Easyghostknifefish0909;1290347; said:good read very informational sand tiger is this farly hard or easy like convicts?
I'm not certain at what size they mature, I've bred them fresh from the creek but the ones I had were mature already at about 2". I would say as long as they're healthy and well fed you can start trying to breed them whenever you like.SpJc11;3231536; said:did you condition them first and how long should i wait after i buy them to try and breed them also how big do they have to be to breed?
Yeah, the males are really neat looking. I enjoy watching them in the creeks. The males will have their own separate caves and try to attract females and defend it or any eggs they have. Behavior more like a cichlid or sunfish then the kind you would normally associate with a cyprinid though many are full of surprises.WattaMelon;3236213; said:Thank you sandtiger.
One time out dipnetting, I scooped a few male fatheads in the middle of breeding season. Their fatty corpuscles give them a really interesting, almost dinosaurain look. You wouldn't normally expect that from a a boring ol' minnow. They are quite the opposite, and like many smaller native fishes, totally underappreicated.
Sounds like you just aren't keeping them properly, you pretty much admitted it yourself. Perhaps buy only as many as the tank will support rather than waste money and fish on the extras that end up dieing off anyway. That said I cannot imagine why anyone wouldn't automatically want to keep their feeders healthy anyway. Healthy feeders means healthy fish. Sickly feeders means...well you get the point.hybridtheoryd16;3236297; said:for me traditional fat head minnows have been one of the least hardy feeders that I try to keep.
My feeders tanks are set up as 55g tanks with 20g sumps and a turn over rate of 12x. And a temp of around 70-74.
I buy fat heads in bulk by the pound. A pound is supposed to be 28-30 dozen. And when i stock the tank with the whole pound I get a 50% die off in the first 2 days.
I allways get a .25-.5ppm ammonia reading for the first few days because of the bio shock that 30dz fish will have. And I allways do daily 50% water changes to help with this.
But the .5ppm ammonia seems to be to much for them.
I can buy a pound of gold fish and have less than 5 fish die off and I also buy platy's and have very minimal die off.
So does any one have great success in keeping large amounts of fat heads? And if so how do you do it?
Fatheads release a pheromone when in distress that warns other fatheads of danger, this same pheromone attracts predators. I bet that comes into play somewhat when keeping the bait bucket in the water you're fishing in.WattaMelon;3236602; said:I noticed on youtube someone was catching crappies with little fatheads. They claimed that if you placed the bucket of minnows over the side of the boat in the water, you'll catch more fish. He postulated this was becuase the bucket of fish attracted fish near your boat. The reality is, the cooler oxygenated water kept his fish stronger so that when his minnow was on the line, it wiggled more, thus catching more fish.