Stella

what is different about that corner? (both inside and outside the aquarium)

Fans are great. And because they cool through evaporation it kinda has it's own thermostat: they do more cooling when the temperatures are higher. Also check your thermometers. Aquarium ones are NOTORIOUSLY wrong. The black adhesive ones are even worse. In my experience electronic ones can get worse with age. I have a (sadly borrowed) scientific thermometer which is reliable. My Aqua One digital one is 1.5 degrees wrong. My weather station one is 3 degrees wrong and my chiller is one degree wrong. All hotter than reality. When buying don't just grab one, check them all against them all. Sadly I don't know how to find reliable ones, but I have had dairy or home-brew supplies places suggested to me.

This is a *great* little resource, very interesting stuff, should cover a lot of your questions. However it was done in fairly limited space which may have caused problems between the species and with introducing new specimens. There was much eating and bullying of others. It is a fairly old paper (1969) and some stuff may be better known now. Even so, print it out immediately! http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-B ... dy-d6.html Bandeds (wild): 1+ years old 7-10cm 2+ years old 10-12cm Giant (captive from whitebait): One specimen, 9.5cm after 14 months (apparently very slow) (mine are much shorter.... need to feed them more. I am also currently working on getting my aggressive male redfin out of that tank, he has 3/4 of the four foot tank to himself, and six kokopu live in the remaining foot..)

If there is a swamp there might be mudfish in it Porirua.... I guess the species would be brown (apoda). Look in my photos in my sig. below. If there are mudfish then look after the area very carefully. They to usually live in fairly extreme environments that dry out in summer which precludes other species, but just be careful that you are not risking introducing an exotic species in which may compete with the native ones (mudfish do not compete well). Mudfish would not make a good pond fish (they hide a lot as adults) but inanga or kokopu could be cool if you got the environment right Yeah, sorry, I just keep banging the native fish drum....

Hey HaNs, I have giants and bandeds (normals?! hehehe). Bearing in mind that giants (in the wild) can grow to 40cm they may become somewhat more of a challenge in the future than bandeds (20cm). Also the bigger the fish the bigger it's food needs to be. Any kokopu are much more sensitive to temperature than bullies or inanga. Apparently bandeds (I only know in relation to them, it probably also goes for giants) are extremely sensitive to ammonia. Ammonia is more toxic at higher temperatures and at a higher pH. A suggestion I have had recently is that to keep the water at a lower pH gives a little more buffer should the tank get a little too warm, as it stops the ammonia getting to the more toxic variety. A way to do this is to use a small amount of peat in a nylon stocking secreted in the filter or hidden under rocks. This will also make the water soft and tannin-y (brown) which makes it more like the favoured natural habitats. (and it can have an antibacterial effect, very handy against disease) Livingart is right, fungal problems can be a big issue with kokopu (and all galaxiids) as is whitespot. High temps increase stress which can increase the likelihood, also it makes life easier for the fungus to grow. It can be swift and nasty, kick-ass salt dips are effective if caught in time. That said I have not had any health problems in a good long time. ....nor have the fish. Anyway, not trying to scare you, just stuff to be aware of. They can be a bit aggressive, and much more so after two or three years (sexual maturity). Some to the extent of needing to keep them apart. I have one banded that is a real stroppy little fish. I have heard of bandeds eating their slightly smaller tank mates. Still not trying to put you off Like all natives: THEY ROCK!!! :bounce:

Oh hell, I am getting a reputation.... You cannot take crayfish from the wild and sell them, but (with appropriate permits) you can farm them and sell them. I know the Mahurangi Technical Institute is farming them and selling some to the pet trade. I did see some in Hamilton for... $24.95 I have no idea what the tech is selling them for directly, but I could put you in touch with some people there if you are interested. Personally I would just go spotlighting till I found some good sized ones. And they don't have to be huge to breed. As for breeding them..... Apparently it is possible. BUT they can be very territorial and aggressive and cannibalistic. I do know it can be done, but it is kinda risky, you might wind up with one big fat cray. It would be very important to have a really floor area of the tank, lots of hiding places and visual barriers and lots of food. Reduces stress and competition thus reducing aggression. They are cool pets though

Quite 'loopy'. If there is one aquarium-related job I DETEST, it is washing new gravel!

Yes, inanga would be ideal and yes technically you do need DOC permission. It probably is fairly easy to obtain, I need to find out one day... Thing with inanga though is they need the marine stage (whitebait) and easy access back up the stream to develop an ongoing population, as the adults die after spawning (!generalisation!). However you also say the pond is largely stocked with eels.... they are pretty good at eating fish too. Though they do co-habit naturally they may well dent the population of anything you try to stock the pond with. Surround the pond with solar powered bug zappers??

I have seen a few tanks with what looks like really big sand or really small gravel. I have seen it in various shades and some said it came from garden shops. What is it called? Thanks

yes, it is amazing just how clear a tank is after you overflow it... repeated waterchanges would never get it that clear... Have you tried Charles Mitchell for kokopu? That is where I got mine from.

I MEANT to add to that: what fish have you got now?

Hi HaNs, I did that a fortnight ago. Lost a good 20 litres onto the carpet. Once I ran out of towels I just gave up and had my dinner. House smelled terrible for a week. My sympathies.

or simply invite us up there for a fish hunting trip! :bounce: hehehe

Hi Owen, I would guess they are young giants. Mainly due to the markings being well defined and the sort of dorsal-frontal spottiness. I would expect a banded of that size to be a bit more subtle in the markings. LUCKY YOU having fish like this at the bottom of the garden!

I'm from Palmy. I know people who just water straight from the tap, no additives or general farting about. They have been keeping fish for a very, very long time. I also know someone else who was laso very experienced and did the same thing and lost a tankload of fish after a waterchange. He rang the council and it turned out they had flushed through a higher dosage of chemicals that day. Apparently they do this occasionally. Palmy water comes from four sources I think. Depends on where you live which water you get. The whole tiritea stream thing doesn't go to most of the city (just hokowhitu I think). The rest is from underground. Don't quote me... I only know the vaguest about this. Personally I use a water filter (standard plug-in kitchen one) adapted to fit on a hose pipe. Thing is I haven't changed the filter in 1.5 years so who knows what it is achieving. Still, I would struggle to use straight tap water. Yeah so I don't know the answer.... you need to use what makes sense to you I guess.

well..... hard to tell since the carpet soaks it up better than tiles.... possibly not that big though! (wish I had tiles, the carpet REEKS) I really was only taking photos... not trying to steal you lovely fish!

david b you rock, I have seen you offer for other people as well (I am now sitting back and having my dinner waiting for my carpet and all my towels to dry, had biggest overflow yet while filling a tank..... floor still sopping. Yay for RCD switches, so many extension cords soaked!)

Yeah, they are difficult to breed, seems more of a fluke than anything when it does happen. They are also difficult to translocate. Captive breeding has its uses, but is not the way to save the species. When left to their own devices they do great, they are not a fragile species when their habitat is not fragile. Decent sized habitat with appropriate requirements and they do great. Wetlands need to be quite large to really work and sadly many populations are now confined to fragments. There are areas of large protected wetlands with populations of black mudfish in the millions (according to someone who should know, but there may be exaggeration here). Then you get bastards who murder 350 hectares of protected wetland.... THAT is the problem. I currently have brown mudfish adults for a Massey Uni breeding project, and some juveniles from the Ruakura ditch. Paul Woodard was astounded we caught them as he has given up, we had great luck with minimal gear!

Definitely no smokers. I guess it could be dirty air.... not sure how you would know. I guess the test would be to set up two test tanks, one with no lid, one with no lid and a fan. It still does not seem like the usual no-lid scum. Was thinking though, the fan was on all last summer and the scum did not let up. It came back so damned fast. Surely it can't all be coming from the fan?

No, it is definitely not pollen, and not the usual oily slick you get on an uncovered, unfiltered tank. Haven't changed anything else. There is less scum in there now, the fan has been off it for two days. On friday I scooped some scum off, then managed to drop the whole bloody fan in the water.....! I grabbed it out as fast as I could (unbelievably the instinct was to grab it by the cord, not the motor!!) and the bloody thing sprayed water everywhere. It has been drying out since. Funnily enough the RCT switch did not flip when it happened, so it might just be ok. The fish got a fright but that was all. Just plugged it in - it goes! :bounce: Actually, what I should do is put it over a spare tank filled with water (ie not a set up tank) and see if it gets the scum.

I use the standard electric desk fans on my tanks to cool them over summer. Last year was the first time I did it. The tank got this awful surface scum, really thick when skimmed off (with a piece of perspex as wide as the tank). Quite gross. It came back so fast. Eventually I decided the piece of wood in there was at fault, starting to break down (it was a little). So the wood came out and it started to come right, haven't had a problem since. Now funnily enough it was at the end of summer. It is warm again now and I put the fan on and got another for my other tank. Lo and behold very very similar surface scum is starting again...... Bugger. Anyone had a similar problem?

Have you not been around for the last week?? Sun sun and more sun! Nah, what you really need here is a wee wind turbine on your roof

Jasmine..... whoa, $150 per month? Mine is $50-70 Two bedroom house, one person, five tanks, five lights, one external filter, two powerheads and two fans on constantly for cooling (will be more soon, it is getting warm) and long luxurious showers.... I am proud of my powerbill.

I suggest you find somewhere else to wash up after your next murder...

Hi Warren, Neat to know your story Mine is somewhat shorter..... always been fascinated with things that lived in water, always had icecream containers full or wrigglers and other bugs around the back yard (to my parent's glee no doubt). Had goldfish once I was allowed (9) till I left home (18). Then got goldfish a few years ago, then my ex called up from the pet shop very excited asking if we could get native fish. I was dubious at first but caved. The goldfish lasted a month more then were taken back to the pet shop to be replaced with more natives. The start of the obsession..... and that was an embarrassingly short three years ago..... That photo soooo looks like a standard upland to me. The colour on all the fish is a bit weird, maybe the blue is something to do with that. Definitely not a bluegill. The shape is all wrong. The spotty face and really blunt profile is typical upland, big male upland if one were to get picky Unfortunately most non-bluegills and non-male-redfins can look very very similar. The mudfish in the ditch was cheating a bit. Seems most fishy people up there know about it. The friends we were staying wit had had mudfish from there before. It was funny, we met some native fish people that night who had been surveying the stream unsuccessfully in recent years! We caught eight in one hour with an aquarium net and hanging off the side steep ditch trying not to get wet....! Now I want to look in every ditch I see locally, they all look the same! The five brown mudfish last night came from Nga Manu in Waikanae, but it is a reserve and the student catching them had permission. She caught 21 in one night, using 30 traps. Pretty impressive for mudfish. No taxi for these guys: private escort Mike Joy, the fish guru from Massey caught me the bluegills. Apparently the Hutt River is crawling with them, but no torrentfish. The Otaki river is supposedly crawling with torrentfish (ignore my failed efforts last weekend) but no bluegills. He is trying to find out why. Sorry, I was confusing, I have not had torrentfish before. Never even seen one. REALLY REALLY REALLY want one though!!! They look beautiful in the photos. Ah see the useful thing of living alone is you CAN have five tanks set up and another two in the corner waiting for a suitable horizontal surface so you can fill them Sorry, keep writing tomes..... too excited about fish right now....!