water with the
distilled...still _no_ salt.
Well this did the trick the male's color returned and egg production
resumed,
not as great as in brackish water but sufficient for my needs. I assume
that having 2 females, many if not most of the eggs were being eaten by
1 female or the other. I took the parents out and placed them in my
community tank and after about 15 or 16 days fry appeared.....!
I have about 12 or a little more fry growing well so far as of today.
There were some deaths but the majority have survived so far. I caught 2
other killies in the same place as the pulvereus :
Luciana parva
Leptoluciana ommata
these I gave to my collecting partner, who still has them. I fully
intend to go back in May of "03" for some for me and try and spawn them
also.
The fish were kept at room temperature
but in my house that is 70 or below.....
like native fish I like it cool and am willing to pay for that luxury !
B G , thanks for mentioning my results on the net, but very few can beat
your knowledge or expertise. Sorry I was so long folks, have a good
evening and a good weekend.
Leo
************************************
Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler'
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