Re: NANFA-- Stonerollers

Bruce Stallsmith (fundulus_at_hotmail.com)
Fri, 11 May 2001 00:18:44 -0400

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Thank you Travis, your experience is what happens to a lot of people with
fish I think: you put the fish in a tank and they spawn seemingly oblivious
to you. I'm still impressed by how few accounts there are for these fishes
that are relatively common around much of the country. Jan Hoover turns out
to be the source for much information on previous research on this genus. A
fair amount of work has been done with these fish, especially in Oklahoma.
But I'm working with the largescale stoneroller, Campostoma oligolepis,
which seems to be less well studied. Hopefully I'll have something of
interest by the fall.

--Bruce Stallsmith
Huntsville, AL

>I collected six fish in early spring (Feb-March?). The sex ratio was, I
>think, 1:1. Spawning occured much like Wojtowicz's account. The fish were
>put in a 40 gallon long aquarium in an unheated garage. Temp. was not
>documented. One evening a few days after collection, I noticed that the
>fish were swimming very rapidly, and pushing against one another, usually
>in pairs. No pit of any type was ever dug out. My hyopthetical reasoning
>behind this is that maybe the pea gravel substrate was too large to
>facilitate nest building (3/8" in size). I doubt it, though.
>
>Eggs were never seen being released that evening and although I never
>looked for eggs in the days following, stoneroller fry soon appeared in the
>tank. Diet for fry: I fed them powdered, dry daphnia (I witnessed them
>consuming it) but I would imagine that they fed heavily on the thick algae
>growth in this established tank. Within six months, I probably had 40 fry
>left (out of what was probably 200 fry). I had approx. 20 live to be 2
>years old, but they were brought to an unfortunate end when I introduced
>what was obviously a too-large-for-conditions stonecat.
>
>As for the parents- two died of what was probably poisoning from the
>freshly cured paint that lined the tank (constructed of plywood) and the
>others jumped, coming to an end as a piscine raisin. By the time the eggs
>hatched, the tank was completely devoid of adults.

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