Stella

Wow, some excellent photos there! :nfs: Great hearing that people are using it as a way to procrastinate

The filter can't pump air, only water, so you need to get the filter and pipes filled with water before you turn it on. I don't know if that filter has a 'self-priming' system or not, but what I do is this: Disconnect the outflow pipe (ie the one that returns water to the tank) at the tank end, Hang it down into a big bucket, Suck on the pipe to start a siphon from the tank, through the filter and into the bucket. Shake the filter a lot to help get the air out of it. When all seems well (and BEFORE the bucket overflows ) put your thumb over the end of the pipe, reattach it to the outlet fitting and turn on the filter. You may need to spend some time rattling to filter to get rid of remaining air bubbles.

I know a good one....

Technically trout aren't obligate piscivores like pike, they are mostly insectivorous but wouldn't turn down a slow fish given the chance (like most native fish). Trout definitely have direct and indirect negative effects on native fish, in some cases certain native species simply cannot survive in an area with trout (notably small non-diadromous galaxiids).

Yup, that is how it works 'Top-down' is where the system is controlled by top predators, and 'bottom-up is where the system is controlled by primary production (plant/algae growth). Thankfully we don't have true piscivorous fish here, or our naive native fish would have been annihilated!

Good point, Blueether about the legalities. I would like to know how he is wanting the fish to keep the pond clean? Clean of what? The thing is most fish that he could use would eat the pond critters and zooplankton. Without the zooplankton there is nothing to keep the phytoplankton (suspended algae) in check, resulting in great blooms of algae. His best bet for looking after the ponds is to fence them off and either do plantings or allow the natives to regenerate around the ponds. Taller trees will help shade the water and reduce algal blooms and exotic plant growth. Fencing off the ponds and any streams/boggy land running into the ponds will stop stock from entering and pugging the land up, reduce the amount of nutrients getting into the ponds (the biggest problem killing our freshwaters). This works well for his back pocket too as fencing animals out of waterways decreases production (drinking where you crap is not good for your health, human or cow! Poor health = poor growth, even if the animal isn't outwardly sick) and removes the risk of losing valuable animals that get stuck and drown or die of hypothermia.

Nice! How are your bandeds during the day (when settled in the tank)? I put four fat ones in the Te Manawa tank expecting them to be out and about and real show-stoppers like the ones at Turangi, but they mostly hide apart from at mealtimes.

damnit, my smelt were dead this morning too! They looked fine last night. WEIRD. Amazing how the cucumber smell is so much stronger when they are dead. The cat refused to eat them.

Very sorry for your losses Was it only smelt or other species too? Had the tank been well-maintained before this? Perhaps you stirred up too much gunk from the bottom? I have often done 50-75% waterchanges on natives and had no problem (Palmy water is also chlorinated) but killed everything with a major waterchange and gravelvac after having let maintenance slip for a while. You may be tempted to use dechlorinators in the future, but these would be toxic to your crays. Can't win. :facepalm: (I just did a 50% change on my tank with some new smelt, will be keeping a close eye now!)

A lot of nativefish keepers maintain various levels of salt in their tanks as an ongoing 'preventative'. Personally I disagree with this for two reasons: Firstly could lead to selecting for salt-tolerance microbes in your tank, which is not good as salt is the safest treatment for common native fish diseases. But primarily because the minor surface changes and infections etc that commonly happen over summer are a really useful warning sign that the fish are stressed and conditions are not right. Those warnings give you a chance to sort things out before they get nasty. Without those warnings things could suddenly go from normal to nasty. For a long time I pondered the virtues of treating all native fish as they come in from the wild. They must be quarantined anyway (ok some don't, but the risks are huge), and the stress of the first few weeks in captivity often causes disease. The whitespot parasite can be eliminated at this point with salt, but most other diseases that native fish contract are opportunistic and in the water of every tank anyway. I am not a fan of subjecting fish to medication/salt unnecessarily, but it also dramatically cuts the risk of disease in the initial stressful weeks, or of contracting dangerous whitespot in the future. Having dealt with a lot of newly-captured fish in recent months and learned a bit more I am now a fan of salting (1tsp/L) ALL new fish during their three week quarantine. So in summary for native fish I disagree with ongoing 'just in case' medication, but support quarantine medication.

Actually hydroelectric dams have blocked eels from accessing HALF of their natural habitat. And any behind the dams get seriously munched going through the turbines. They are now doing trap-and-transfer programs for both eels moving downstream and elvers moving upstream. It is a start, and they say they move thousands each season, but that is nothing compared to the numbers trying to move in each direction. Also if you pour all the elvers in the same place each time it just becomes perch/trout feeding time :an!gry :facepalm: The thing with the numbers of eels - each female lays several million eggs, and I think they estimate that one out of every 100,000 reaches NZ. However they have to do such enormous numbers because the lifecycle is incredibly risky. To keep the population stable every parent eel is relying on ONE of their babies to make it to maturity. Right now that isn't happening, and soon, or even now, eels will swim off into the sea and be in so low numbers that they can't find each other to spawn with.

wow, that is very cool! Please post photos! The longest wild eel I have seen was all of 3ft Beautiful beastie though.

I would love to try smoked eel, but it is never happening. Is pretty amazing when you think that for longfins the generation time IS your lifetime... An eel that hatched when you were born may only go to sea to spawn when you are elderly (or past-tense). Incredible creatures.

I can count 9, maybe 10 (tiny head to the right of the flash-glare?) How big is the tank? Much fighting? (very very cool! !drool: )

actually roundup does some interesting things to some of the non-diadromous south island galaxiids. The parasite lifecycle is thus: snail host > fish host > snail host etc. Roundup is used in spring to spray the edges of the streams. The roundup causes more of the parasite cysts to be shed from the snail. Leading to more cysts in the fish. Now the parasite grows in the muscle of the fish. In fry the parasite can cause spinal growth defects. Obviously having more cysts inside you because of the roundup is a Bad Thing. FURTHERMORE the roundup seems to have the effect of making the spinal malformations WORSE. Original paper with photos of freaky bent fish: http://www.eeid.cornell.edu/Trematodes%20in%20fish.pdf Further study showing roundup connection: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2664.2010.01791.x/pdf (or harder to read but easier to access html version http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2664.2010.01791.x/full (Insectdirect, what do you mean about the yellow eel being caused by roundup?)

and from my mad-crazy enthusiasm about everything, and constant postings, no doubt

31 according to my birth certificate, but, according to several people I met last week, I look 24!

Learn about the plight of our endemic longfin eel here and sign the Forest & Bird petition calling for a moratorium on commercial fishing. http://www.longfineel.co.nz Please share on facebook etc!

LOL it is swarming with redfins! I didn't realise we had *quite* so many till last night. If we need any more bullies I am officially banning myself from getting any more redfins! :sage: There are also commons, Cran's and maybe some uplands in there. :love: yeah :love:

(hmm, the pictures do somewhat give the impression that the tank is at cichlid-stocking-levels with kokopu... Really there are only six 10-15cm kokopu in 5000L of water)

The latest batch of fish went in yesterday - 12 new bullies and 5 banded kokopu. It is really nicely stocked now. The next priority is inanga, and later on will get some torrentfish. The fish had only been in the tank for an hour at most when these photos were taken, so they were fairly quiet. I saw them again six hours later and they were patrolling up and down the tank looking fabulous Check out the huge yawn in the back row!!

some random pond somewhere.... Not entirely sure! it is really common though - farm ponds, lakes, ditches, wetlands, urban lakes where there is riparian vegetation for it to get caught in.

try looking up cyanobacteria. That can come in a variety of colours from the typical 'blue-green' to browns and pinks.

Aw what a pretty boy! Is he on holiday?

Azolla filiculoides is a native free-floating fern. Likes high light (which is convenient being right under the lights!) and no surface movement. Turns red under strong light or green otherwise (is the plant that turns many farm ponds red) Actually has a completely awesome symbiotic relationship with a type of cyanobacteria. The azolla provides a nice safe home for the cyano, and takes advantage of teh cyano's nitrogen-fixing properties) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azolla_filiculoides Do a google image search. (btw I recommend getting only a few plants then allowing them to take over. It is easy to harvest great handfuls then turn your tank into a mess of dropped roots. A really good way to harvest it without breaking the plants up is to dip a flat surface like cardboard or an icecream container lid into the water and lift it out with a few plants, then float them off in your tank) ('Duckweed' refers to a lot of different plants, floating and non-floating, so is a very confusing term. Lemna is the one that consists of tiny green platelets.)