I was struck by the difference in my spotfin shiners. The first picture was taken in October, the second today. The tank is in my living room, so the temperature doesn't vary much. I did install a new, more powerful power head recently. They are great aquarium fish - active, attractive, and easy to feed.

hi schambers,
is that a OS Sunfish in the background?
your shiners look well fed.this is one type (Notropis spilopterus)I am looking close at.
lord willing it will be the fish to stop the import of golden shiner
to this state.we all know the damage this little fish has on lakes
and streams. have you had any fruit from your labor to breed this fish?
my small time setup is going slow in the garage.they need more stream current
and help from others let alone me.

I've been keeping some of these fish for several years now, lots of fun to watch. Unfortunately age has caught up with mine and I only have two of my original five left, one male and a female, I lost one male a few days ago and the remaining one is not looking as beautiful as he once did. Either way they've bred like clockwork for a long time now (but have recently stopped). I never hatched any of the eggs (used them as food) but every week there would be a new batch of them under the same stack of rocks. Your fish are looking great!

Edited by sandtiger, 17 January 2009 - 11:19 PM.

Very nice fish in a very nice setting, Susan.

Thanks for the compliments! I'm not trying to breed any natives yet. I believe all three of my spotfins are males. The picture doesn't really do them justice. I'll have to collect some more this year. They are plentiful in my area. Yes, that is an orangespot in the background of the first picture.

Nice pics. They certainly have brightened since you first collected them. And it does seem you have all males. Yours have beautiful yellow on the fins - mine never showed that amount!
I have seen behavior similar to what Sandtiger said. Once you hit that right temp/light and feed well, mine spawned regularly on the side of a large piece of driftwood. I had 1 male / 2 females, and even with the 2 females taking turns, the male kinda beat up on them pretty good.
I love these guys and they do well in a variety of setups. Like you, I hope to get a few more when it warms up! Cheers

I was struck by the difference in my spotfin shiners. The first picture was taken in October, the second today. The tank is in my living room, so the temperature doesn't vary much. I did install a new, more powerful power head recently. They are great aquarium fish - active, attractive, and easy to feed.

I kept some of these and was similarly struck by their change. When I first got them they were basically nondescript silvery things, a little interesting because of the robust body shape. They didn't even have the dorsal fin spot from which they are named. After a few weeks in captivity, they started to really show their colors. They got that dark vertical bar above the pectoral fin, then the spot in the dorsal fin. The dominant male's fins turned orange and later got the white tips to them and his head and nape got covered in tubercles. The other male eventually got yellow fins and white tips, I only ever saw it get turbercles twice, and it didn't keep them very long. I had 2 males and 2 females. Both females and the original dominant male have since died. Only the subordinant male is left of the spotfins. It was very cool watching the dominant male sparring with a bluntnose minnow over food/territory and displaying to the females. He would occasionally spar with the subordinate male too but those were usually very short battles.

I had 1 male / 2 females, and even with the 2 females taking turns, the male kinda beat up on them pretty good.
I love these guys and they do well in a variety of setups. Like you, I hope to get a few more when it warms up! Cheers

I noticed with mine that one of the females always appeared to have a bad case of ich for about 2 or 3 days after spawning. It would go away and never spread to any of the other fish in the tank. Don't know if it actually was ich but it looked like it. She would have it every couple of weeks, and every time I thought for sure this time it's gonna kill her. She lived for a couple years though. I figured she was probably a slightly weaker fish to begin with and the rigors of spawning just left her open to infection by whatever was present in the tank. They spawned often, but I never attempted to raise any fry. With darters in the tank I never really had a chance.

hi schambers,
is that a OS Sunfish in the background?
your shiners look well fed.this is one type (Notropis spilopterus)I am looking close at.
lord willing it will be the fish to stop the import of golden shiner
to this state.we all know the damage this little fish has on lakes
and streams. have you had any fruit from your labor to breed this fish?
my small time setup is going slow in the garage.they need more stream current
and help from others let alone me.

Hey Catifsh, I collected 424,230 eggs yesterday. I have been working with these fish for two years now with my research for OSU. I am working on being able to commercially produce SFS and find them a very interesting species.

Hey Catifsh, I collected 424,230 eggs yesterday. I have been working with these fish for two years now with my research for OSU. I am working on being able to commercially produce SFS and find them a very interesting species.

thats allot of eggs.