Dipnetting 10/24

[Rex740]

Hello everybody, the dipnetter here again with some more news. Trojannemo won't be posting pictures for awhile and so I am here to tell of the experience for now. Today we went to a small lake/canal type area that was overloaded with cichlids. Very few sunfish, no livebearers, and we found only 1 blue-fin killi in 2 hours. The main fish caught were salvini and black acara. There was also a woman there that was fly fishing and caught a huge bullhead catfish just over a foot long. After trojannemo scooped his first scoop in plant matter, there were tons of fish and so he just stuck his hand in. Well, he got stung by a young walking or bullhead catfish. He had no idea where he got stung from until we saw the little spine on the little guy. He said that he had been stung by a scorpion before and that this felt much worse. So, after bandaging the injury and carefully releasing the two troublesome catfish, we scooped one last time at the planted area as that was the woman's territory. Other than more annoying walking catfish, he caught two large Gobies which he kept. Near the end we also got an amazing looking Jewel, which I kept to sell to my pet store. I have a picture of it, but it is stressed out with no color. Trojannemo has the pic of it with color. And the last thing we caught was a small freshwater clam that I decided to keep. Here are some pics while the fish lost their color.

A bunch of Salvini. Definitely the most common fish there.

Black Acara. For some reason I am distinguishing two fish. Three of these guys have a light color and two are dark colored. Does anyone know if those are gender differences or different species?

The three light colored ones together.

The jewel. Very stressed, no color in that picture.

And my little clam.

Trojannemo will post the pics within the next couple of days.

 

[lilacamy931]

Again another fascinating thread on dipnetting, the clam seem such an awesome catch. The jewel is beautfiul even not coloured up. Hope the stung hand has cleared up well.

 

[Rex740]

Since you are so excited about the clam as I am, I tried to get pictures of him using his foot. I did, but he was using it in the opposite direction. So here is some decent pics of foot action.

 

[lilacamy931]

Oh wow! How is he settling in, Ive heard these are pretty hard to feed? Really good pictures! Are you going to hope for more?

 

[Rex740]

I am probably not going to get more. I haven't released him from the box yet and I won't until I make sure it does not reproduce asexually as babies can be parasitic to fish. I have a feeling it might die also since I have recently heard of feeding problems. As of right now, it is pretty active in the little breeder box.

 

[Harlequins]

Fab haul and pics

 

[lilacamy931]

Sensible idea, best of luck with the fellow be pretty cool if pulls through, unusual!

 

[kribensis12]

Very interesting! I would appreciate pictures of the jewel as it colors up!

 

[Rex740]

Very interesting! I would appreciate pictures of the jewel as it colors up!

Yeah, you will see it with color when trojannemo posts his pictures. The picture is the fish out of the water though. You see the best coloration when you first take them out of the water, which is why he takes pictures as soon as we catch them.

 

[Joller]

where were you dipnetting? how did you catch an old world and new worlds in the one place?

 

[Rex740]

I dipnet in South Florida. Florida is a hot spot for invasive species. We probably have more invasive species than native species. We have a lot of south american and african cichlids. All of our lakes are full of oscars and peacock bass... You can find fish from all around the world in one lake.

 

[Joller]

so you could say of all the things you caught, the clam is probably the only native
i guess you're doing a good thing by fishing them out then =)

 

[Azeron]

I am jealous can't fish for tropical in uk =[

 

[kribensis12]

Yeah, we don't get tropical fish like that here, either. But, when Bluegill are in breeding colors, I'd swear they are some of the prettiest fish I've ever seen. When I caught some a couple years ago, I honestly had thought someone dropped these really beautiful tropical fish in this little pond.

 

[Rex740]

so you could say of all the things you caught, the clam is probably the only native
i guess you're doing a good thing by fishing them out then =)

Yeah, this was a good trip to remove non-native species. There are usually atleast some species of native fish that serve as food for them such as killifish and mollies. This area is just weird to have a complete cichlid habitat. Just helping the environment