Stella

I'm also after photos of native garden ponds (or at least ponds surrounded by native plants that look like native ponds!!) I don't suppose anyone knows how to contact 'Preacher', a member here from way back who made a stunning native pond? I can't even remember his real name it was that long ago.

Hello again! Wow, it is such a long time since I have been here! In my defense, a motorhome really isn't a suitable place for keeping aquaria. The water lands on the bed when you drive around a corner.... Here's the exciting bit: I am currently revising y book, The New Zealand Native Freshwater Aquarium, for publication as a second edition, due out in October. I want to replace some of the photos with better ones, or add others to illustrate different things. I am wondering if anyone has photos of their native aquaria that I could use? They need to be of a display-quality tank, with no exotic plants or fish, and with natural decor, well lit and without uncroppable reflections on the glass. The photos themselves need to be large, in focus. Within, that, I am open to anything! Even photos of parasites and diseases are useful. Also underwater photos in the wild. As long as they are suitably focussed etc for publication in a book. If I use your photo/s, I can offer you fame (all photos will be credited) and a free copy of the book. The rest of you will just have to wait until October Stella

Nope, they didn't hatch. They were fertile and started developing, but slowly died off. I suspect water quality as they were a rather new and small emergency tank, but it was a long time ago.

Wow, that was a long time ago! Have you only just resurfaced? Ok, admittedly I have been missing in action for a couple of years now... However I may have some exciting book news this time tomorrow.....!

:lol: terribly sorry about that, Caryl! Don't worry, the next one will be much harder to lose. A big thick coffee-table style book, doing real justice to Rod Morris' photos which will be in almost every spread, with the text exploring the native fish fauna as a whole - chapters on habitat, migration, reproduction, diet, biogeography/phylogeny, behaviour, parasites and diseases, and a comparison of the 'themes' of the native fish fauna compared with the world. You will be able to order it in about fifty years time when I emerge from my study with the completed epic tome, frail and blinking in the bright light :sage:

Another option for those who can't get it yet (and those who want to help those who can't get it yet), is to put in a request at your local public or school library. Most libraries grab any NZ books, so you needn't worry you are ordering something strange and obscure

:happy2: Caryl, evenings I am parked by the river north of Motueka, days I am parked at DOC but I am out driving somewhere nearbyish. Just text me and we shall meet up. Looking forward to seeing you again! Li@m, like a fine wine, I am sure it will be better by then

Thanks so much, guys! :love: Calculator, you most definitely need to add it to your christmas wish list! To assist your loved ones in making this wish come true, Fishpond has still got the best price: $23.74 *including postage* (RRP is $25.99) :cr11:

Thank you! They treated it as a test and now want me back next year in a regularish (once every month or so, I think) slot yabbering on about native fish! :sage:

:lol: I initially thought your Anguilla australis was a spotted longfin! Took a wee while to see the actual eels.

And a radio interview of me enthusing about native fish: http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/nights/audio/2575760/on-the-spot Sorry I haven't been around here much in the last year! Aquaria don't work so well when living in a campervan. I may get a bit more involved in the aquarium side of things soon as Zealandia is wanting to renovate their approach to native fish and is seeking my advice. I will get back into aquaria one day when the idea of living in house without wheels doesn't disturb me so much. Meanwhile, I have plans for my third book on native fish...

The intensity of coloration is highly variable. It relates to the colour and size of the substrate and the amount of light penetrating the stream. Even within one tank (5000L tank at te manawa, Palmerston North) the redfins that made their home at the sandy end of the tank were distinctively speckly compared to those that lived in the other two thirds of the tank amongst rocks and large gravel!

Lucky!! Mine always spawned at night or in awkward places I couldn't see into.

Fascinating, and off to a really great start! I look forward to updates as it progresses. :spop: Have you found preacher's threads on his native pond?

Smells way better than nets the day after you have handled ells! Urgh. I always think kokopu have a lovely earthy smell, but it is something I never think to sniff at t he time, only realise it later. Anyone else noticed a kokopu smell?

The ovaries in gravid female bullies are often visible through the skin and have that orangey colour. Looks likely to me

They will survive if you move them. It is fascinating watching them develop and they little eyes appearing then the larva starting to wriggle. Redfin being diadromous means the eggs are astonishingly small. Non diadromous eggs are a far better size for observing.whentheeggshatch the male will shimmy repeatedly over the eggs,which probably helps to release them. A friend raised some eggs away from the male and there was a decent proportion that seemed to get stuck. Also he had a bubbler in there to replace the male's oxygenating role, but I think it was too turbulent after hatching as they wound up with messed up swim bladders and didn't survive after the yolk was absorbed. Mine in a quieter tank spent a few hours vigorously swimming up and down the water column and had decent swim bladders after that. Not hard rules, just a couple of observation that may or may not relate to reality..

That is so exciting! What a find! :f77: Giants seem a bit touchy about being taken into captivity when big. You are better off getting a small one and growing it up (and then you would feel so proud of it!). I would love to try an estuary tank one day. Not brackish, but estuary themed with sand and reeds and stuff.

Aww. (Removing the koruna might be more effective. Also protects the male from being predated. Male bullies investing mode ae far more easily cornered by a koura.)

It would depend on the size of the giants. Anything of edible size will likely be eaten, when it come to fish interactions.

If they don't have eggs they look the same, only skinnier without that black area under the tail.

Cuteness! :cophot: The shrimp actually looks only halfway there. Not sure how long they hold them for.

Ah ha!i am now in the presence of my book! Oops regarding riffle not being in the index. Riffle tanks discussed on p78, current discussed on p68. My recommendation here was a flow of total tank volume turnover of minimum 20 (or 30) per hour. I now err towards 30 as a minimum. So the calculation to find the minimum flow rate is (tank volume) x 30. It is best to then divide this number across several pumps to get an even flow, and position the pumps horizontally at the bottom of the tank. Thanks for the clarification on wave makers, I wasn't familiar with how they work (but I do envy yours! Awesome flow) Bluegills are definitely hard to keep fed with other species too. In my riffle tank the torries and shortjaws kept scaring them off, and cutting the ox heart small enough for them was difficult (later I discovered mouli graters on frozen heart). I would thaw bloodworms under the tap (to remove excess nutrients in the water around them) in a sieve, then deliver the worms to the bluegills at the bottom of the tank and use the sieve to scare off the other fish so the bluegills could eat uninterrupted. The bluegills learned SO fast and were not scared by the sieve because they knew what I was doing. Soon they would race to the front of the tank as soon as they saw me holding the sieve!

Every morphological feature of a common or giant bully can be found in the other species, apart from the giant's upper size limit and the male common's colored stripe. The other features simply have different averages in each species - on average one has darker or lighter body colour, a more or less tapered head, a higher or lower average of dorsal spines. Some giants have all the standard features of common bullies and vice versa. For visual identification you look at all the features together and the location the fish was found, and decide what it probably is. Genetics are the only precise way, and even then there is still a probability. If you look at the distribution map and the inland penetration graph here, you will see how incredibly unlikely it is that the fish in question was a giant bully, no matter how much it may look like one. https://www.niwa.co.nz/freshwater-and-e ... iant_bully I am interested to know more about who found it and how they identified it, but if it was a reliable identification it would have generated a lot of interest and there would have been further investigations.

M@t. is onto it. The likely reasons for diadromy include a combination of: Food size and density at sea Lack of adult parasites and diseases at sea The trade off of being able to have smaller and therefore more eggs The ability for the species to disperse farther and not have such a precarious existence in such a volatile country with glaciers, volcanos and tectonic action. Generalist species can cope better with habitat differences and change Conversely the reasons in favourite of losing diadromy include: Lower risk to larvae by staying put (including not getting lost, or the physiological strain of biome change) The trade off of being able to have larger eggs and therefore more developed and faster growing larvae. The ability for a species to specialise and become finely evolved for a specific habitat type Being able to utilise habitats that migratory species can't access (eg further inland, beyond barriers) It is looking like, for most amphidromous species, there will be a tiny proportion of individuals that do not go to sea, despite having access to it. In some instances this may just be luck of geography or where the larva wound up, but others may not have such an 'urge' to go. If a landslide happens which then isolates some fish from the sea, it is the offspring of these few individuals that are more likely to start a new landlocked population. HOWEVER conditions must be right for the larvae to be able to survive, and this is probably the main limiting factor. Looking at the diadromous galaxiids, there are many populations of landlocked koaro and banded kokopu, a good number of landlocked giants, about five known of inanga and one known of shortjaws. So this indicates that the rearing requirement for the larva of each species are quite different, and occur more frequently for some species and not others. Looking closer at each species there are geographic differences as well. Landlocked banded kokopu populations are far more common in the North Island than the South. Koaro are the opposite (landlocked koaro in the central North Island lakes were mostly translocated by early Maori). Landlocked Giant kokopu are mostly in the lower South Island, and landlocked inanga (including the dwarf inanga and dune lakes galaxias, which were originally landlocked inanga) are only found in Northland. This all indicates differences in larval rearing requirements, which may relate directly to temperature, productivity of the waters, zooplankton community and who knows what else. Back to your redfins. They will spawn in captivity. The eggs will hatch. Without a labourious artificial transition to sea water and back, they will all die. The is a very very small chance that a few might survive. The offspring of those fish might have a slightly elevated chance of rearing in fresh water, they might not. There are no known landlocked populations of redfins, although a tiny proportion of fish in certain sampled populations have been shown to never enter sea water, thus the rearing conditions are very picky. Sounds likely that the warmer water may have tricked their biological clocks. Probably also the day/night period changed, this is also a huge factor in seasonal fertility in animals (inc farm animals).