I know of aquarists in Brisbane who have been maintaining them for 8-10 yrs at a hardness of 200 ppm and ph around 7.2. However they do not maintain their colour at that pH. The diet seems to play some part also and high carotein diets such as live adult
Brine shrimp seem to help with colour in those red bodied forms.
<<Do you know of anyone who has done reasonably well maintaining
them in aquariums?>>
No.
<<Which populations around Brisbane have the color variation in
the males,>>
I am not sure what you mean by colour variation in the males. in my experience both males and females carry the colour variation factor so if you wish to maintain the strain you have to line bred from red carrying
females or females bred from red males ( and therefor carry the gene). This is one of the major difficulties because of the statistical ratio of these red fish amongst the normally blue population. For every 100 fish you see in Seary's Creek for exa
mple only 5-6 will carry red and of every 100 of these red carrying fish only 5-6 will be females. Perhaps the genen for red has some lethal implications or perhaps is more attractive to predators e.g. the large Striped Gudgeons that live in Seary's Creek
when choosing "dinner" from amongst a school of Rads find it easier to focus on the one with the red tail rather than one of the many similar blue ones.
BTW even amongst the blues there is a lot of variation in the shade and intensity as well as the amount of black in the fins and the amount of spangles etc You could have a tank of 30 Rads and not have 2 individuals exactly the same and they were all caug
ht at the same time and placein Seary's creek. The "standard" colour forms do not have quite the same diversity.
<<can you tell us where kin-kin cr. is located?>>
Kin Kin Creek lies north of Brisbane in the Sunshine Coast district and is a major tributary of the Noosa river.
Bruce Hansen (ANGFA)