22 replies to this topic

[Matt DeLaVega]

Welaka are incredible fish, but they have some idiosyncrasies.  The first year they all look like females, the second year some can be awesome, and the third year they are mostly a memory. Not a drastically different lifespan than many other shiners, but the awesome fish seen in photos is just a portion of their lives. I have kept them and of course collected beautiful males, then a few months later they were at the end of their lives. I think they are a breeders fish.You could always have some awesome looking mature males around if you focus on reproduction. Even if you don't breed them, sparring male's are a sight to behold. A focus on reproduction, and possibly producing a strain over time that readily breeds in aquariums could be very rewarding. Good luck with the setup.

[Gilly13]

Any sunnie larger than a dollar sunfish would potentially put your darters and shiners at risk over time as the sunfish got bigger. You could put a single dollar in there or several bantams/orange spots with no issues since these are smaller sunfish species. Otherwise just stick with the blue spots. I don't think your fish load is unreasonable as long as your tank is cycled, planted and well established. If you really like darters you could quite easily increase your darter numbers to 6-8 and decrease the shiner numbers a bit which would help during feeding time too.

Thanks for the advice. I think I might just stick with the 3-4 b.spot and various darters Rainbow, Iowa and maybe Savannah (if I can find any) and skip the b nose shiners for the moment. I also was a little worried about feeding time, I know the darters are slower eaters, I not real sure about the feeding habits of b. spots.

Thanks again

[Gilly13]

Welaka are incredible fish, but they have some idiosyncrasies.  The first year they all look like females, the second year some can be awesome, and the third year they are mostly a memory. Not a drastically different lifespan than many other shiners, but the awesome fish seen in photos is just a portion of their lives. I have kept them and of course collected beautiful males, then a few months later they were at the end of their lives. I think they are a breeders fish.You could always have some awesome looking mature males around if you focus on reproduction. Even if you don't breed them, sparring male's are a sight to behold. A focus on reproduction, and possibly producing a strain over time that readily breeds in aquariums could be very rewarding. Good luck with the setup.

I like your idea and I think that I'm going to save them for my 20 gal setup. It would look really nice in a planted tank and to be able to get steady breeding would be great. Unfortionally I don't have the room right now, so i'll have to shelve that idea.

Thanks for the input and informaion