Stella

I can't believe it, in barely over a month. How many thins can go wrong? Almost none of them are related! This happened because I took one of the lids off, it was awkward having the lid on with the new light and fan arrangement. THe lids haven't been perfect for ages and the fish had been fine. I know they are good climbers. They have got out on me before. But that was when I first got them. You expect it then. Stupid, I should have been careful. It is throughout my book, it is throughout every post of mine here when people ask about native fish: they must have good lids, they are good jumpers and climbers. This poor fish died by drying out wedged halfway down the back of the tank because I didn't have a lid on properly. Still crying.

I just found one of my banded kokopu down the back of the tank, mostly dried. I am now seriously sobbing. I realised I had only seen five in the last two days, did a massive hunt, including the entire lounge. I can't believe this!!!!

Wow, I forgot places charge more over the peak times! But the bunk rooms are $25 each per night, or it works out $1 more if five of us got a studio room together. Pretty good really. I could be up for staying two nights if others were.

OK, slight change of plan, and this is only in the planning stage: EASTER WEEKEND NATIVE FISHING TRIP: TAUPO AREA I have been talking a little with HaNs and Andrew and Pete about doing a trip to Taupo to do a bit of native fish hunting. Do bit of an overnight trip probably, and visit a few different places. I have heard of a good place for koaro, which I am keen to check out, and I am sure there are many other areas worth investigating. We could organise a (cheap) motel so we were all staying in the same place (yay for socialising!). Who's keen? Who knows some good spots? Who knows a cheap motel? Sleaziness is optional... Who would like to come but could only stay certain nights? We could work around you if possible.

I feed my crayfish peas but the INSECTIVOROUS kokopu nick off with them and fight over them so I have to feed several in the hope one falls down to the cray!

Cool, good to know someone else with one. Can you give me an idea what it costs you, including how long you have it on roughly? Could be very useful when you get that native tank set up

Thanks guys Am feeling better now - my fish is still alive! Looks fine just bruised. THe coolest part (literally) is that my new air conditioner is working fabulously. My tanks are 18 degrees! All by themselves! (so is my computer chair...) This rocks I did increase things fairly dramatically over the last year, from one tank to.... five now. Mostly so I have experience with all the species for my book. Hopefully I am now done with catching up on a year's worth of dramas.

I can't believe the awful run I have had recently. Since the start of January, ie just over a month and a half ago: Caught torrentfish, they got ich, started treating with salt, one died, Realised it wasn't ich and was not affected by salt, treated with malachite and formalin which worked. One inanga died bizarely and uncomfortably, no idea why. Inanga got ich. Mudfish got ich. Torrentfish got ich. (It spread before I realised one tank had it) A snail I wanted got sucked out of its shell by a powerhead. Another snail I particularly wanted got tipped down the drain accidentally. One bluegill bully randomly died, no apparent reason. One kokopu looked suspiciously like it had columnaris. Quickly removed it, salted it, salted tank (169 teaspoons of salt... :roll: ). Now it looks like it was merely a little injured and bloodshot..... Oh well, at least it wasn't columnaris, that could have killed the lot in a couple of days. This is the worst bit by far: Late last night a 540lt/hr pump started making a horribly rattling noise. Started investigating and discovered a bluegill bully stuck in the inlet! Turned it off, removed bully expecting to find a mutilated corpse - the fish zoomed off! It looked bruised around the head but was amazingly alive. (BTW the pump had a makeshift grill over the tube inlet, the pump was designed to be in-line, the fish must have pushed past it) Went to bed, felt awful, got up to check the fish again. It looked dead. Opened the jar of ethanol to preserve it in, turned on tank light, put hand in tank and the fish was not there......! It must have still been alive! Haven't seen both remaining bluegills this morning yet... it may still be alive or dead under a rock somewhere..... I feel so awful. I had had such a perfect run, nothing had gone wrong for well over a year. What awful thing have I done to the fish world to suddenly be beaten by this much bad karma??? OMG THE BLUGILL LIVES!!!!! I just saw both at once. I can certainly see a bit of bruising still, but it is ALIVE and not as badly beaten as I expected!!! Well that is a relief. Still feel like a bad fishkeeper though. Am nearly late for work and it will be another horrible day at work due to staff member being sick and I got hardly any sleep....

It has, comparatively, but my house is long and thin with big windows all facing north and is closed up all day...... ideal for some but not for my fish! It has often been 26-27 degrees in the room when I get home. Tis now down to 19 degrees in the room (dropped 8 degrees so far) and the air coming out of the machine is 8 degrees.... :bounce:

I just let four people know. Do a search on 'palmerston club' and it turns up a whole lot of people who have talked about it in the past. I hope you have the enthusiasm and drive to do it, it would be good to see it started again

There was an attempt to start the club last year, but it fell over when the guy starting it had a baby and got busy... I know several people who are very keen to *support* a club, but not *run* it, they have been there done that for a number of years in the past. There is also a bank account and fairly massive library etc sitting about waiting to be passed on the the next incarnation of the local club. I will email and pm a couple of people this thread.

teeheehee. teeheeheehee.... TEEHEEHEEHEEHEE!!!! :lol: I HAVE A PORTABLE AIR CONDITIONER!!!! It arrived today. The fish and I have been far too stressed in this heat. I simply cannot make enough ice to keep them cool. The fans are not keeping up in the fishroom/office. (The fan on the 220lt tank in the lounge is working wonders.) Now all the fish have got ich or similar, even the mudfish for the massey uni preeding project, which is just embarassing. Too much stress for too long. And this is at temps of 21-25 degrees... So I have solved the issue once and for all. $730 including shipping on a new portable air conditioning unit off trademe. No installation costs, just plug in, poke vent out window, shut the door... and go get a jersey I have goosebumps.... Still learning how to work it, but seems reasonably clear. Will take a little while for the tanks to drop, but once they do they should stay down. Much cheaper than a chiller, and I have four tanks... and it is a heat pump so hopefully it will not cost too much to run. At least I will be less stressed. Lets see what the powerbill will be like..... THough so far with the fans and freezer on the go constantly for ice, I am putting an extra $20 on the powerbill a month over summer, and that stops now.

you could start one.... there are a bunch of us here ready to be involved but don't want to run it.... We started but the guy running it then had a baby....

Seriously?! You just answered my question without me having to answer it If it works:

I SOOOO want to be there!!!! Sadly it is a very long way away and on a 'school' night.... (If it was a saturday I would seriously consider riding up) I met Amy at the fish show and we talked a fair bit about mudfish. I am attempting to breed some brown mudfish for a massey uni project. Do you suppose she would allow up to video it? I suspect Richard Littin would have the appropriate gear....

After a couple of random expressions of interest, who would be keen on coming to palmy and going on a few native fish hunting trips with me (and Andrew and Pete)? Just to see some fish/habitat etc, maybe take a few away if you are interested, learn a bit, talk with the obsessed... The hunting trips are great fun, poking through a river catching everything in sight... The idea could be we plan a couple of short trips over a weekend, including a spotlighting trip on the saturday night. We can put a few people up, or point you in the direction of some accommodation if required.

yay, someone geekier than me!

mmm, true, my brain is shutting down tonight, but at least the crayfish and probably the native fish belong to the iwi. I can't remember. Ironic, given that the smelt were (probably) not there originally, and were put there to feed trout... but no one knew if trout actually ate them before they were introduced....

They really do smell of cucumber, we could smell it in the bucket, so weird! Not sure about the taste..... I think they also get mixed in with whitebait and are considered a less desirable fish. (Bullies and torrentfish have similar lifecycles and are often caught by whitebaiters. I think bullies are supposed to be gritty to eat or something...) The common smelt is found all over the show, and stokell's smelt is found along the canterbury area of the south island (though common smelt are also found there. The name has nothing to do with the smell, it is from and Anglo-Saxon word meaning smooth and shiny. They have been introduced into many lakes etc as trout food. The stupid thing is at the time there was no evidence whatsoever that trout actually ate them. There was also little recording as to whether smelt were there already or where the introducees came from. Thanks for making me learn more about these little fish! Smelt caught with a school of inanga. The shiny scaled ones are smelt. The unscaled ones are inanga. It is actually hard to tell which is which here (apart from the two main shiny ones), but I know some were inanga... Smelt. Note scales, bluish sheen, forked tail and dorsal/anal fins being much further up the body than inanga. (for comparison a few of my inanga photos are here, not particularly great ones: http://picasaweb.google.com/nznativefish/Inanga

I didn't know they were also in Australia! Just looked on one of my books.... they are but not sure if it is the same species or not. Shall have to look further I have not kept smelt and keep tossing up whether to put them in my book or not. I think I am going to have to put in a brief bit at least. The problem I have with keeping them is the roll over and die at the faintest suggestion of stress. Thus to keep them you may wind up killing a whole lot in the process. I caught some in mixed school of inanga and smelt recently, first time I had seen them properly. (I will upload a photo later). They look identical to inanga from above (in a bucket) but side on (in a net) are obviously deeper, scaled, have a forked tail and a brilliant pale purple sheen along the body. While looking at them I noticed they were stressing heaps already and some were beginning to roll. Some may have died after releasing them.... They are just that sensitive to stress. All I know is they make a good aquarium fish provided you can adjust them without killing them. The trip home is probably the worst bit. I have heard of people doing this successfully in a small portable fridge thing that plugs into the car cigarette lighter! (brilliant idea for any native fish!). At a guess I would make sure they were in a tank away from too much scary external movement or vibration. No idea about habitat, they are shoalling mid-stream fish so I suspect hiding is irrelevant, but they might when stressed like that.... From what I saw they would be at least compatible with inanga. If I tried keeping them I think I would have the tank blacked out for the first while, and definitely be able to keep them cool (catch in winter?). Oh, and make sure the catching location was as close to home as practical! But yes, apparently they are very nice in aquariums...!

As many of you know, I am writing a book on keeping native fish in aquariums. I am trying to keep it focussed on that and not delve into the time and space consuming details of general aquarium husbandry which have already been thrashed out in books and websites all over. I would really appreciate some suggestions of a few excellent sites or books that are relevant to COLDWATER aquariums (many are really only relevant to tropicals, some cover both) and cover running an aquarium. I want to put a couple of really good resources in the back of my book. Also: I am quite a fan of this site: http://www.skepticalaquarist.com It is great at explaining away the pervasive myths and goes into great detail so you actually understand how and why, not just 'do this'. What do others think of this site? Thanks heaps

Interesting.... This relates to something I have been learning recently about ammonia/pH/temperature in relation to native fish. Ammonia = toxic Ammonium = (virtually) non-toxic Low temperature = more ammonium/less ammonia (LESS TOXIC) High temperature = less ammonium/more ammonia (MORE TOXIC) Low pH = more ammonium/less ammonia (LESS TOXIC) High pH = less ammonium/more ammonia (MORE TOXIC) Apparently my kokopu are very sensitive to raised ammonia levels. It is probably this rather than low oxygen than makes high temperatures (mid-20s) lethal. So, bearing the above in mind, if my tank has a low pH it will provide a bit of buffering against the free ammonia in a temperature spike. Likewise if the tank is cool enough but the pH is high, the cool will buffer against the free ammonia. This goes into tremendous detail about ammonia etc: http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/n ... tcyc.shtml

Good point about not being allowed to release them yet no one would hear this when you buy one from a LFS.... Not quite sure what the deal is there. Thing is people are not allowed to release anything. Problem is they do. Our waterways are crawling with exotic fish and plants that shouldn't be there and are often damaging native population thanks to aquarists..... (I do acknowledge my own blame in releasing some goldfish into a public lake many years ago). The pet shops SHOULD be making people more aware never to "free Willy" or any other pets. As the legalities..... I am trying to figure it out properly and inform others because it is so hard to find. Some of the laws are so absurdly convoluted and absurd that barely anyone at DOC knows what they are. I am trying to find out how, but I imagine once I find the right person to ask for a permit to release a native fish back to the stream it came from they would laugh.... but I need to find out simply so I know. (to those who think I am nuts, I am writing a book on keeping native fish in aquariums... um yeah, still nuts) Koura rock in aquaria, very active and interesting. A big one on its own would be cool, or a small one with other fish. 6cm is my personal cut-off point for how big a koura I would keep with fish, they get dangerous after that. And the fish shouldn't be too small with them. If you are interested do a search of the forum archives, they have been discussed a lot.

Ryanjury: Bullies don't actually look after the babies, just the eggs. The male establishes a nest under a rock, the female lays her eggs one by one on the ceiling(!). He fertilises them one by one. She sods off, he looks after them for three or so weeks till they hatch, fanning with his fins to keep them clean and oxygenated and defending from predators, all the time trying to get other females to spawn in his nest as well.... Once they hatch they are ignored by the male. That goes for all bully species. Ok so I had half-written that then realised purplecatfish's site might have said all that already.... :oops: Bullies are cool in aquariums, very active. Henward: no native fish are strictly piscivorous, all are insectivorous, none are vegetarian Most native fish will eat whatever can fit in their mouths (when stretched to the utmost!). I have heard of large native fish eating smaller tank mates, not sure if it has been noted in the wild. By large..... is that a severly abbreviated way of asking if any of them get big? Several bullies can get to 15 or so cm. Koaro = 20cm, banded kokopu = 25cm, giant kokopu = 40cm. Somewhat slower growing than pacu or arowana!

if carbon removes the meds, wouldn't putting carbon in your test sample for a few minutes absorb the meds and therefore the colour? Not sure if it is also able to absorb ammonia/nitrite/nitrate and skew the results, though if that was the case we would be using carbon as a water-change alternative...