Stella

Interesting question actually. Boiling will kill greeblies that may make humans sick, but not all greeblies are bad for your fish and most of those that are are in your aquarium already. (I wouldn't drink water from a stream but fish are happily swimming around in it) Dechlorinators may be important if you are getting tap water as they may be increasing the amount of chlorine just in case (Personally I don't see the point of the stresscoat-type of additives.) The suggestion of carbon is a good one, as is testing for nitrates. Is the tank new? That may change what you need to do. If it were me, due to the sudden high stocking and likely difficulty in doing regular I would probably add table salt (1/2tsp per litre) to prevent possible outbreaks of whitespot or bacterial/fungal diseases.

Those travelling through Turangi should make a point to stop in at the Tongariro National Trout Centre to see the huge and spectacular native fish aquaria that we are creating! 10 tanks, depicting a variety of natural habitats and including most native fish species in the North Island, pest fish and a pest/native plant tank. It is a good place for a stop - just before/after the Desert Road. $10 entry for adults I think.

yes, that pond would probably be fine. For the time being I imagine there is plenty of food (terrestrial and aquatic) for them to fend for themselves for a while. They may well start eating your meaty turtle food. (May need a trap to fish them out again!) :love:

I wasn't meaning specifically Donna's... though I could imagine a giant kokopu holding its own against a snappy turtle!

Nearly! Formal opening is March 11th so people can visit any time after that. it is just south of Turangi, in the middle of some lovely dormant and non-shaking volcanos I will post a heap of photos once it is opened.

That is a good point though Zev, they would be fine in a pond, provided it was cool and shady (and the pond still holds water...)

if you get stuck we could possibly take them at the huge new native aquarium at the Turangi National Trout Centre. Going from facility to facility would probably make it easier getting permits, and we may be able to sort that side of things. We could take them immediately as things are up and running. I wish I could help out more!! :tears:

I am not seeing anything that looks like whitespot there. The first photo looks odd around the head, but it doesn't look like whitespot to me, maybe something secondary to the bloat? The tonic may still work on it though.

oh dear, that is no good! Need any native freshwater fish rehomed? Though the permits to move them to the North Island might be involved.

The Godfather of NZ native fish nuts, Bob McDowall, had died :tears: (emphasis mine) Although I sadly never got to meet him, he very kindly read over and commented on a draft of my book. I heard later just how many manuscripts he recieves and turns down, so this was a pretty big honour. A huge loss to freshwater science.

Oh no! I saw that aquarium in November and was very impressed. I can imagine there would have been some pretty major 'tsunamis' inside... :tears:

ha, awesome! resilient. The day after I removed a small fish from my critter tank, suddenly my tubifex came out of the peat in thier thousands and the other critters and building up again. Amazing the effect one small fish can have.

Very soon there is a TOTALLY AMAZING native fish aquarium opening on your very doorstep At the Tongariro National Trout Centre I am setting up 10 enormous tanks, the shortest is 1.5m, the longest is I think 7m. Seven show different native fish and their habitats, one for native/pest plants and two for pest fish. It will have almost all freshwater fish species in the North Island! Since everyone will be itching to go and see it, I suggest you organise the various other clubs to come and visit the aquarium, via Taupo. make the fish people come to you The grand opening is March 11 (three weeks... eep!). Once it is done I will post photos 8)

Sophia, although I have kept various rare natives, I keep coming back to the bullies as the best native aquarium fish ever - easy care, easy to find, easy to adjust and SUPER curious and always up to something :love:

Thanks Andrew. Yeah, I have been up in Turangi for the last few weeks setting up 10 enormous native aquaria at the Tongariro National Trout Centre :happy1: (opening 11 march!) I did get an order for them but I was struggling with working out how to make an invoice, then got struck down by bronchitis for a month and couldn't do anything. Not a good look sadly. I asked the supplier if the order still stood and haven't heard back... (BTW if people want to suggest it to their libraries, buying directly though me will probably be cheaper than the middlemen they go to, though I guess some prefer just to deal with the middlemen.)

Thanks guys. Am heading back up there today so will hopefully be able to find gh and kh tests and run the various options.

Interesting point about the fast twitch contraction, makes sense. Though kokopu are short-burst swimmers, so you would think it would affect them similarly but it doesn't. Torrentfish are also hit hard by it, not sure why. Apparently the effect of the electricity on trout's muscles can break their spines and I have certainly seen many trout with dark bands on their bodies indicating nerve damage. As such we don't tend to use electrofishing to specifically sample trout. Regarding wearing gloves, I was taught not to as you shouldn't need to put your hands in the water when it is live, and developing a habit of doing that makes it more likely that you will accidentally do it without gloves. That and they are made for enormous tradesmen hands! Electrofishing is clumsy enough as it is I guess different people have different preferred methods. I haven't heard of turning the current off as soon as you spot a fish. Have you seen that here or is it a Canadian thing? Since our fish come around immediately, the moment you turn off the current most of them will dive under the nearest rock. That and much of the fishing happens in places where there is no hope of seeing the fish until they are caught, although we carry hand nets just in case.

It is new. I am guessing the concrete has been coated in something (built by proper aquarium designers who should know stuff). I forgot to say that there are two tanks that have this problem, the smaller one is all-acryllic with no concrete or fibreglass. We put a handful of gravel in a small bucket with some fresh water and the pH was higher the next day. I guess I am wondering if this is a normal 'starting problem' with the gravel.

Nice! Correct identification too 8) I love spotlighting kokopu, really nice to watch. The spider is probably Dolomedes aquaticus, beautiful spiders. You can get perfectly healthy streams that are orange and cruddy, but that it is dried up in places downstream doesn't sound great.

at a public aquarium I am working on there is a weird problem with pH in a couple of the tanks. It looks like the hideous fruit salad gravel* is increasing the pH...! I can't remember the numbers, but it is cranking up to nearly pH 8. The water is cold (~15*C) and is spring water, I am not sure of the hardness. The other standard parameters are fine. The 'miner's canary' troutlets are dying slowly. Surely this shouldn't happen? Fruit salad gravel is meant to be used in aquaria ( :facepalm: ) The tank is utterly enormous, acrylic and concrete with a fibreglass background and ehiem filter. no wood or plants, just stones. Anyone got any ideas? (*used on purpose to be intentionally hideous)

Have a poke through the settings, there are some really useful ones. also in the 'labs' section (a bit like firefox add-ons) get the 'undo send' one. You know all those times that you hit send then immediately realise you sent it to the wrong person or did something equally as dumb? With this add-on after you hit send gmail 'holds' the email for a set number of seconds, during which time if you :facepalm: you can retrieve the message without :oops: :happy2: I think there is also one for if you use the word attach/attachment etc, but don't include one, it will ask you if you meant to!

https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAcco ... 155&type=2 :happy1:

seriously, gmail is utterly awesome. I made the switch last year and am very impressed with it. forget hotmail 8)

I daresay the fish notice us crashing around in the stream trying to get in position before any warning signals or zapping happens! It is rather scary playing with this, more than enough electrickery to stop your heart, and you are deliberately making the water around your feet LIVE :nilly: though it is also a rather handy sampling method. I have a video on my youtube channel of some friends electrofishing. Somehow this got onto a Russian fishing site where they decided it was all about poaching fish and this video now has over 49,000 undeserved views.... :facepalm: Gives you and idea of what electrofishing is though: http://www.youtube.com/nznativefish#p/u/14/UK4QC7AE8L4 Once I was going fishing and got to the site and realised the trailing earth cable was missing from the box. My supervisor did an amazing macgyver trick using an straightened wire coathanger, jump cables and a safety pin! And it WoRKED!

I am giving a talk to the Palmerston North branch of Forest & Bird on Tuesday 8th Feb. This is held at the Te Manawa Art Gallery at 7:30pm, gold coin entry and tea and bikkies after It will be an illustrated talk going over the various species and their quirks, a few short videos thrown in, and some suggestions on where and how to go fish hunting to see them for yourselves. (Also will have my book for sale there) It may be a little rough as I was sick for all of January and only decided a day or so ago that I would still do it, but I have given similar talks before and it should be fine (with prayers to the pixies of powerpoint!) Also I am leading a guided bus trip to the Ohau river on Saturday, also Forest & Bird. This will be practical fish hunt - everyone getting in the stream with buckets and nets and seeing who can catch the coolest fish! It is part of our Seven Wonders Summer nature program. For more information and tickets contact the i-site in the square.