30 replies to this topic

[smbass]

I often talk about Cyprinella shiners and how they are one of my favorite groups of fish to keep in aquariums because of the show the large males can put on when they get in the mood defending territories and sparing with one another. I sit in front of my stream tank all the time and watch them and love it! Last night I decided to try to capture some of this and share...

 

 

[smbass]

And some more...

[smbass]

The other reason for posting these is I also have a question about Fireyblack Shiners. I (as many people did) collected quite a few of these at last years convention in NC and had hoped to breed them this year. I still have quite a few and I still am making an attempt to spawn them in my outdoor stream set up this year but they just have not done as well as other Cyprinella species I have had. Their colors are amazing and most Cyprinella I have had have not been hard at all to get them to thrive in a tank. The Fireyblacks though have not done real well for me. How have they done for others who kept them last year? Are they just not as adaptable as most Cyprinella sp? I have tried both keeping a group in a 75 with nothing else and some in my big stream tank. The ones in the stream tank just seem to slowly waste away and get thin despite every other fish in the tank doing quite well. Even the larger group with no competition from other species in the 75 by themselves seem to be rather thin. Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions? I'd love to have a big male of one of them battle it out with this huge C. galactura and whipplei in the above photos. If they don't improve in the outdoor stream by mid June or so I think I'll replace them with some of my local C. whipplei which I have never bred and really should give a serious try to do so.

[Isaac Szabo]

Awesome photos Brian!

[gerald]

IME fieryblacks are less aggressive than other Cyprinellas I've kept (satinfin, whitefin, and greenfin) and may get bullied by those species.  They do well mixed with Notropis, Clinostomus, Nocomis, other fast-moving but not-too-aggressive minnows.  Not gaining weight is a bad sign - I wonder if they're infected with something.  Healthy ones are not at all difficult to keep and eat all kinds of foods.

[smbass]

Yeah I have wondered too if they have some sort of internal parasites or something. They feed well just like any other Cyprinella they just always look thin. I am hoping that maybe if they manage to spawn and grow up under my water conditions too that my captive raised ones may fair better, that is of course if they spawn.

 

Gerald do you think they may eat more algae than other cyprinella sp? that was another thought I had that my usual diet of mostly frozen blood worms, frozen mysis, flakes, and sinking shrimp pellets (this all gets put in my stream tank in ample supply every other day) is not enough for these.

 

All the other fish in the tank (various darters, many different cyprinids, a huge sharpfin chubsucker, madtoms I never see, some Enneacanthus sunfish, and even a golden topminnow) all seem very fat and happy. I know calling this my "stream tank" is not appropriate for all of these species. It is kind of the everything that will get along tank. It is L shaped and 165 gallons stretching a total of 11.5 feet from back corner on one end to the back corner on the other. The front of the tank is more like 8.5 you loose distance in that back corner. There is quite a variety of habitats and varying flows and substrate so all the fish seem to find their place and I just spread a lot of food all over the tank.

 

I feed the group of about 20 that had been alone in a 75 by themselves the same mix of foods. Those got moved outdoors yesterday so if algae is needed in the diet they will have plenty now.

[mattknepley]

Love those photos, Brian! My greenfins were some of my favorite fish. I'm interested to hear this thread out as I'd like some fieryblacks to replace the greenfins, if they can be expected to do well. I have never kept them. The only ones I have seen in captivity belong to Rob Nichols (killier) and they were some beefy fish. I'm no expert, but eating and not gaining/keeping weight does sound like it could involve parasites.

[Evan P]

Most cyprinids that have wasted away in my tanks seem to do much better when they have access to some green foods. Spirulina flakes work well, but I make my own frozen mix of (in order of amount, high to low) kale, shrimp, fish, carrots, garlic, and calcium supplement. This may be a bit overboard, but my fish really enjoy it and show great color. 

[gerald]

I would expect them to eat less algae than the more horizontal-mouth Cyps like nivea and leedsi.  Fritz's book mentions a gut content study of 30 pyrrho's collected in SC in May, in which 20% of the fish had some algae in their gut (doesnt say how much algae).  "Dipteran larvae" were the most  prevalent food item.  I agree with yeahson that veggies often help in captivity even with carnivorous fish, maybe because wild carnivores rely on prey that are well-fed with fresh algae.  (just a guess).  Peas and sweet potato (baked) are worth a try - I've had Cyps and other minnows eat those.  Leafy greens they havent shown much interest in.

 

...  eating and not gaining/keeping weight does sound like it could involve parasites.

 

... or bacterial or viral infection.

[Matt DeLaVega]

Our Ohio water is usually around pH 8+ due to all of our limestone. Could that have some effect on them? Down in the mountain country it is mostly igneous rock, and I imagine the stream pH would be lower. Just a shot in the dark. I don't usually think of Cyprinella as being too sensitive to things like this, but it may be worth considering. Just for the heck of it, maybe try rainwater for a bit. Or dip out some of your pond water. Your water source may be different, but mine is about 8.3 which is pretty identical to my local streams mid summer when the water is sluggish. The streams test a bit lower this time of year when they are mostly swift runoff.

[smilingfrog]

I have a question regarding the males sparring activities. The local species around here are spotfin shiners, and I have kept them in the past and enjoyed watching them spar. The first time I kept them I had 2 males and 3 females. After some time one of the males lost an eye. I assumed the other male was the culprit. The last time I kept them I also had a couple instances of spotfins loosing an eye, though that time one of the females was a victim as well. I am wondering if anyone else has had this type of experience. Is the loss of an eye the occasional result of cyprinella sparring in anyone else's experience, or was this likely due to an entirely different tank mate?
Other tank mates that I know were present with both sets of spotfins were: rainbow and fantail darters, redside and southern redbelly dace, and stonecats. There may have been a common shiner with both sets as well, but I'm not sure if I had it at the time of the first occurrence. They were kept in a 75 gallon tank.

[smilingfrog]

Oh, forgot to say, very nice pictures.

[mattknepley]

Smilingfrog- I can only speak from my experience, but for all their roughhousing my Cyprinellas never seemed to inflict any serious injury on each other. Although it is certainly possible they were taking each others eyes out, IM(limited)E it seems more likely it would have one of the other fishes. Cyprinellas are pretty quick fish though, if someone was pegging their eyes it seems as though you'd be losing some smaller, slower fish altogether. Is it possible there was some tank furniture or something else that these fish may have been sideswiping (mostly) headfirst? Just spitballin' here...

[Michael Wolfe]

I've had a number of Cyprinellas... never seen any actual damage from sparring.  My C. leedsi in particular are all flared fins and circling but no one ever really gets hit very hard.  In a 75 you should have had plnety of room to hide.  You didn't mention it, but I blame most 'damage' on crayfish, and most disappearances on catfish.  But that's my experience.  I agree with Matt, Cyprinella are FAST, I cannot imagine how quick something would have to be to catch one in the eye... unless it was asleep and some devious decapod... 

[littlen]

I dabbled with a group of 20 or so Sponfins a few years back--and would see a lot of torn/shredded fins.  But I don't really chalk that up to damage.  At least, not on the same level as missing eyes.  

There were also a few shiners (Notropis) in a 75 mixed community, along with a juvenile (4") hogsucker that were both victims of eye-plucking.  At the time, the only Cyprinella was a single, male, Whitetail.  My experience also doesn't suggest them as dirty fighters and going for the eyes.  I still do not know who the culprit was....but I have my suspicions.

[keepnatives]

The only fish I've had that plucked other fishes eyes were cutlips minnows and mudminnows.  Witnessed attacks in both species.  As I recall the cutlips always went for orange or red eyes like stonerollers or rock bass.   

[Betta132]

I had a swamp darter that went a bit nutso and started taking the eyes out of its tankmates. It was a model tankmate for quite a while, but then it suddenly took the eye out of a ruby tetra. I saw it happen, and two of the other rubies were missing an eye each. 

I have some blacktail shiners, and they spar a bit. Now and then one ends up missing a scale or three, but that's about it. No damage, no eye attacking. 

[smbass]

Thanks for all the diet suggestions and I may try to start feeding some squished peas or something else along with what I already feed in my stream tank. I do still have 5 smaller fireyblacks in that tank. The rest like I mentioned got moved outside. I too have wondered about the pH of the water and if that may be a factor. That was a good suggestion Matt. I just set up a new tank entirely with rain water. Was not planning on having these in it though. Could switch over a smaller tank too though just to try that.

 

As far as the loss of eyes I have observed several times now where darters got into an eye picking mood and seemed to develop a taste for them. Once they started they didn't quite. Admittedly each time this happened I was holding them temporarily for a large order for a public aquarium and did not want to feed them a lot before they moved on to their new home. So my guess would be darters not getting enough food rather than the other cyprinella shiners as the culprit of the eye picking. I had this happen with savanna darters going after some small sunfish and lowland shiners and again with greenside darters going after various dace and again small sunfish. I could also see madtoms being a culprit but I think they would leave more damage than just a missing eye, would be torn up skin and other tissue around the eye. In my case it was just a clean pluck of the eye and no other damage.

 

Thanks for the compliments on the photos too!

[Chasmodes]

Brian, those photos are stunning.  Well done and I enjoyed them greatly.  

[Kanus]

Brian, I feel a little better about having such a hard time with these compared to the other Cyps I've kept (most of which thrived and bred with no effort on my part). I currently have 4 of them. Interestingly, of the 3 (I think) you gave me at SFC, only one of the females is still with me, the other two died with no apparent symptoms. The other 3 I have are an adult female and 2 juveniles that were all caught at the convention last year. The juveniles have grown, though VERY slowly. In fact, Phil Kukulski sent me some week-old C. gibbsi fry in September and the largest of those is about the same size as the juvenile fieryblacks currently, maybe about 1.5 inches (and the fieryblacks were collected in June at about an inch long). It's pretty puzzling to me and it definitely makes one wonder if there is a parasite or nutrition issue that could be at work here. I may have to try pushing some extra vegetable matter on them to see if it helps.

 

Great photos, by the way. It's fun to watch them spar, regardless of being different species. It would be interesting if they spar with eachother in places where there are multiple species in the wild.