Here is one of the collecting sites from the 2004 NANFA convention in Columbia, SC. Headed down toward Charleston, hit a couple of spots, then landed here in collectors paradise. Water temperature of 88 degrees made life quite hot for the crew heading into the water. Story was, lots of gators on the last visit. Just one little guy this time. The water was a little over the waist line, and walking was a real challenge with all the plants. Sweeping a net through the plants and then searching for the little fish was great. This area had the Bluefin killies, H. formosa, Fundulus crysotus (some melanistic ones) and everywhere, gambusia (also some melanistic ones). Plus a load of Bluespot sunfish. I brought back about 5 pairs of the Bluefins to set up for breeding. Somehow I had a 'slow net'. I could see what I wanted to catch, but they could outrun my 'slow net'. Still with practice I got what I was after.

I set these fish up in pretty much my standard floating mop spawning setup. I use a 5 gallon tank with a sponge filter, gravel and plants. The very front of the tank will have no gravel or just a very thin layer. I try to get the food to land in this area, making cleanup easy. I brought back a big bag of the plants from this site. A type of anachris and some plants that look like Fanwort ( Cabomba caroliniana). I am going to put these in very thickly and add more light than I normally would for these plants. I will put a floating mop in the corner of the tank. This should give me a very nice natural setup for these fish. I will try just letting the spawning, eggs and fry do their thing in this tank without intervention on my part.