A few thoughts on fishing in Africa

[GaryE]

Over the past few weeks I managed to hit 17 locations in west/central Africa in a hunt for aquarium fish under 12 cm in size. Most of what we were after were half that size at most, usually smaller.

So what did I see?

Small fish liked small streams - ones that were inconvenient for predators. They liked shallow water, and were often found in the shadows of overhanging vegetation. That was true for many of the characins/tetras, barbs, small catfish, dwarf Cichlids, African gouramis and killies we caught. Still or stagnant water was really barren of fish life. What they liked, in general, was the quiet areas near strongly flowing water, and the pools at the end of whitewater riffles. The water was always well oxygenated.

Silvery, torpedo shaped barbs, tetras and lampeye killies were often found in strongly flowing water. I was struck by how much movement the water showed.

The only other places I've fished for aquarium species have been in the south of North America/Central America, and I saw pretty well the same thing.

Unless you are keeping fish from swamps, you might want to think about oxygen levels, cover and water movement. I'm turning up the filter flow on all my tanks...

 

[Wills]

Really interesting Gary! What a trip!

 

[CaptainBarnicles]

Thanks for sharing this, I always felt good water movement was really important when keeping river species, nice to have that confirmation

 

[GaryE]

It's not just river species - lakes move too.

I caught one nice killifish from a puddle less than a metre by half a metre, and maybe 15cm at its deepest. I scooped leaves out and removed the fish by sorting in the net. But even there, there was a waterfall nearby and the puddlepond was fed by it. One of my friends caught juveniles in the one cm overflow water as it wandered to a roadside ditch.

We sampled one stagnant pond maybe 10 metres round and a metre to two metres deep, and got a few fungus afflicted Epiplatys singa. They were in very rough shape, exactly like fish from a tank with no water changes. It's dry season now, but the rain was teeming when our flight out stopped in nearby Cameroon. Maybe mother nature will bring some fresh water to the fish trapped in similar dead ends. There were dry stream beds around that water hole, and maybe the flow will save some nice fish and the cycle of their lives can come off pause.

A lot of fish were surviving in similar pools and ponds. They were like fish in unchanged tanks, really. Their health was poor compared to the shallow streams. The rains will come in huge quantities and some of those trickles will be rivers for a while. They'll escape and thrive.

We hear the theories on why water changes aren't needed. They're what we want to hear, so a lot of people listen. If you go to where our fish come from, you see large areas of water with only a few small fish, and water on the move. The water tests in small, moving streams always came in pristine.

 

[CaptainBarnicles]

Did you manage to take some photos of your visit? I'd love to see them if you did.

 

[Colin_T]

Yeah, pictures or it didn't happen