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Johnny darter tips?


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#1 Betta132

Betta132
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  • San Gabriel drainage area

Posted 28 January 2015 - 09:36 PM

I currently have what I'm 95% sure is a Johnny darter. Found him in the ghost shrimp tank at my LFS. He's running around somewhere in my 65g, and I don't often see him. Also, it's been a couple of months since I got him, and I haven't seen him eat. When I see him, though, his stomach is filled out. He comes up and perches on the branches now and then.

Any clue what he's eating? Could he be eating snails? Scuds? Maybe he's finding little random bugs? I know I have MTS and a few pond snails, not sure what else. I feed dry food that sinks to the bottom, and it sometimes takes the fish some time to gather it up. I offer frozen food now and then, but not enough for that to be what's supporting him.

Any way I can get him to come out more? Do dither fish work, or is he just permanantly crypic-ish?

Also, are Johnny darters compatible with microrasboras? If I could catch him (not sure I could, not eating means no traps), I could possibly move him to my 29g. It's going to house Betta albimarginata and some little fish like ruby tetras and maybe microrasboras. I had a swamp darter take the eye out of a ruby tetra, so I'm a bit unsure about compatibility here.



#2 Michael Wolfe

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  • North Georgia, Oconee River Drainage

Posted 28 January 2015 - 09:45 PM

Yes, I would bet that he is eating snails... darters love eating snails... happens all the time.

 

Yes, he would love frozen brine shrimp or mysis or bloodworms.  In fact, consistently feeding bloodworms in the same place everyday would be a great way to get him to come out to the front of the tank where you could see him.


Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. - Benjamin Franklin

#3 Betta132

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  • San Gabriel drainage area

Posted 28 January 2015 - 09:57 PM

That definitely makes sense. Explains all the empty snail shells at the back of the tank, too... I thought the assassins were just being unusually active.

Hmm, maybe I should remove one of the assassins to be sure he has enough snails.

Bloodworms, huh? I can do that. I think part of the reason he was hiding was the 20 emerald eye rasboras I had in the tank... hyperactive boogers. They freaked everything out with their hyper-ness. Hopefully he'll come out more now that the hyperactivity has been moved somewhere else.

Gotta say, I was really surprised the first time I saw him chilling up on one of the branches. I walked over to the tank, and Mr Lizardface is just sitting up on a branch staring at me.



#4 Michael Wolfe

Michael Wolfe
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  • North Georgia, Oconee River Drainage

Posted 28 January 2015 - 10:02 PM

Oh, they definitely look right back at you.  Darters are very attentive.  And they can twist their heads around in a way that just doesn't look like any other fish. And they are very used to perching on rocks driftwood and such in the wild... and in an aquarium they will make due with your plants.


Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. - Benjamin Franklin

#5 Betta132

Betta132
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  • San Gabriel drainage area

Posted 28 January 2015 - 10:13 PM

He's like a lizard more than a fish, it's awesome. Especially when they're confused... ever seen a darter who's suddenly found himself surrounded by a bunch of pygmy cories? Like watching a cat/lizard thing with no clue whatsoever what just happened to its world.



#6 gzeiger

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Posted 28 January 2015 - 10:56 PM

Darters are amazing to watch.

 

I'd remove all the assassin snails if you want to keep more darters. Snails go extinct in every tank I've kept darters in, even when continually restocked.



#7 Betta132

Betta132
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  • San Gabriel drainage area

Posted 28 January 2015 - 11:15 PM

I'll do so. These are MTS, burrowing snails, so hopefully they can do reasonably well even with the predators.

If not, I'm already using half a 10g to grow snails for a future dwarf puffer. Judging by the numbers in there, I'll have plenty of extras. Plus, I'm going to have at least one larger tank with no darters, I can trap snails from there.



#8 smbass

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Posted 29 January 2015 - 10:46 AM

Don't take this personally but I find it very hard to believe you got a johnny from a feeder tank. If you know a bit about the tropical fish trade in the US (what is sold in pet stores) the vast majority come from fish farms in central FL. The only darter that is likely to be found in these hatchery ponds in central FL is the Swamp Darter Etheostoma fusiforme. So it is highly unlikely you will ever find anything but swamp darters in pet store feeder tanks. There are no Johnny Darters in Fl. There is a tiny area of the St. Johns river basin with Tesselated but that is not where all the fish farms are and highly unlikely. The only other two species that are relatively widespread in the Fl peninsula are Blackbanded Darter Percina nigrofasciata and Brown Darter Etheostoma edwini. Blackbanded like more flow and are found in rivers, brown darters also probably are not quite far enough south to end up in hatchery ponds but they do live in stagnant vegetated waters so they are probably the second most likely species. I still would be willing to bet that you have a swamp darter and all the others you have seen are also swamp darters. You could post a picture of it and we could probably confirm that.

This being said swamp darters are very easy to keep in an aquarium and despite lacking much in the way of interesting colors they still are very interesting fish. They like to climb through plants and are not aggressive toward other fish. They feed pretty much entirely on small inverts so frozen blood worms or other similar frozen or live feeds work great for them. If you like darters that do well in planted aquariums but have some more color my two favorites would be the brown darter and the Iowa darter Etheostoma exile. Both behave very similarly to the swamp darter and do great in the average planted aquarium.

Brian J. Zimmerman

Gambier, Ohio - Kokosing River Drainage


#9 Josh Blaylock

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Posted 29 January 2015 - 11:02 AM

My initial thought was it could be a Swamp Darter.  I often see them with ghost shrimp in my LFS.


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#10 Betta132

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Posted 29 January 2015 - 12:55 PM

I can't get a picture because I can rarely find him. I'll try to lure him out with some bloodworms, but I haven't seen him this week, and that's not uncommon.

I'm fairly sure he isn't a swamp darter. I could be wrong, but he doesn't look quite as skinny as a swamp darter, and they have a different sort of pattern. Darters all look pretty similar, though.

Could he be some variety of hybrid?



#11 Isaac Szabo

Isaac Szabo
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  • Marble Falls, AR

Posted 30 January 2015 - 12:15 AM

Darters all look pretty similar, though.


Ha! Though swamp and johnny darters do look similar, darters as a whole are one of the largest and most diverse groups of fishes in North America, probably with more variation in colors and forms than any other group. If you think swamp darters are neat, you'll be blown away by many of the other ones. Get a copy of "Peterson Guide to Freshwater Fishes" or browse the NANFA members photo galleries. Here are some of our members' darter photos:

http://gallery.nanfa...dae/Etheostoma/
http://gallery.nanfa...dae/Etheostoma/
http://gallery.nanfa...dae/Etheostoma/
http://gallery.nanfa...dae/Nothonotus/

#12 don212

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Posted 30 January 2015 - 07:53 AM

I can't get a picture because I can rarely find him. I'll try to lure him out with some bloodworms, but I haven't seen him this week, and that's not uncommon.

I'm fairly sure he isn't a swamp darter. I could be wrong, but he doesn't look quite as skinny as a swamp darter, and they have a different sort of pattern. Darters all look pretty similar, though.

Could he be some variety of hybrid?



#13 smbass

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Posted 30 January 2015 - 10:36 AM

Not likely a hybrid, they occur far less often than sunfish and only with relatively closely related species. I have only found a few hybrids of darters in all the field work I have done. Most common is orangethroat x rainbow. Found a single greenside x banded and 3-4 tippecanoe x bluebreast. I have seen preserved specimens of a few others including a very interesting one from PA that appeared to be a longhead x logperch. So it does happen but I have literally seen hundreds if not over 1000 sunfish hybrids. I would have a hard time with a johnny or tesselated x a swamp darter. They really are not that similar in the grand scheme of darters.

Brian J. Zimmerman

Gambier, Ohio - Kokosing River Drainage


#14 Matt DeLaVega

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Posted 30 January 2015 - 06:13 PM

Don212 your post says nothing. Shall I delete it?

The member formerly known as Skipjack





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