bug tank

Damnit, Connor,
you've got me convinced I need to spend some time staring at a bug tank.
I'll run into town tomorrow and shop for a tank .... I hope to find a small
Plexiglas one I can travel with in my trailer. I have sampling nets, and a
fair amount of experience using them, so I think I can catch the bugs. I
worry about keeping them alive, after capture and getting them home, but I
bet I manage. In the fishing season, I usually camp in one spot for a
couple weeks at a time, and that appears to be about the expected life, of a
bug tank ... so it should work out OK if I sample a local river when I get
there I'll be ready to dump the contents about the time I want to move on.

Baetis are starting to hatch locally now and will be my first intended
captives .... maybe some midges, of course, .... and Rhithrogena are a real
possibility to be near hatching stage here in NorCal .. Brachycentrus soon

Hehe, I feel like a kid expecting a new toy, as I think about it ....


If you have any bug tank links or suggestions ..... I'm all ears ...ah, eyes
I guess on UseNet

"Larry L" wrote in message
...
Damnit, Connor,
you've got me convinced I need to spend some time staring at a bug tank.
I'll run into town tomorrow and shop for a tank .... I hope to find a
small
Plexiglas one I can travel with in my trailer. I have sampling nets, and
a
fair amount of experience using them, so I think I can catch the bugs. I
worry about keeping them alive, after capture and getting them home, but I
bet I manage. In the fishing season, I usually camp in one spot for a
couple weeks at a time, and that appears to be about the expected life, of
a
bug tank ... so it should work out OK if I sample a local river when I get
there I'll be ready to dump the contents about the time I want to move on.

Baetis are starting to hatch locally now and will be my first intended
captives .... maybe some midges, of course, .... and Rhithrogena are a
real
possibility to be near hatching stage here in NorCal .. Brachycentrus soon

Hehe, I feel like a kid expecting a new toy, as I think about it ....


If you have any bug tank links or suggestions ..... I'm all ears ...ah,
eyes
I guess on UseNet
-----------------
Oh God No, not another thing I can get into. I will be watching this
thread. I do love gadgets and keeping a bug tank for observation and
learning about the little creatures is right up my alley.

Chris

"Larry L" wrote in message
...
SNIP
If you have any bug tank links or suggestions ..... I'm all ears ...ah,
eyes
I guess on UseNet



Try these;
http://www.microscopy-uk.net/mag/ind...ll/insect.html

http://www.troutnut.com/equipment/index.php

http://www.troutnut.com/movies.php

http://www.uky.edu/Agriculture/Entom...ts/mascots.htm

A deluxe version!!!
http://www.carrycreek.com/mainFrame.htm

http://www.hometrainingtools.com/cat...be-insjar.html


Actually, you don´t need anything complex at all. Just a small tank. For a
while I used large square jam-jars with a piece of fine net over the top.Get
some gravel etc from the stream, and a plant. ( The plant provides oxygen).
Put this in your tank, and allow to settle. Add your insects, and observe! A
large magnifying glass is a good idea. It does hot have to be very powerful.

Depending on which insects you want to observe, you will need to put silt or
mud below the gravel. Use water from the stream where you collected the
insects. Don´t try to keep too many at once! Many aquatic insects are
predatory, so be careful what you put in the tank!

It really is quite easy, and you don´t really need any of the above links.

TL
MC

On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 00:38:30 GMT, "Larry L"
wrote:

Damnit, Connor,
you've got me convinced I need to spend some time staring at a bug tank.
I'll run into town tomorrow and shop for a tank .... I hope to find a small
Plexiglas one I can travel with in my trailer. I have sampling nets, and a
fair amount of experience using them, so I think I can catch the bugs. I
worry about keeping them alive, after capture and getting them home, but I
bet I manage. In the fishing season, I usually camp in one spot for a
couple weeks at a time, and that appears to be about the expected life, of a
bug tank ... so it should work out OK if I sample a local river when I get
there I'll be ready to dump the contents about the time I want to move on.

Baetis are starting to hatch locally now and will be my first intended
captives .... maybe some midges, of course, .... and Rhithrogena are a real
possibility to be near hatching stage here in NorCal .. Brachycentrus soon

Hehe, I feel like a kid expecting a new toy, as I think about it ....


If you have any bug tank links or suggestions ..... I'm all ears ...ah, eyes
I guess on UseNet

Since I do have a bug tank, this subject caught my attention. I
really enjoy having a tank.

I keep mine in a cool basement with absolutely no cooling devices. I
have found that they aren't needed for Mayfly's, but you will want to
have one for Stones and Caddis. They tend to die off quickly without
one. My primary focus is Mayfly's anyway.

Here are some photo's that I've taken. The majority of these insects
were in my tank and have hatched in my tank.

http://www.njflyfishing.com/photopos...ry.php?cat=505

So here is what I use for my tank. It's a 10 gallon tank with a
filter and has one of those air stones in it. Not sure what it's
called. I have some rocks from the stream and some plants that I
picked up in the local pet shop. I think I may opt for a slightly
larger tank though. It will give me more field to take my photo's in.
For water, I use some stream water and some tap water. This has not
affected the mayfly nymphs, but may have something to do with the
stones and the caddis. I thought Stones and Caddis would be more
adapting to different water, but the mayfly's definetely prevail. Get
some rocks from the stream and add them to the environment. I also
grab some stream debris and place that in the tank as well. Make sure
you place the rocks in such a way where your insects can crawl under
them without them falling. Make sure you place objects in the tank so
that your nymphs (isonychia)/(stonefly)... can crawl out of the water
and hatch onto. Without this, they cannot hatch.

If you're going to take photo's of your insects, I recommend you
placing the tank in such a position where you can spin the tank at
will or place the tank in such a position where you will be able to
get to all sides of the tank.

Get a good handheld flourescent light so you can move it around the
tank to whatever position you like. A flash will come in handy as
long as you know how to use it through a tank. I'm not a professional
photographer, but from my experiences I'm able to take photo's without
having flash spots all over the place.

Overall, I consider myself very successfull with my setup. If you
have any other questions, please feel free to ask here or on the site
mentioned above. I'll try to answer your questions as best I can.

Good luck.

-=Paraleptropy=-
http://www.neflyfishing.net
0 Limit,Catch -n- Release

paraleptropy wrote in message
...

SNIP

Overall, I consider myself very successfull with my setup. If you
have any other questions, please feel free to ask here or on the site
mentioned above. I'll try to answer your questions as best I can.

Good luck.

-=Paraleptropy=-
http://www.neflyfishing.net
0 Limit,Catch -n- Release

That sounds like a nice setup. Some nice photos there as well. I never
had any problems with cooling, but my stone cellar where I kept my tanks is
quite cold, so maybe one will need cooling elsewhere.

TL
MC

paraleptropy wrote in message

Overall, I consider myself very successfull with my setup. If you
have any other questions, please feel free to ask here or on the site
mentioned above. I'll try to answer your questions as best I can.


Thank you

I picked up a small plastic tank today and will collect some rocks, weeds
and bugs soon, from a local trout river.

My problem is that I fish 1500 miles from were I live, and live out of a
travel trailer 4 or 5 months a year to do so. It's a life style I love,
but my only electricity is usually a generator I run as little as possible.
I have serious doubts about keeping the tank cool enough to keep the bugs
feeling perky.

Pictures are very available ( yours are very nice, btw ) of the underwater
and adult forms of the insects that interest me. It's the brief periods of
transition that I want to see for myself. I doubt that I will observe
anything that hasn't already been described in FF literature but I have a
do-it-yourself nature, and, dangit, I wanta see it myself G.

I've seen enough mayflies emerge to feel comfortable that I have a decent
feel for the process and how the dun/shuck looks at various points in time,
and from various angles. Same with many other bugs ... , for example,
I've spent hours watching and measuring damsel nymphs, even measuring how
far they move in x number of seconds and working on retrieves to match it
( this really paid off .... I guess, ...with more accurate patterns and
retrieves, I got a lot better at catching fish during my yearly trips to
fish the Davis Lake damsel hatch, ... then I got bored from too much
success and stopped fishing it ;-). I've also laid on my belly and
watched a lot of midges shed their shucks ... it's really the caddis that
leave me feeling at the mercy of writers, instead of my own observational
errors G

But I've had very little luck seeing caddis in anything but the full adult
or the full larva stages out in the real world. This is partly because of
their tendency to be last light emergers, and live in rough and tumble
waters that make "seeing into" difficult, compared to softer flows.
Anyway, I can collect caddis larva here locally but watching the pupa
emerge is what I'm interested in seeing. I've collected lots of caddis
adults and larva, don't have that big an interest in those stages at this
point, and I'm not sure how well a small tank in a camper is going to work
out for raising pupa to emergence.

A bug tank does sound like fun. My friend and neighbor
and potter (potted too, occasionally) Rick did this
a few years ago. He found (rather quickly) that aquatic
trout stream insects need lots of oxygen and cool water
temperatures, else they die in a few days.

Aquarium bubblers are cheap and easy to install.
Refridgerating the water by some thermostatically
controlled mechansism is not so straightforward.
Rick eventually gave up on the project.



--
/* Sandy Pittendrigh --oO0
** http://montana-rubberboats.com
**
*/

Salmo Bytes wrote in news:UZCdncw-
:


A bug tank does sound like fun. My friend and neighbor
and potter (potted too, occasionally) Rick did this
a few years ago. He found (rather quickly) that aquatic
trout stream insects need lots of oxygen and cool water
temperatures, else they die in a few days.

Aquarium bubblers are cheap and easy to install.
Refridgerating the water by some thermostatically
controlled mechansism is not so straightforward.
Rick eventually gave up on the project.




Actually, aquarium chillers are about as straightforward to use as filters,
but they ain't cheap. Small ones run about $400. You can also build your
own (http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/dyi...donchiller.htm)

Scott

"Salmo Bytes" wrote


A bug tank does sound like fun.

I bought a little tank and am taking it to Montahoming with me. I have
grave doubts about keeping things alive in a travel trailer situation, but
I'll catch some buggies and try.

Nothing has improved my fly fishing as much as tying, and nothing has
improved the fishing success of my tying as studying the bugs, and nothing
has improved the value of that study as much as catching the real things,
books and even good photos have very real limitations in this area.

Larry L wrote:
"Salmo Bytes" wrote


A bug tank does sound like fun.


I bought a little tank and am taking it to Montahoming with me.

You're not coming to Idaho?

I have
grave doubts about keeping things alive in a travel trailer situation, but
I'll catch some buggies and try.

Without refrigeration you're going to have bug soup.

Nothing has improved my fly fishing as much as tying, and nothing has
improved the fishing success of my tying as studying the bugs, and nothing
has improved the value of that study as much as catching the real things,
books and even good photos have very real limitations in this area.

Scooping up nymphs is fun. I'm struck by how little the artificial
resemble the naturals. 99% of the mayfly nymphs I find look kind of like
Pheasant Tails and Hare's Ears, but even those patterns aren't all that
close. It's amazing that fish are so gullible and, I suppose, lucky for us.

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.