Yellowfish habits

[smallstreams.co.za]

The tank is just over a metre long and nice and deep.
Mario,their eyes are really good.They pick up the smallest foodstuffs.
Interesting they always take the big foodstuffs first,always

Just name them both Pavlov ... ;-)

[Korrie]

Before they charge you before the Gender Equality Court, rather name them Pavlov and Pavlovina.

[Glans]

Core Fly
Nice project
I would like to see if you increase the water temperature slowly and then measure the fish response. Not sure how to measure that. Maybe count the feeding mouth per minute at different temperatures?
Also how would they respond to temperature shocks cold to hot or hot to cold( just don't kill them)
Then how about lowering and increasing the depth as you mentioned your tank is fairly deep.
You could also keep record of the barometric pressure against their activity.

Not sure how you supply a constant food feed so that that can be constant against other parameter changes.

And after all that you could hand in your report for a masters degree in yellow fish behavior at the university.(only joking).
What our fly fisher are willing to endure for the sake of catching a fish.

Enjoy

[Glans]

If you place a few rocks in the stream, as I see you have rocks you could see which feeding line they select linked to the increase of feeding particles. Simulating a hatch to a certain extend.

[core fly]

Some more feedback.
The rocks are lying more to the back end of the tank and I find the fish like lying in the quieter current suddenly with the approach of winter.As the tempratures are not not cold inside the house and also dont fluctuate as much it seems a more gradual move to quieter water.I want to move the rocks a bit though to give them 2 options.Behind a rock in current or out of main current.
When the lights come on in the morning and afternoon however they still instantly move to their feeding corner waiting my approach.I have also tested it and sometimes I gave it to them at just after 5pm and then I left it to 7pm.All the time they stayed pretty much in their corner waiting for the food,only now and them moving off to see if they can find something so long.

I have also started giving them some garden crickets and its awesome to see that such a small fish can take a large cricket in 2 gulps.He grabs it halfway in then takes a second and sometimes third gulp to get it in.
The smaller of the 2 fish usually nips at the cricket 3 or 4 times but cant seem to really get a good hold and the larger one comes and finishes off the job.
With the centipede they both grab the worm then expel and grab 2 or 3 times before swallowing.Its like the feet trigger them to release or the worms curling action puts them off.
There is no question that they target bigger foodstuffs first.If I throw flakes and a cricket the cricket gets the first attention,then they pick out the bigger flakes and then clean up whats floating below.

[core fly]

I have also got a completely different theory as to their feeding habits in rivers after a few experiments.I have done a test and was astonished by what i found.This made me rethink some tactics I use on the vaal.To an extent you can explain now how certain tactics work better in different water levels and speeds but I am gonna use a barbless fly to really test this.I also want to test if they are leader shy and will go from a 7x straight to a 0x to see what they respond to.
This whole "discovery" was worth the effort it is to maintain this tank as it gets green very quick even with all the stuff the guys give me to use.
Stay tuned this might surprise a few guys who dont read on behaviour and feeding habits of fish,and I use the word fish as i am sure trout most probably act pretty much in a similar manner

[Korrie]

In terms of their feeding habits, I will be interesting to see what you have observed.
I recall an incident at Wag 'n Bietjie, where for 3 hours I laid on the bank, observing a shoal of SM yellows, cruising an area, watching how they operate.
That was a great learning curve, in terms of their feeding habits, range of operating etc.

SHare you observations with us, it will be great to read.

[WazzyP]

I'm very interested to hear about how tippet shy the fish really are. I also wonder if they're getting used to humans and wonder how much this will affect things.

[core fly]

They get used to me when the light is on but not when its off.I have also taken a small torch and from 10m away flashed it over the tank.It only makes a small flash but it scares the crap out of them

[Glans]

Core fly
Thanks for the detail feedback. This is great.
Are you going to use the same fly to test the tippet thickness.
You could also probably find out how long they will remember a certain fly that pricked them?