I live in Idaho and there is a hot spring here with several types of tropical fish here. People over the years have let many fish go in the spring. The water stays warm year round and feeds a small stream. The stream drains into the Snake River which is too cold for any tropical fish to survive. I have seen fancy guppies, several colors of mollies, several types of cichlids, tilapia, swordtails, goldfish, as well as others that i couldn't identify. I'mgoing back there this summer and plan to take pics. I have several friends who get most of their fish for the aquariums there, is this a good idea?
Wild tropical fish in Idaho
- Thread starter ehewt
- Start date
Its actaully terrible for the enviornment, these fish take places on the food chain of natual ones. So i would say that taking as many tropical fish out of there as possible is a good thing
It's pretty common--Wyoming has similar issues. I think Mollies and some sort of medium sized cichlid are most common in one of our warm springs. A lot of these waters don't contain many native species--hard for fish to adapt to the warmer conditions and higher mineral content. The Warm Springs Dace is one of the few native species to thrive in the hot springs.
As for removing them--as long as your state doesn't have limitations on them and you can legally collect and transport the fish, go for it. Wyoming has regulations against some methods of collection without a license, so that would be tougher here.
As for removing them--as long as your state doesn't have limitations on them and you can legally collect and transport the fish, go for it. Wyoming has regulations against some methods of collection without a license, so that would be tougher here.
Well...sure I'm joking. But it would get rid of the problem. They could try a minnow trap. But seeing as the fish don't leave the spring (the probably wouldn't last very long). I don't see much of a problem with them being there. Unless they were intruding on a warm water minnnow's habitat. In that, case put the catfish in, or catch them. To each his own.
I don't see why the fish and game people don't kill off the fish there.
Just block the outlet to the spring and use rotenone.
If they are restricted to one spring, this might be doable.
Just block the outlet to the spring and use rotenone.
If they are restricted to one spring, this might be doable.
Generally, fish and game officals don't like using chemicals to remove invasive species. They tend to use a biological (predatory fish) or mechanical (minnow trap) to remove them. Chemicals is a last resort.
Yep. The problem is that many of the chemicals have unintended targets--either it gets out of the drainage (and yes, even with the neutralizers, kills infauna downstream), plus it kills ALL the fish in the water, not just the unwanted species. Many of the fish are desirable non-game species. Adding any additional non-natives just compounds the problem because the predators will NEVER consume every last invasive--at best, they can limit the numbers.
We're not happy with the tropicals in Wyoming, but they aren't threatening anything in that water, and it would be a bigger cost to try removing them than it's worth.
We're not happy with the tropicals in Wyoming, but they aren't threatening anything in that water, and it would be a bigger cost to try removing them than it's worth.
Good points but
That depends on whether they were out competing an endangered species.
In which case I see removing the endangered species, kill off the non natives (or most of them) and then reintroducing the endangereds removed.
That depends on whether they were out competing an endangered species.
In which case I see removing the endangered species, kill off the non natives (or most of them) and then reintroducing the endangereds removed.