Stella

Hmm, you are probably right.... I would say half of the eggs are visible in the big picture. Damn that woman has some serious ovaries!

Google columnaris, but that is white and fluffy (I have no idea what colour a tetra's lips are! ) Alternatively, does it look firm and fleshy? Very slow growing? Could be a tumour. Fish tumours are viral and not malignant or harmful. I had a fish with one on it's lip. It dissappeared in time. Anyway, columnaris is more likely. Unless there is some weird tetra lip disease... I know nothing of tropicals.

Ok, second pic, I can see letters in the stripes: XS'AYI hmm, maybe I need to get out more....

bingo

Shall I put them up, Nativelover? Though learning how to do it yourself is useful I use photobucket to store mine, then copy the 'IMG code' below the pic and paste it into a message here and bingo!

Well, my commons are at it too! I think they started on Thursday. There are about a billion eggs (ok, I predict something like 300) and are half the *length* of your upland's eggs Codking. TEENY! They are on the back wall of the tank. Joe Common has somehow perched himself against the vertical wall... (notice the tail-end of my giant kokopu in front!) And a close up: He has completely mangled the sides of his tail with spawning. They wriggle around a lot over the surface of the eggs to ensure fertilisation, and doing this between a rock and a hard place for hours gets rather abrasive. He will guard them till they hatch, ventilating them with his fins all the time. When they hatch he will rub his body over them to help them out. His pectoral fins will probably be a mess by then from the abrasion. This is mum. Note the absolutely classic common bully tapered profile and 'whiskers' under the eye. She is looking in pretty good condition for having just spawned, and I didn't even notice her looking gravid! This egg machine laid a similar number three months ago to the day. I think she is 8cm and he is 10cm body length, quite big. They were around 5cm when I got them, which was at least two years ago I think. I took this interesting series over half a minute. Notice how he gets lighter so quickly. The velvety-black is the spawning colours. Normally he is a paler version of her. Unfortunately he went back to defending his eggs after the last pic and went black again so I couldn't complete the series.

no idea. Possibly to ten years, maybe more. answer> This paper looked into the otoliths of banded kokopu: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/conten ... a920503805 (I can email you a .pdf if you can't access it) Otoliths are their ear bones, like thin flat disks, all fish have a pair. They grow concentrically and show growth rings like trees. Really useful little things! Anyway, in this paper the oldest was 9, but most were age 6 or younger. (And it is only one paper, based on fish in two streams in the South Island.) But well-looked after animals in captivity can usually live longer. answer> :lol:

Well, partly their behaviour does change a lot as they grow, and he is still quite little, but also the behaviour of the inanga change affect things - possibly like a dither fish. Though inanga are best in a school, and the non-schooling behaviour of the kokopu can break that up. If they are fed during they day they can become more active then, but that depends on when you are around. Most natives are nocturnal. Just remember to think of each kokopu you get as a fish that is 25cm long, 5cm deep and 5cm wide, not a 6cm skinny fish. Fed right, they will be 10cm long and really chunky in a year. And they will start to fight. They are solitary fish in the wild, or have many fin scars if found in high densities. With a fish like that it can be good to plan the tank as a long term project. Short-lived inanga or smelt (~3 years) can be useful to pad out a large empty tank while the kokopu grow. The inanga will die off as the kokopu get to a good size to need the tank to themselves. Kokopu can learn to deal with each other if they grow up together, but the fighting will happen and can get messy. (I had five 2 year old kokopu together and it was carnage! The banded was by far the worst perpetrator.)

Absolutely, unquestionably banded kokopu :bounce: I could be cheeky and say 'note the bands', but all kokopu of that size have vertical yellowish stripes, the trick is knowing what to look for. Banded kokopu: the stripes fade out top and bottom. Giant kokopu: the stripes have a definite 'edge' between the strip and the body colour all the way around. Shortjaw kokopu: the stripes have no definite edge anywhere. OK, so banded-specific info: This is the best kokopu for the aquarium as they don't get as big as giants, are not as habitat-specific as shortjaws, and not as threatened as either of them. They will grow to 20-25cm and become really stocky - need a big tank. When they get to 2 years old they may start having massive fights. This tears shreds off their sides but doesn't cause serious damage (usually), you just have to be careful that they can escape each other (lots of hiding places) and have plenty of room. You will find as they get bigger that they hide a lot during the day and come out at night. They don't like much current. They do like caves to lurk in, and patrolling near the surface. Natural habitat: very slow tannined streams, up to 2m wide, with lots of bank undercuts, overhanging vegetation and wood or rocks to hide under. They tend to lurk in pools, patrol under vegetation and feed on invertebrates that fall in. That cray looks a little big for the size of the fish. Watch carefully for any signs of him trying to stalk or threaten the fish, or causing any fin or nose injuries. The fish are also quite at risk from crays when hiding during the day. A lot depends on the personality of the cray and the size of the aquarium. :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

Well yes, all about keeping them safe. Did you see the paper I posted a while ago about threat-sensitive nest site choices? Maybe you are perceived as a threat You will see them yellow over the next week, then develop tiny silver bits, then the silver bits will become eyes, then you will see them moving around, then you will go blind from looking too close, then they will hatch. It is temperature dependant, I can't remember what the books say, but somewhere between 2 and 3 weeks IIRC. I find they hatch out during the day, while spawning seems to start late in the day and drag out over night and into the next day. hehehe well, you seem to be very proud, and for good reason!

email away (I think my address is attached to this thing)

Awesome! Very fresh eggs and amazing lens on the camera! Congrats, grandpa

It was 120 cm long x 50 front-to-back x 40 tall. Brilliant proportions for a native tank, though even longer is always better I think the shortjaws in that video were about 12cm long and just starting to deepen nicely. (they start long and slim, then deepen and widen after a while, eventually winding up really stocky) The tank now houses my adult brown mudfish.

Ah evolution! Some get the EAT AND BE BOLD genes, some aren't so lucky. Also, the more eggs a fish lays, the fewer are likely to survive (in the wild). My bullies have just laid something like 300+ eggs, for the second time this year. She could easily lay several more batches like that over summer. For the population to maintain at the same level, TWO of them need to survive. This means they need to produce that many eggs in the hope of two surviving. Ok, so aquaria are quite a different kettle of fish but the chances of you getting a complete batch to survive is incredibly remote. For starters you can't control their chromosomes.

Aw thanks Preacher! It was neat getting to show everyone. That was probably when things were at bit of a peak too. I would love to do a riffle tank again, but they are a bit of stress with temperatures. High flow pumps = lots of heat High flow fish = can't hack the heat And cutting down to two big tanks made the maintenance SO much easier while dealing with uni. Anyway, hopefully soon I shall get to live vicariously through the big native tanks going into the National Trout Centre and the museum here. And of course everyone else getting into native fish once my book is out (been sorting the index today, and Zev has the rest of the book nearly sorted! )

of those two videos, still got all the mudfish but lost everyone in the riffle tank due to a major disaster I still find that video sad, they were doing so well! I also have a 20cm giant kokopu and some common bullies that have just spawned.

Just been uploading a couple of videos, one of the baby black mudfish fighting, the other of my old riffle tank (torrentfish, shortjaw kokopu and bluegill bullies). The mudfish one is pretty poor quality, but it is such weird behaviour for them I thought some would find it interesting. http://www.youtube.com/user/nznativefish?feature=mhum neeeeed sleeeep nowwwwww

with the frog fungus, there are areas in NZ where no one (NO ONE) is allowed to go, to try and prevent the fungus spreading to those populations of native frogs. If you are working with a critter then you are likely to be a disease vector for it.

:lol: Nice one, Zev!! Well there are three possible options, with differing degrees of difficulty: 1: pee into a cup (convenient, no performance anxiety) 2: learn to pee standing (easy to do and common in other countries/times: http://adam.shand.net/iki/2007/Women_Wh ... anding_Up/ ) 3: get a boyfriend (without performance or flailing-near-soft-bits anxiety) #3

ok I believe you now! :lol: and ick, what an annoyance! Ok, if you believe some sort of resistance is happening you should rotate your treatments. Not just brand name, check the active ingredients and use different things over time. The thing is the 'wild type' is usually more robust than resistant ones, so stopping using the chemical they are resistant to can result in a reversion back to wild type. Just depends on if the resistant allele has got fixed in the population (ie all individuals have it) Of course with fleas while the principle ought to be the same, there may be other factors, especially the contact your animals have with others. (They do this with HIV patients. The virus within *one person* evolves so rapidly that they quickly develop multi-drug resistant strains within their body. When that happens they stop treating and the virus slowly reverts to wild type, then they can blast it with the original drugs again!)

with native fish! :bounce:

Why not get such a system up and running yourselves? It could make it much easier to convince MAF of the virtues of it that way. The FNZAS have their own system for registering breedings, model it off that, only go a little further to include matings, births, deaths, sales and ownership records. Obviously voluntary and 100% legal species only. I imagine people will argue that it won't work, that you will never get all the animals. But you don't have to. Just design the system and get enough people on board to show them that it works.

Are you ABSOLUTELY sure it is fleas? You have seen fleas during each outbreak - actually caught and identified them? It sounds highly unlikely that fleas would be in one room only, and the topical treatments reliably last longer than that. With the topical treatments fleas are easy to control. Unless other animals are entering your house? Unless you are seeing lots of actual fleas, I am wondering if there is something else going on.

:evil: the sooner they bring in compulsory registrations and neutering of cats the better!!! (note: I am a cat lover) Also if you have someone else's pet loitering around your place and can't convince it to leave... catching it and peeing on it works. Cats can deal with terror but not utter humiliation :lol:

Chances are that flea bombs only kill LIVE fleas, more will hatch later from eggs. Check first. Your best option is to treat your dog (advantage or similar), vacuum the house repeatedly and thoroughly (get a carpet cleaner?) and just deal with it for six weeks while the last eggs hatch and die. I have gladwrapped tanks before for house bombing, it works, but it a hell of a lot of effort and you tend to feel a bit icky about all your surfaces being coated in poison after that.