14 replies to this topic

[Fleendar the Magnificent]

Does anyone else have a problem with the WBND being aggressive? The only fish in my tank that don't get chased and harassed are the 2 green sunfish and stonecat madtom. I have 2 other smaller WBND, a black line shiner and darters. He harasses them all.

The first photo is of the dace I speak of, the second is of a smaller one, possibly female?

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[Fleendar the Magnificent]

Here's the second fish.

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[Matt DeLaVega]

Second fish is a stoneroller.

 

Josh Jarvis has had some issues recently with a testosterone jacked blacknose dace. It seems to happen.

[Fleendar the Magnificent]

Thank you Matt.

 

The WBND I speak of is a fairly beefy guy, always aggressive and he wears his colors *dark* whenever he's chasing the others. Wish I could get a good clear photo of him and his coloration. No rusty red strip, but heavy black spotting above and below the lighter lateral line stripe. Like my fantail darter, he doesn't sit still for an instant.

[Matt DeLaVega]

I do imagine it is due to a hopped up spawning mode. Others thought the same of Josh's fish. Cutting temps and lighting may help, or raising temps and increasing day length may hasten it's course. If it continues, cull the bad apple or add more fish so the energy is spread out.

[Fleendar the Magnificent]

Thank you again. I have a feeling that he's entered spawning mode as he wasn't doing this up until recently. Right now, no damage being done other than chasing. Hopefully he'll get through this as I don't really want to get rid of him because of his unique black speckle coloration. When I caught him, he was in the trap with about 16 plain creek chubs and it's his coloration that immediately jumped out and separated him from the chubs.

Too bad we don't have a naughty stool for fish. It worked well with changing undesired behavior with my kids...

[littlen]

I'll +1 Matt's comments and say specifically that adding more BND to the tank would help give him more conspecifics his own size to 'pick' on.  I use that term very lightly as I never experienced any physical damage in a tank full of dace that I had.  Yes the biggest males color up and do some chasing, but everyone got along fine otherwise.  Put a big powerhead in the tank, let him expel all that energy playing in the current.

[Fleendar the Magnificent]

Thank you Nick.

I'll likely have to wait until spring to see if I can catch more dace. Now that the water's gotten cold, nothing hits my traps.

[littlen]

You gotta have a little heart   

I was just out in the cricks up my way after a couple days of rain on top of the cold....(not safe or smart, but that's just me).  I got a bunch of Longnose!  They're there.  But good stuff overall.  I miss my native tank so I've 'Followed' yours and a few other tank threads. 

[Fleendar the Magnificent]

Thanks Nick.

 

So you had luck in the cold water? I left my trap in about 2 hours. Usually after about 45 mins in warmer weather my trap has at least 15 fish in it. My daughter was with me at the time, so I had her drop the trap back into the water from the top of the road culvert we were standing on and of all of the lucky things, she dropped it right on top of a minnow that was small enough to where it's head went through the small diamond shaped openings and he got wedged into the trap. That was the only fish we caught that day. I think it's a bullhead minnow and he's doing very well in the tank. The second photo is a much better photo of the WBND bully I have.

 

Do you have room or the time to take up a native tank again? I was out of it for about 10-11 years and got back into it on the 4th of July.

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[littlen]

Yes, I got a bunch of darters, dace, and shiners, but I was using a small seine and doing some dip-netting.  I'll add that there were a lot of leaves to sort through, which is where a lot of the fish were hiding near the bank.  When it gets cold the fish aren't out foraging as much so the appeal of food in a minnow trap is low.  But they are out there.  I'll definitely be back in the native game.  I was tired of the chiller and it's associated expenses.  (I wanted a chilled stream tank).  

[Fleendar the Magnificent]

My daughter and I use a 4' X 4' seine and a large aquarium net at our river. The seine for all of our major catches and I use the 4" X 6" aquarium net to catch the fry near the shoreline. I also have a minnow trap that we use out at my father's house where my WBND was caught. However, as it gets colder, less and less fish get caught.

 

Anyhow, I can imagine that a tank chiller, like a heater is somewhat expensive to run. This is another reason why I like darters, daces, minnows and such that don't need chilled water.

[littlen]

Generally speaking, most of the stream fish do fine without a chiller long term.  My upper level where the tank was at that time could easily get to mid/upper 70's.  I had some species in there that failed to thrive at such temps over the long run so I added a chiller and kept the tank b/t 65-67 all year.  I tried not to look too closely at the electric bill!

[Fleendar the Magnificent]

My tank stays right around 68-70 F and the fish seem fine with it. I read the temp yesterday and it was an even 70F. I think that the darters need it to be colder to spawn. Not looking to spawn any though. No room for a spawning tank.

[PBK]

Yup, they (WBND’s) are pretty agressive when it comes to feeding and territory, almost like sunfish. One of my dace bullied my Bigeye
Chub to death...moment of silence, please. Karma-wise this dace eventually jumped out of the tank and became terminally dehydrated.
Cover the tank if you keep these guys.