Stella

:happy1: (excuse me....) (Blueether, you in the middle of writing assignments?) I had some uplands, two males two females, together in a tank and one of the boys ALWAYS scored the eggs of both females. The other guy was peeved. Then one time the girls both spawned in the other boy's nest. Oh man the first male became so insanely aggressive I nearly had to remove him! The pictures below I took last week, two different upsidedown redfin females, both circa 9cm long. Both gravid - the orange bits are actually their ovaries! They have two ovaries, kinda long shapes down each side of the abdomen. The dark in the middle is intestine. I had never noticed this before (I guess most of my gravid females had been smaller and not upsidedown) Apparently gravid inanga look the same - males and females! But you can tell the difference by colour showing through the skin: females have orange ovaries whereas males have white testes.

kokopu grow SO FREAKING FAST! The ones in the Te Manawa aquarium (palmy museum) were as long as my finger when we put them in in March. I had a look yesterday and they are now as long as my hand! I think Foxxja has them on steroids...

Awesome! They do like to choose the least visible place to spawn... mine seem to favour the back wall behind various logs at the moment. Somehow Snorkelboy(?) managed to get his spawning on TOP of a rock out in the open, lucky sod. I love the colour the females go when spawning.

I suspect the lack of responses here is due to you covering practically everything the rest of us feed our fish! The only extras I can think of are commercial pellets (for those who would deign eat them) and daphnia (for those small enough to be interested in this delicacy). Oh, try getting a whole lot of stream bugs one day - tis quite different seeing them chasing after their natural food. Most live food we give are pond bugs, not stream bugs. That and stream bugs are totally cute!

:sage: I remember that one!

Looking good! Neat seeing how useful my book is for people, thanks Mikey! I didn't realise the used the photo! (which one was it?) I was forwarded an urgent request for photos and sent them a few but they never replied. Oh well, at least the credited it.

D'oh :facepalm: Copper tends to be bad news for inverts, inc crayfish and shrimp.

and how long since the waterchange before that? Have you had them for long? I presume you can't see anything on him? Sometimes they do go a bit odd then back to normal for no good reason. Actual reasons may include him having overfed last time or major changes to the tank, but the scratching does sound odd. Hopefully he is ok now?

This thing of moving between salt and freshwater is called diadromy. There are three main kinds of diadromy: catadromy - main growth in freshwater then migrating to sea to spawn (eels, black flounder) anadromy - mostly growing at sea, migrating inland to mature and spawn (smelt, salmon) amphidromy - mostly living in freshwater, fry go to sea for a short period of growth before returning to do the rest of their growth. (whitebait, bullies and probably torrentfish) Whitebait (inanga, koaro, banded kokopu, giant kokopu, shortjaw kokopu) lay their eggs in freshwater (well on the banks during high tides or floods) in autumn and the fry are washed out to sea or at the mouths of estuaries. Three months later in spring they migrate back as whitebait then stay in the freshwater streams for the rest of their lives. Inanga, the most common whitebait, is a little bit of an odd one. It is mostly described as amphidromous, but some describe it as catadromous. This is because the adults migrate back to the tidal areas to spawn. They may not necessarily re-enter salt water, but near enough. They mostly die after spawning, so they only live one year. Fish that move from salt to freshwater undergo some pretty major physiological changes to cope with the chemistry change, but also to deal with the different environments. In the sea they are zipping around in the zooplankton (tiny mid-water critters), eating smaller things and being eaten by bigger things. There is nothing to hide behind or blend in with, so most zooplankton creatures are see-through to avoid being eaten. WHen they come into freshwater they can hide and blend in with other things, so they change colour. You will also notice that ones that have been in freshwater for a while are SHORTER than fresh-run whitebait. I guess this is to cope in the changing environment (flowing water). (The above goes for both whitebait/galaxias and smelt) There are two species of smelt, but the other one is in Canterbury, and they look very very similar.

Sorry for your loss So did it die within a day of coming into captivity? Any other symptoms? How recently was the tank set up? Any medications/salt? Ox heart is certainly handy. Torries are a laugh to watch when learning how to take food from the water column, they get the idea eventually but it takes weeks! (due to their undercut jaw and normal habit of taking food from the substrate) I wouldn't put them with seriously aggressive fish like bandeds or giant kokopu, as they will get totally outcompeted. Should be ok with bullies, inanga etc, as long as they are similar sizes. I imagine a large bully would beat them to the food every time. I find torries are not competitive or territorial (not aggressively so anyway) with each other or with different species.

Wow, you have sure put a lot of work into that! Looking forward to seeing future updates Freshwater crabs won't be visible in a big mixed tank, and they will get eaten pretty promptly. They do work well in a teeny tank on their own. I had them in a 20x20cm tank on my desk, great to watch! There is a section on them in my book. Mussels are very difficult to keep alive in aquaria, even if the tank is purely for mussels only. You need to be growing massive amounts of green water outside to feed them - they are amazing filter feeders. Even in a mussel-only tank with heavy feedings of green water they tend to slowly lose weight. In the average aquarium they slowly starve to death over a few months, but it is hard to tell because of the shell. (also mussels are on the threatened list, largely due to a lack of recruitment of juveniles, I really need to do a campaign to inform the petshops about this and hopefully convince them to stop stocking them!)

hmmm, rather hard to tell on this one (quite a small fish I think). Definitely not redfin (no diagonal cheek stripes) or common (face is too rounded, commons are tapered) and doesn't look like an upland (no orange face-spots, and not in your area). Cran's seems fairly likely (stocky face, dark blotches on face, I think I am seeing a stripe on the outer edge of the first dorsal, indicating male) but they can be a bit hard to tell when small, so let's put it down as a 'probably Cran's'

Awesome! Another convert Definitely keen to see your tank-build blog. Not sure if you noticed, but I have written a book on keeping natives, it is pretty thorough and useful for both beginners and more experienced keepers. Drop me an email if you are keen!

most people use unbaited traps, bait doesn't make much of a difference. Those that use bait often use cat food or marmite. I think it would be hard to selectively bait against eels. Probably your best option would be to restrict the mouth of the trap so large eels couldn't get in, I find that whatever the size of the mouth is the size of the largest fish in there - both eels and kokopu seem happy to squeeze through! Kokopu and bullies are pretty easily caught while spotlighting.

To be honest studying before an exam doesn't make a huge lot of difference, it is the amount of work you do during the year that matters. Revision certainly helps, but learning new stuff won't make much difference.

(Am down to the last box of 50 books!)

nativelover sent me the photos. I would try to put them up but my computer is obscenely slow today (and I am procrastinating enough as it is!) Ok, these two are definitely a lot different to the other fish in the photos! However that is because the anomaly fish are ACTUALLY the banded kokopu, whereas the other fish are inanga This is actually an ideal situation. That many kokopu of any sort would quickly turn to carnage as the fish get bigger and start fighting. Two bandeds that size alone in a tank that size would look pretty sparse, but with the inanga there it it padded out nicely at the moment, then as the shorter-lived inanga die off (1-3 years, some could last longer) they then make room for the increasingly chunky bandeds. In a year or so the kokopu will have the thick dense body that typifies kokopu, and they will probably also start fighting. Hopefully being a similar age they will remain a similar size and not be unfairly matched, allowing you to keep them together. It is good when they are fighting to have lots of caves for them to hide in as well as partial barriers up through the water column, such as bits of driftwood. This makes it easier for fish to get away. (Imagine a bully chasing you around a tennis court with and without the net up. The bully can still see you when the net is up, but you can get away easier.)

whereabouts are you? There might be people nearby who can help. (is really handy for this sort of thing if you put your location in your profile)

:happy2:

I put a gee-minnow trap in my tank overnight to catch a particularly timid fish. (trap has same principle as a hinaki eel trap) I caught every fish in the tank, including the cray!

You mention that you regularly give her the Revolution anti-flea. It seems fleas and developing resistance to these topical anti-flea treatments more and more. My mum was using Advantage on her cat then he started showing classic flea-allergy symptoms. She found the vet was quite rude about it, telling her she must be doing it wrong. Then I heard from elsewhere about the increasing cases of resistance, so mum tried a different topical anti-flea and the cat is now back to his beautiful old self. Is worth giving it a go. Just look at what the active ingredient is in the Revolution and find another topical anti-flea with a different ingredient. BLAMMO! Dead fleas Even if you think your cat doesn't have fleas, they can be a bit subtle sometimes. Is worth a go as it is an easy fix if that is what is wrong. then just keep rotating the anti-fleas to avoid resistance in the future.

:slfg: Male bully, meet female bully. Go forth and multiply 8) With common bullies, just make sure you get them from a non-diadromous lake population, otherwise they will need to 'go to sea', which could be done but with a lot of hassle (google scholar search: 'laboratory culture of galaxias maculatus' by Mitchell)

I had a look at the tank today (ok, I admit it: I pulled over one of the leather ottomans and sat watching it for ages) and WOW the fish look amazing! I think all the kokopu were out and active, and the giant kokopu look like they are on steroids - I think they have trebled in volume since we put them in When the ice has melted I should check how well my latest collection of wood is going and bring down the sunk pieces.

Ok, let's see.... with explanations so people can learn: redfin female (diagonal stripes on the face = redfin, no red = female) probably a common (tapered head and dark 'cat whiskers' under the eye) possibly a common male (whiskers under eye and male due to coloured stripe on outer edge of first dorsal) Redfin (diagonal stripes on face, can't see enough to be sure of sex) possibly a common male (whiskers, tapered head and coloured dorsal stripe) possibly common male (as above) dunno, random brown splots (neither splotches nor spots!) suggest Cran's Male something. (he is feeling defensive/territorial and has gone black to show it. No idea what species) Cran's male. (splots on face, orange dorsal stripe, blunt head). I know this dude, he is super cute and a show off probably a common.

*cough* photo of the month! *cough*