2008 Quarterly Newsletters
January 2008
We currently have rainbow, sand, greenside, fantail and logperch darters overwintering at the facility. All the water temperatures have been lowered and the light cycles reduced to allow the fish to believe it is winter. The sand darters will hopefully be used for breeding in the spring/early summer.
April 2008
We are raising the water temperatures for the sand darters gradually and increasing the photoperiod.
23 Longhead darters were obtained in Kentucky and brought back to the facility. The current specimens are subadults, but we hope to collect adult fish in spawning condition later this spring. We hope to reproduce more longhead darters for fish host identification work for the mussels and for potential reintroduction into Ohio streams (they are currently extirpated from Ohio).
Our set of tanks/racks donated from Walmart are set up and running. More work has to be done to get the chiller running, but should be completed soon. Then we will be using these tanks to complete a diet study on the rainbow darters. This study should begin very soon.