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threw out some minnow traps yesterday and caught stuff overnight....


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#1 Guest_macantley_*

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Posted 02 March 2008 - 11:56 PM

Hello, i went to a local stream by my house and threw out some minnow traps just to see what all id catch, i ended up putting about 8 of the fish i caught in my 90 gallon aquarium just to let it cycle better, the aquarium has a 20 gallon sump, with a 800 GPH submersible pump, along with a 200 GPH powerhead and a aquaclear 300 for standard cleansing of the water.

anyway i ended up with two hogsuckers of somesort, three shiners and several standard creek chubs, i threw back about 15 of them that were in the minnow trap (its a round trap with holes in the end that fish swim into for the food thats inside)

i need to find the best way to get darters from the creek as thats what kinda fish i want, but im unsure how to catch these things, or where to buy the supplies to catch them.

anway i figured id let you guys know i actually caught something, it was 68* today, water temps were probably 40-45*.

if i can ill get pictures of the fish in the tank tomorrow.

BTW the stream i was in is a tributary of davis creek that flows into the kanawha river, i was approx 3 miles up stream from kanawha

matthew

#2 Guest_macantley_*

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Posted 03 March 2008 - 09:41 PM

Sorry guys, i went ahead and gave them away, a friend said he could use some fish to throw in his pond as feeders, so i gave them to him, i should have taken pictures first i guess.....

i did go back to the creek this morning in hopes to use my little net and get some smaller fish, ended up getitng some sort of invertibrate.... not sure what they are, but i got a bunch of them from 3/8ths of an inch to over an inch.

i would take pictures but they hide really well in the 90 gallon tank....

ill get some good pictures once i have the right fish in the tank :)

matthew

#3 Guest_macantley_*

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Posted 06 March 2008 - 08:01 PM

Ok, so i went back to the creek today, this time with a $3.99 toy net that i purchased at gander mountain (kinda like a dicks sporting goods), i purchased two of those dip nets, one broke on the first scoop, the other one lasted longer, but its already starting to rip.

anyway i got about 3-4 dozen fish, approx 5 darters but im not really sure what kinda darters they are, they are not colorful.


anyway here are some pictures,

matthew

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anyone need me to take more photo's and try to get better shots of the fish?

#4 Guest_Newt_*

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Posted 06 March 2008 - 08:06 PM

Better pictures would be great!

Edited by Newt, 06 March 2008 - 08:07 PM.


#5 Guest_drewish_*

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Posted 06 March 2008 - 08:07 PM

Matthew, you are in an area that has a handful of sensitive species. You should really try to ID these species stream side before taking home. I don't know if a positive ID can be made from your photos.

#6 Guest_macantley_*

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Posted 06 March 2008 - 08:56 PM

Matthew, you are in an area that has a handful of sensitive species. You should really try to ID these species stream side before taking home. I don't know if a positive ID can be made from your photos.




the darters are thesselated darters, if i got that right, i dont think any of the ones i got are "sensitive" species, but ill double check just to be sure
there are also some white hogsuckers, but the other fish im not sure what they are, the are all VERY common for this area.
im collecting approx. 3 miles up from kanawha river on a fork of davis creek, im unsure of the actual name of this stream, but im about 30-40 miles downstream of kanawha falls, almost all the rare species in WV are upstream of kanawha falls.
i also got some sort of aquatic bug in the tank too, its really neat looking its tail end splits into a tripod tail of sorts.

i got them all around a fallen tree that was slowing teh stream.

West Virginia
West Virginia does not have an endangered species law. The state's endangered and threatened species are simply those on the federal list. However, the West Virginia Wildlife Diversity Program uses methods similar to those of natural heritage programs to track rare species in the state.

i tried to look at the federal list, but it just says stuff like S1 or G5 beside the species, i dont know what kinda sense to make of that.



matthew

Edited by macantley, 06 March 2008 - 09:10 PM.


#7 Guest_drewish_*

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Posted 06 March 2008 - 09:09 PM

I may have misspoke because you're not where I thought you were. It is good practice though to identify species before taking them home.

#8 Guest_macantley_*

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Posted 06 March 2008 - 10:14 PM

be prepared, there are ALOT of photo's

hopefully you guys can ID some of these fish for me, or give me a list of whats in the tank, the darters i believe are tesselated darters, i know there are some white hogsuckers in there, but im not sure of anything else, what are the fish with the black line down them?

matthew

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#9 Guest_macantley_*

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Posted 06 March 2008 - 10:14 PM

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#10 Guest_daveneely_*

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Posted 06 March 2008 - 11:19 PM

Matthew,

It's a very nice tank, but it's darn near impossible to identify stuff out of a school of silvery minnows from the other side of the room. Get closer, clean the glass, up the light intensity so you can shoot at a faster shutter speed (or fool your point-n-shoot into adjusting to a more favorable setting), and cull the photos that are out of focus. You might need to shoot 100 photos to get a couple of good ones (and this isn't an exaggeration!).

You're in the wrong drainage for tesselateds, you likely have johnny darters. There is no such thing as a "white hogsucker," but there are white suckers and northern hogsuckers in your area (look for dark saddles across the back; juvenile white suckers may have bars but they usually won't cross the back, while hogsuckers have very distinct bands all the way across). There's a couple things that I could guess might be your mystery black-lined fish, but unless you get them in focus it would be just that - a guess.

Even if West Virginia is fairly lenient on what you can take, we all have to be responsible collectors and restrict what we do take or else our "hobby" is going to be legislated out of existence. The burden is on us to learn our fish, alive and at streambank. One great aspect of this forum is the number of really good photos here and the NANFA gallery. Isolate one of your fish at a time, and compare it against photos on here and drawings in, say, the Peterson's guide -- you occasionally might need to put the fish in a zip-loc to be able to count fin rays, but sometime characters like that are the easiest way to tell for sure what you have...

Of course, you learn by doing, so by all means keep taking photos!

Dave

#11 Guest_drewish_*

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Posted 06 March 2008 - 11:21 PM

Yeah, I saw Kanawha in your location and just assumed you were further upstream.

You have johnny darters which are similar to tessellated so that is what you have.

The minnows with the black line appears to be blacknose dace.

Profile pics of the other minnows would help with ID.

#12 Guest_diburning_*

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Posted 07 March 2008 - 04:36 AM

your "invertibrate" appears to be a dragonfly larva

#13 Guest_tglassburner_*

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Posted 07 March 2008 - 07:10 AM


I circled the fish I believe is a Silverjaw Minnow - Ericymba buccata
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#14 Guest_macantley_*

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Posted 07 March 2008 - 08:57 AM

ill see if i can take more photo's later when i get off work.

the minnow's are very hard to get good photo's of, they move ALOT, and the tank needs the glass cleaned.

when i woke up this morning, i checked on them, and about 10 or so of them had made it down into the 20 gallon sump tank, they actually seem ALOT happier down in the sump, it might be cause the flow rate in the sump is about 5x that of the 90 gallon tank, the sump has a submersable 850 GPH pump and a aquaclear 300 hang on back.

the tank has been sitting at 58-62* depending on time of day and outside temps.

the main reason i collected so many of the native fish is:

feeders

the ones i dont want to keep, once i identify them and make sure they are not "protected" then ill use some of them as feeders for my south american cichlid tank, my cichlids might not be large enough to eat these minnows though, my largest cichlid is a 4" jack dempsey, they are all still very juvenile, my 4" salvini cichlid seems to be more aggressive towards live feeding though, he took 3-4 guppies in a matter of minutes last time i fed them live foods.

matthew

#15 Guest_Newt_*

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Posted 07 March 2008 - 11:01 AM

Your invertebrates are damselfly larvae. It's hard to tell without a look at the head, but I think they may be calopterygids (jewelwings); if they look like they have two short horns in front of the head, that's what they are. In any case, all damselflies are predators on smaller inverts (they may take very small fish now and again).

I didn't see any suckers; could you post some shots of them? I'm not very good at minnow ID, but many minnows will show very nice colors in breeding season; give them some time before you toss them to the cichlids!

#16 Guest_macantley_*

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Posted 07 March 2008 - 12:02 PM

Your invertebrates are damselfly larvae. It's hard to tell without a look at the head, but I think they may be calopterygids (jewelwings); if they look like they have two short horns in front of the head, that's what they are. In any case, all damselflies are predators on smaller inverts (they may take very small fish now and again).

I didn't see any suckers; could you post some shots of them? I'm not very good at minnow ID, but many minnows will show very nice colors in breeding season; give them some time before you toss them to the cichlids!



there appear to be what i think are standard white suckers, the ones with black stripes also look like swallowtail shiners to me.

its really hard to tell

#17 Guest_tglassburner_*

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Posted 07 March 2008 - 01:37 PM

there appear to be what i think are standard white suckers, the ones with black stripes also look like swallowtail shiners to me.

its really hard to tell

Does that look like a Silverjaw minnow to you?

#18 Guest_macantley_*

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Posted 07 March 2008 - 03:40 PM

Does that look like a Silverjaw minnow to you?


ill try to get some better pictures when i get home later to get some answers, i was surprised this morning, when i put some flake food in the tank the fish went straight for it.

matthew

#19 Guest_macantley_*

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Posted 07 March 2008 - 10:20 PM

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#20 Guest_daveneely_*

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Posted 07 March 2008 - 10:47 PM

Hey Matthew,

These are a little better; on the fourth down, the 2nd fish below the flash reflection is a white shiner, Luxilus albeolus; it's immediately below a white sucker, Catostomus commersoni. On the 5th down, the fish low and to the left of the flash is a silverjaw minnow, Notropis buccatus (confirming Brian's ID); the fish immediately above the flash is a blacknose dace (Rhinichthys atratulus). There's some additional fish that have body shapes that I'd be hesitant to allocate to those four...but again, you gotta get them in focus to be able to tell. Of course, me being able to tell you what these are and you being able to tell what these things are represent totally different things. Can you tell me why I might have made those suggestions?

Does your camera have a macro setting? If you have an extra piece of glass or plexiglass laying around, you can use it to trap the fish between it and the front pane of the tank, holding them in position long enough to get a pic in focus...

Keep trying, you're making headway!

Cheers,
Dave



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