Fish

Gambusia Road Trip – Day 2

Day two started off badly. First, we discovered that temperatures around 25°F with no heater made for a very cold night. Also, with no heat, the moist breaths of two humans and four dogs condensed on the canvas roof of the camper causing a steady rain of cold water. Cara had taken the back bed. I ... Read More

Gambusia Road Trip – Day 1

Day one started off slowly. First, I had check the greenhouse water pumps, something I thought would be done the day before. Second, we had load up supplies. Fortunately, Susie aided in this task (she desperately wanted us gone). We finally pulled away from the farm only five hours late at 11:00 ... Read More

Frozen in Balmorhea State Park

In January, one of my daughters and I made a trip around west Texas and southeastern New Mexico looking at rare Gambusia. One of these was G. nobilis an endangered fish. One of its homes is San Salomon Springs at Balmorhea State Park at Toyahville, Texas. While at the park we tried to photograph ... Read More

California Bound

I’ll be speaking twice this next week. On Sunday, March 1st I’ll speak at COAST (http://www.coastfishclub.com/ncms/) in Costa Mesa, California at 12:30 pm on fancy livebearers; how we breed and raise them. Then Friday, March 6th, I’ll speak at the San Francisco Aquarium Society ... Read More

Gambusia Road Trip – the Genesis

Gambusia Road Trip – The Genesis From January 4th to 8th of this year (2015), a daughter (Cara), three German Shepherd Dogs (Tally, Oso, and Maya), a Mountain Cur (Gus) and I went on a Gambusia road trip through west Texas and southern New Mexico. In this blog I’ll tell the genesis of the trip. ... Read More

Red Lyretail Swordtail Experiment

One problem with raising lyretail swordtails is that the males are functionally sterile. While they produce viable sperm, they have an elongated gonopodium (a penis-like modified anal fin used to inject sperm into the female), which prevents them from mating. Lyretail in xiphophorines (members of ... Read More

Poecilia mexicana, Campeche

We recently processed our Poecilia mexicana, Campeche. We got this wild molly species in June 2009 from Dr. Ptacek of Clemson University. The "Campeche" notation indicates that Dr. Ptacek collected the fish in Campeche, Mexico. It has proven to be one of our most popular short finned mollies. The ... Read More