Tank Update #7...The Hunt Is On...High Water And No Trout...The Food Chain Channel...

Stability at seven fish for some time now.  The two fish that look similar to, but are not Dace, are growing quickly on their farm feed.  I'll have to try to identify this species.  I think I may have seen some of their kind in Salmon River the other day.  The fish I saw looked the same, but were maybe twice the size, so I'm looking forward to seeing these fish grow bigger.  These two are now almost as big as the two biggest Dace, about four inches long. I'll call them minnows until I know better.  The smaller  of the Dace are curious.  They may be a different sub-species than the others . They have a different, sucker-like shape to their profile, making them less reminiscent of Salmonids, like I believe the other Dace resemble.  I wouldn't be surprised if they were closely related to Salmonids.  In fact, if you blew a Dace up to the size of a trout, I bet they'd be delicious.

After a very cool and wet spell this summer, we finally got some swimming weather three days ago, and we answered the call.  The river is running fairly high, still draining away the rains of the last couple of weeks.  Unfortunately there was not a lot to see as far as trout is concerned.  I don't know if this has to do with the high water, or have they been fished out, or understocked?  It was very refreshing, perfect temperature, and running very strong.   I did a "hang" several times, and it was amazing.  What I do is go to the bottom wearing a mask and snorkel, grab onto a rock and just let the current pull at me.  My feet just hang in the water as I face the unrelenting current.  It feels like I'm plugging my nervous system into the energy flow of the Planet.  In psychophysiological terms, it's my Happy Place...

Owen and I planned on trying to catch some of these minnows with a net.  They will school all around you, so we figured they would be easy to catch, but no luck.  Next step is to make a trap out of a plastic bottle and see what we get.  I'd like to get some of those minnows to compare them to the ones in the tank.  A baby Bluegill would be nice, as an experiment only, because I think it might eat the smaller Dace. Owen did manage to catch one tiny fish.  I couldn't identify it--basically an inch-long golden colored minnow.  We put it in the tank and the fish went right after it, but it got away and was darting back and forth at the surface.  I went to the other room to get my glasses and it was gone when I got back.  I think that like myself most people would forget that fish in an aquarium are still wild animals and there's no reason to think they would forget their predatory instinct just because they get easy farm food at regular intervals.  It occurred to me when splitting firewood that the Dace might enjoy a termite or a little wood worm.  Turns out they go nuts over live food.  I have fed them moths, termites, woodworms, ants,  tiny earthworms, mosquitoes, mayflies, houseflies, tiny fish, possibly pollywogs, and even newly hatched praying mantises.