RE: Calcium

Bruce Hansen (bhansen at oznet02.ozemail.com.au)
Sun, 2 Jun 1996 23:57:59 +-1000

From: Roy Hunter[SMTP:103707.2451 at compuserve.com]
Sent: Sunday, 2 June 1996 14:18
<<In refrence to the reef blocks I do not have the literature but scott does. The
blocks were very low in the magnesium department if I remember correctly.>>

I wonder how they are for phosphorus? It appears that this may be the limiting factor for the utilisation of calcium and somewhere along the line Vitamins D and ?C may play some part too. By limiting factor I think the litrature means that no matter how m

uch calcium is present there has to be a certain
amount of P also for the Ca to be utilised. The fish can absorb Ca from the water via the gills but mainly via the gut in food.

<< I must raise a couple hundred or so and get them to as many people as
possible to get a strong foothold of that fish here in the U.S. 30 fish just
wont do it.

On the other hand...Let us try to keep the fish as pure and geniticly diverse as
possible.>>

It is great to see someone getting into it and sending those Rainbowfish out into as many hands as possible - I hope we are able to keep track of who gets them and who is maintaining them.

<< Lets let Rainbowfish be
RAINBOWFISH. If you dont
practice good genitic control you end up with MUCK!>>

I'm sure you won't get any arguments from anyone on this list Roy!

<< in nature the ratios are not equal and in different
waterways I think I have read that there were some large swings in ratios>>

Occasionally in the wild I have struck the problem of catching almost all specimens of the one sex. The place that springs to mind was Harvey's Creek when we caught some huge Splendidas but they were ALL females so we put them all back into the creek.

<< . I
doubt that the lessor occuring sex would be classified as the dumber of the two
and I dont think the predators Know the difference between males and females.>>

I have seen a few human predators who definitely targetted males or females exclusively - but not so in fish. ;-)

Regards

Bruce Hansen

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