Wow! What an early spring! We’ve been into the field a few times, but the real excitement has been in the hatchery. Our usual early spawners have been busy…..slackwater darters were probably the earliest. But the big news is the Conasauga logperch, Percina jenkinsi. In addition to developing a captive propagation protocol for these exceedingly rare fish, we are working with the Tennessee Aquarium Conservation Institute (TNACI) in an attempt to understand the population genetics structure throughout their limited range.

In mid-February, as hatchery water temperatures approached 50° F, we began to observe courtship and possible spawning. Our breeders are housed in a 300 gallon opaque vat. We have found these, as well as some of the other logperch, to be very sensitive to movement around the tanks. These vats are ideal in that the fish cannot see us when we’re working near them. However, this makes observation of their behavior much more difficult! We have installed small security “bullet” cameras where we can see most of the interior of the vat.  We constructed PVC housings for these cameras which are connected to an 8 channel security DVR. As I write this, I can watch these interesting fish from three different views! The included video shows an active group of Conasauga logperch.

We collected the first eggs on March 1st. At this point, we have somewhere between 300 and 400 swimming larvae! Like other Percina larvae (indeed many darter larvae in general), these larvae are free swimming and pelagic. They feed up in the water column. In the brief video here, you should be able to see groups of these larvae swimming into the current in their feeding tub. Our larval logperch feed on live rotifers, newly hatched brine shrimp nauplii, ceriodaphnia neonates, and prepared powdered foods.

Conasauga logperch are very rare! They are only known from maybe 30 miles of the Conasauga River in southeastern Tennessee and northern Georgia. We went for several years without finding ANY of them in our Conasauga River surveys. This past year, however, they started appearing in several surveys and with the help of TNACI we were able to obtain enough specimens to establish a small breeding group. With our success here, we have now propagated four species of logperch: Blotchside; Roanoke; and Common, in addition to the Conasauga.

Another fish we are very excited about are our Ashy darters, Etheostoma cinereum! We have worked with Ashy darters from the upper Clinch River for several years now.  We were pretty pleased when we were able to raise a single offspring a few years ago, this increased to maybe a half dozen for each of the next two years. This year, however, the numbers are closer to 100! We are learning more about these every year. For one thing, the males are able to reproduce in their first year!  Something we did not expect. The older, original fish are probably more than five years old and certainly much larger than any we’re seen in the wild! We have witnessed even these old fish spawning, but they do not appear to be producing eggs.

This rare darter is disappearing from much of the upper Tennessee drainage. Since they were known historically from a number of streams in the upper Tennessee, possibilities do exist for reintroductions, however, no sites have as yet been chosen.

Two species from Kentucky are also hard at work spawning already this year. The Kentucky arrow darter, E. sagitta spilotum, has had their first few larvae dropping and we’ve collected a few nests from the Cumberland darters, E. susanae, already.  There are several other species just getting started and we will try to keep the list updated as significant events occur!
Thanks for your continued support! If you haven’t already done so, please check our Facebook page. As field season gets cranked up, we tend to post lots of field photos.

Have a great spring!