I understand that some of my killies are marsh killies. I can't find any good information or photos of them on line. Does anyone know more about these fish or have some pictures?
I thought that I would submit a photo to fishbase since they don't have one.
Unless I am mistaken the gray spangled and the orange spangled only mate with females of the same type. The gray stick with the gray females and the orange stick with the tiger striped black spot on dorsal fin females.
Are they both marsh killi fish but with different coloring patterns grays and oranges? The orange ones are not able to fade and deepen their hue to the same extent that the gray can. I was not able to get a good pic of the gray ones. As soon as I put the light on for photos and moved some plants the gray killis faded to light gray which makes it hard to see the normally bright light blue fringing on their fins and tails. The orange ones do not have any kind of fringe just the black spot on the female dorsal fin.
From the information I've been given so far maybe these are just slight variations of the same fish.
Yes it is amazing what I brought to my man-made pond. Since every visible fish that I caught were all gambusias, I am thinking that either the water I put in my pale had fry so small I missed them or more likely I had hitchhickers in the roots of the water lettuce. I used a small fine meshed slow net good only for catching fish that travel at gambusia speed. I have a hard time catching the other types of fish in my own pond let alone the river. I have to use a larger mesh big net and I have to trick them. They will follow me as I walk around my pond. They are hoping for treats. That is when I throw a net over them. Mostly I miss. It took me months to catch these fish out of my pond. I don't want to hurt any of them or disturb plants.
I've found some crayfish that must have been eggs in the roots of plants or so small that they could hitchhike in the plants. I worry now that I might have some bass or something like that in there but so far the largest fish that I have seen are the green sun fish.
Each time I caught a new fish out of my pond I put it in a quarantine tank for 3 weeks. This worked because I haven't had sick fish. Which again makes me worry as to why the very gravid molly died, and the two gravid killies died. These death were spread months apart and happened in my main tank.
The second last px has a couple of juvenile lake chubsuckers, the black leading edge on the dorsals is a tell-tale.
I'm not sure if your bigger killies are gulfs or mummichogs, the St Johns is right at the crossover. I'm now leaning towards mummichog because they don't quite look right for the gulf killies I see and know.
Pretty darn good haul for a few swipes through the vegetation !!!
The platy/swordtail/whatever-it-is-it-ain't-native fish .... you should file a online report on that with the USGS's NonIndigenous Aquatic Species section. ... http://nas.er.usgs.g...htingReport.asp . They list Xiphophorus maculatus as being "locally established" in the St Johns drainage, the online info doesn't specify where in the St Johns (see http://nas.er.usgs.g...p?speciesID=872 and check out the map too) ... and occurrences of various Xiphophorus crosses that may or may not be established. You could help confirm the distribution and/or persistence of this non-native. Esp. if you have pictures and specimens.
(I reported brown hoplo cats (Hoplosternum littorale) from a new location a few years ago ... after a Fla NANFA (SKS) field trip actually ... and they seemed a bit surprised I actually had them in a tank at the house. They said they'd like to see them, and since by freaky chance their national center/lab is in Gainesville FL where I work, that was pretty easy. And when they had live ones 12 inches from their eyes they were confident in the ID! And updated the range maps. They'll use info from amateurs if it's credible. I had a nice visit with Dr. Nico and learned a lot about brown hoplos And got a reward, in the form of a little warm glow that little ole me was helping fishological science in a tiny way.)
d.d.