4 replies to this topic

[Michael Wolfe]

This April I got six Bluespotted Sunfish (Enneacanthus gloriosus) from Stephen (our friend here sbtgrfan). These are SC fish without specific location data. I brought them home and set them up in one of my backyard "ponds". I have talked about these before, but a quick description. They are 100 gallon Rubbermaid stock tanks. This one was totally emptied and wiped down with hydrogen peroxide before being refilled and with "Prime" treated water and some water lilies that had been in there before. The water in this tank got pretty green and I remember reading that breeding success was reduced with Enneacanthus that could not see each other. So I added some hornwort and the water seemed to clear up.

Today I took the plants out and swept the tank repeatedly with my perfect dipnet to find, that if you start with this...


add water and plants, and occasionally food (but not really). You might end up with 19 of these:


I kept a handful aside to bring into a small swampy bowfront aquarium in the house, and put the rest back in the tank, assuming that they will be hardy enough to survive the Georgia winter and maybe make more next year. So chalk another one up to the back yard stock tank! Thanks Stephen!

[mattknepley]

Congrats, Michael. That's fun stuff!

[littlen]

Most excellent. To quote Jeff Goldblum from Jurassic Park, "Life....uhh....uhh....finds a way".