Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait Spottail Shiners in ponds

I used 2 washers between on this one, I have 3 disc structures in tank but this is the only 1 so far with eggs and as you can see it's closer to bottom than the other 2.

how far in do the eggs go in between the disks would you say? I'm always curious how they 'shoot' the eggs way in the crevice or if in a deep crevice like you have between your disks if the eggs stay right at the opening?

1/4-1/2"???
I see there are some (very small group) right on the edge now that weren't there this am.

great info! I wonder how they get the eggs that far in between the disks and how they stick or embed in there? I wonder if they tip sideways and wedge their bodies into the crevice, or maybe they back their tail into there?

time to set up a webcam to capture the action

Lit suggests the female rolls each individual egg with her body and pushes it into crevice.. I can't confirm because I haven't been able to catch them. Guessing right now it's an early am thing?

Guys have done time for less, sicko!

Learning/schooling is in full session today..
Been raising temp 1/2-1 deg per day from 69 (room temp) to 75 today. Light on 12hr 43 min today via timer.
Spotfin really took off today, aggressively guarding disc area. It (Male?) chases anything off that gets within 6-8".. busts up the Reds and the bluntnose-get out is clear.
Bluntnose are being observed cleaning underside of disc area until the male spotfin pops them. Bluntnose are spawning on the 45 deg upline of several big rocks I have in the tank and are also aggressive but looks like the spotfin started their regime first around 72 degs. Red shiner are colored but no behavior changes noted.
I have noted Red shiner can eat a very large chunk of pellet-and they eat a LOT. Red shiner also LOVE algae wafers! Spotfin will peck at that a bit but I have not seen BN doing much around the algae wafers.
I had also stated above that eggs appeared to be 1/4-1/2" inside rim of disc, however, it is very clear now the mass of eggs is way less than 1/4" from edge. I'd say 1/8-1/16" is where most of eggs are.
This is cool to watch but I can also tell spotfin seem to be very territorial and a disc structure is guarded by 1 male-as far as I can tell. I kept my eyes on a male for nearly 2.5hrs and he never left that area and runs everything off but females(assumption) because he circles them and they pull up to disc, swing sideways and underside is directly against disc when egg/s are expelled-very low number. Maybe 1-3 eggs per visit but it's really hard to see them, only accumulation after several hours.
My wife hates this.. :-))
THIS is true POND PORN.

This is new science for us - very valuable - these species could fill the forage niche for limited gape, cool water species fisheries. Since this is my specialty I'm intrigued. Thank you for performing these experiments for the benefit of us all and the scientific community - you could publish a paper on this subject.

- Interesting to hear the RS are taking to algae aggressively, this is a benefit.

- SFS appear to be the dominant species - are they larger than anything else in the tank, or is it just their nature? Maybe it's just because they are guarding eggs, and aren't truly more aggressive than RS?

- How do RS spawn? Like GSH - in vegetation, or are they cavity spawners, like RS? Hoping they won't compete in a fishery over spawning areas but can coexist and both species proliferate.

- Are BNM spawning habits like FHM - underside of surfaces? From your observations it appears so.

I'm hopeful your tank research data suggests these 3 species can successfully coexist - would be a big win for us all.

TJ, It seems the SFS are very aggressive and eagerly attack BNM when they get near the disc structure, but I can't yet determine the stage either species is specifically in. The BNM may get super aggressive as well as they get deeper into spawn mode.
The RS are spawners in both Macrophyte type growth and Literature says they will utilize sunfish nests as well, so similar in some aspects to GSH, but I haven't seen any patterns developing there, yet.
I can see with some of the fish I have, there is a niche for the sizes they can attain very quickly when considering SFS- Not as large or quite as deep bodied as GSH but I have some 3.5-4". The BNM are showing growth as well and are roughly 2.5-3.75" but shaped very similar to fathead.
The RS seldom exceed 3", maybe 3.25 (I read) but mine are 2.5-2.75" and are shaped more similar to the reference family-Carp.
The RS are also occupying the upper part of the water column here, they really don't interact with the other species in the tank until you chuck some crushed pellets or flake food in, then they aggressively chow down regardless of others present. They hang in the upper 6" or so where the other 2 species seem to prefer the lower 10" of the tank, mostly near the very bottom. Tank is only 22" deep so just a tank observation.

I sure did not mean to hijack this Spot TAIL thread..
Apologize for that! Any way we could move this to a new thread?

Red shiners belong to the genus Cyprinella which contains exclusively all the crevice spawning shiner species. Although a few authors have reported red shiners to spawn in other areas or habitats of steams, even open water (see below).

Red shiners (C. lutrensis) are non-guarders, brood hiders and speleophils (crevice spawners) (Simon, 1999; Hassan-Williams and Bonner, 2012). The male establishes his territory around a crevice and makes display passes along the spawning site. Occasionally males will swim toward females directing them towards the crevice. Males will approach and circle females, flicking their fins forward every few seconds. Courtship can last several hours, with females revisiting the spawning site over 200 times prior to egg release. During spawning the male swims above the female passing directly over the horizontal crevice. The female contorts violently expelling the eggs into the crevice. The first expulsion may be followed by another pass and expulsion. Females produce sounds to attract the males (Delco, 1960).

Eggs may then be deposited in a variety of environments; within crevices over a range of different substrates (gravel, sand, mud), near the surface over beds of submerged aquatic plants, in clear ponds or in association with green sunfish (Lepomis cyanellus) and orangespotted sunfish (L. humilis) nests (Minckley, 1959; Cross, 1967; Minckley, 1972; Pflieger, 1975; Wang, 1986; TPWD, 2012). Spawning may also occur in midwater as the male and female swim through the water column (Minckley, 1972).

Females may release up to 16 batches of eggs per day, with up to 71 eggs per batch. An average clutch size may equal around 585 eggs and males and females may spawn 5-19 clutches over the reproductive season (Gale, 1986). Laser and Carlander (1971) reported that 485-684 eggs were laid per gravid female.

All the above from Advanced Reading:
https://www.cabi.org/isc/datasheet/86206

I commonly see spotfin eggs 1"-1.2" interior of the outer edge or perimeter of the spawning disks. However these are eggs deposited by large 3.5"-4.5" adults.

Note - it takes quite a bit of effort to extract (copy and paste) an active topic and place it in its own or new topic. It would be much easier and quicker to just change the title of this thread to include spotfins, red shiner.

Appreciate you posting this Bill.
Maybe it's size and age that's keeping the Red shiner away from any spawning activity.. or possibly the fact they are in a tank. Aquarium hobbyist report success with this species in aquarium confinement.
I have 3.5 months of winter left to observe.
It appears obvious the BNM and SFS will do fine with proper spawning substrate. We'll see how the RS do in the forage pond.

We are traveling relatively new territory for looking at the practicality of these shiners spawning in pond habitats. A lot of work still needs to be done with this topic. Keep up the good work guys. As soon as I can get some steelcolor shiners (max 6.2") I want to work with them for pond spawning.

There are red shiner in a drainage ditch near my house. My son and I have collected some to fish with and to also put in his aquarium. His aquarium had two small bullheads (now bigger than anything else), 3 goldfish, a pleco, and eight Gams. We put 2 red shiners in the tank which I think were both female with no bright red fins. From bait catches I noticed that males with breeding color were less common.

From the get go in the aquarium, the red shiner were very robust swimmers and very skittish around our movements. They out competed every other fish in the tank at feedings and displayed aggressive behavior towards Gams and to a lesser extent the goldfish. Their harassment of Gams was so great that we decided to return them to the ditch.

In the water of the ditch they are very robust swimmers and difficult to catch with a hand net. Of course, this only heightened my son's interest in catching them.

Snipe, I am following your observations and hope you continue posting on the results if not in this thread one of your own making. We can delete posts ... so ... each could move his own to the new thread via a repost.

I'll start a new thread after this with info going forward.
We'll call it: Cyprinella lutrensis..
Bill, I read that steelcolor shiner and Spotfin are very often misidentified in the wild due to very extreme similarity.
Those should be interesting as well.
jpsdad, I have not found any data or pictures that show "red" fins on the red shiner, maybe a local trait?
I think they started running out of colors and names, ie, Red shiner aka Rainbow dace, Redfin shiner and redhorse shiner. Some of this-to me-has been like being asked to identify which of 2 6" LMB is a FLMB..:-))

jpsdad, I guess I should say the KS guide I'm referencing does not show the red fins.. I do see some descriptions showing true "red" fins on these, just not in my tank.

If you name it Cyprinella lutrensis.. I think you should include.... aka Red Shiner
If you start a new thread I will copy and paste the appropriate posts from this thread into the new thread so relevant information stays together. We (I) can edit the title if later decided.