2009 Newsletters
January 2009
It's winter outside the facility and for the fishes in our tanks, too. All tank temperatures are currently set at around 7-8 degrees celcius (45-46 F) and photoperiods are reduced to match the current outside conditions. In a few weeks we'll begin raising temperatures and it will be spring (indoors anyway)! Species of interest this spring will be the sand darters and longhead darters.
April 2009
An unfortunate event with our longhead darters means that they will not be spawning this year. Spawning in the wild for this species ends by late April, so most likely we will collect specimens later this year to overwinter in the facility, and we will try again next year.
Temperatures are gradually rising (current temp 8 C) and photoperiods are being increased for our elusive sand darters. They have been buried deep in the sand for several months while they experience winter temperatures and light periods. They will soon be experiencing spring, and we will watch for signs of spawning! All the female rainbow darters (current temps 14 C) are gravid and preparing to spawn. A gravid female fantail darter was spotted, and she has been set up in a tank with a mate and a rock cave to see if we have any success with this species.
April 18 - Rainbow darters are spawning (water temp 13-14 C) and eggs are being collected.
April 27 - Logperch and greenside darters were observed spawning.
May 2009
May 22 - Over 2,000 darter eggs have been collected and most have hatched with a few more still to go. We have ceased collection at this point as we have reached rearing capacity. Rainbow, greenside and logperch are all currently housed in the same tank, so we will have to wait a few months and raise the fry up until we can tell which species have been propagated. The majority of larvae are expected to be rainbow darters, with the potential for a few logperch.
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Darter fry in their net basket. Approximately 4 weeks old.
Red bellies are due to their diet of brine shrimp nauplii.
Photo Kristi Harraman, OSU, May 2009
July 2009
July 24 - The rainbow darter fry are growing and thriving. Other fish species have been propagated from our own stock and reared - red belly dace (approximately 40 specimens currently) and long ear sunfish (approximately 20 specimens currently but still collecting). These species will all potentially become fish hosts for our freshwater mussels.
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Red Belly Dace juveniles, collected from our tanks 7-2009
Photo by Kristi Harraman, OSU
October 2009
October 5 - We have bred and raised 223 rainbow darter juveniles that are thriving, as well as approximately 30-40 red belly dace juveniles, and 31 long ear sunfish juveniles. The breeding season for our fish is coming to a close, and soon we will be reducing tank temperatures and photoperiods so our breeding stock can experience winter conditions.
We are doing some construction on our main large fish tanks (Systems A & B in our facility tour photos). After experiencing multiple equipment failures with our old tanks, we are replacing them with two new fiberglass tanks and four glass fifty gallon tanks. Construction is underway, and we are anticipating using our new tank configuration soon!
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Long eared sunfish juveniles
November 2009
Our systems A&B are under construction. We have a new tank rank and are working on plumbing in new tanks!
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New tanks under construction!
Rainbow Darter Spawning video added! Click here to check it out!
2008 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.
Twenty three 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 propagate 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.
July 2008
The diet study with the rainbow darters was completed and successful. We found that our current diet regime is more than adequate for growing healthy breeding stock. Fish were fed a very controlled diet during the study time period. They were weighed and measured weekly to record growth patterns. We feed our fish a diet of frozen, enriched bloodworms and frozen, vitamin enriched brineshrimp, and will continue to do so.
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The group with the highest rate of gain at the completion of the study.
Photo: Kristi Harraman, The Ohio State University
October 2008
Repairs were made to our main breeding tanks. We will soon be lowering the water temperatures and decreasing photoperiod to prepare our fish to overwinter. Main focus species for propogation in the spring will be sand darters and longhead darters.
In non fish-related news, the water levels in the reservoir surrounding our facility were extremely low this fall! Our mussels rely on water we draw in from the reservoir, and the low levels exposed our intakes, forcing us to come up with creative ways to get water into the facilty. In the end, we relied on an auxiallry pump on the shore that was able to draw an adequate water supply. Check it out!
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Midway point. The water got much, much lower than this!
Around October 2008.
That's more like it! The water actually went lower than this, too. See our exposed intake? The second one is below it. The water eventually got so low that we could walk all the way around both intakes without getting our feet wet.
November, 2008.
The intakes had to be disconnected, and an auxiallary pump placed on the
shore to draw water in from further out in the reservoir.
Water went still lower than this point.
One could eventually walk on dry land to the newly exposed island in this picture.
Our dock, high and dry. The crew team that uses the second dock had to keep pulling it further and further out into the water.
This was October, 2008. The water continued to go down until around mid December.
Heron, enjoying his/her new perch, aka our intake!