Fundulopanchax gardneri .

[WhistlingBadger]

Often, when you have them breed 'naturally' without removing eggs, you can get more males. They know long before we do, and I think there's aggression. But as long as you get some females, stores don't usually want pairs of them if they can get males.

Fundulus would be great to try, but the problem I've found with North American temperate fish is you remove them from the wild and breed them, and then what? They often need winter as part of their life cycle, and we can't usually offer that in an aquarium. They can be a consumer hobby, but maintenance tends to be out.

I bred Montreal area Fundulus diaphanous, and I hit that wall quickly. I have a nice morph of diaphanous in a river close to here. I've spotted it while kayaking, and it is nice looking, for a generally dull looking species. I can also catch F heteroclitus very easily all around me, but houses are just too warm for them. I am tempted, but no.

I had the same problem with darters and some native minnows.

When I was younger I tried keeping trout in a tank. They do fine for a while but eventually the warm water brings them down. If only chillers were as cheap as heaters!

F. zebrinus are outrageously adaptable, specializing in intermittent streams. They can live in everything from clear water streams to stagnant salt marshes. They can even bury themselves in damp sand and wait out droughts. So maybe, as native fish go, they'd have a better shot at making it with no winter. I don't know. They're really nice fish though. Their coloring isn't flashy (the males get red fins in breeding, like several other natives)...I'd call it "elegant."

 

[GaryE]

Do you have Umbra limi (mudminnows) out there? Normally, they were well described as looking like "cigar butts with fins", but if they have a proper cold period, they turn brilliant green for a few weeks in Spring. They're similar in toughness to what you described with the unrelated zebrinus, and they'll live in tanks. But it's just 'off' when they can't go through their whole life cycle.

The same happened with the olmstedi darters I caught in a local canal back in Quebec. They were beauties when I got them in early Spring, but the next Spring, nothing happened. I felt sorry for them and resolved to leave native fish be unless I could treat them right. Tropicals may be unnatural to my broad habitat, but their climate needs are closer to my indoor set ups.

 

[Back in the fold]

stores don't usually want pairs of them if they can get males.

Nobody’s getting these . They’re my own personal horde or hoard if you prefer .

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Do you have Umbra limi (mudminnows) out there? Normally, they were well described as looking like "cigar butts with fins", but if they have a proper cold period, they turn brilliant green for a few weeks in Spring. They're similar in toughness to what you described with the unrelated zebrinus, and they'll live in tanks. But it's just 'off' when they can't go through their whole life cycle.

The same happened with the olmstedi darters I caught in a local canal back in Quebec. They were beauties when I got them in early Spring, but the next Spring, nothing happened. I felt sorry for them and resolved to leave native fish be unless I could treat them right. Tropicals may be unnatural to my broad habitat, but their climate needs are closer to my indoor set ups.

No, but we have fathead minnows (Pimephales promelas) which fit a similar description. If they are given a proper cold period and brought into breeding condition, the males turn from a dull, muddy brown to a dull, muddy black coloration. Whee.

 

[GaryE]

Fatheads. We have those too. Charming in an ugly sort of way. They get nice pimples on their heads, if we clutch at straws to make them sound exotic to Europeans...

I'm going to stick with my tropical fish from now on in. Unless I weaken and catch some Fundulus. That could happen. I can resist all temptation except when it's genuinely tempting.