Stella

Weird, sorry for your loss Moulting can be a difficult time for koura. Interesting observation by LivingArt that it can be water quality at the time of moulting! I am pretty sure it is an issue in the wild too, but perhaps water quality could exacerbate it in captivity.

Reply from MPI: From the last time I tried getting undersized black flounder for an aquarium, a permit application cost $500 and was ridiculously involved.

I think it might be.... not so sure with these wee ones, but the body outline looks oval like the blacks.

How about a daguerreotype then? Or possibly a rock drawing?

hehe me too! Manuscript is due for submission at the end of the year *workworkwork* and the book is due to be published by the end of next year. oooh would you be so wonderful as to send me a .pdf of this? There is practically no (published) work on black flounder. I think they are out at the moment, following a winter spawning. The little one that I caught the other day looks very oval like the adults, will post a photo of it when I have one.

:sml1: Rod and I caught that fish last week! He is doing the photos and I am doing the writing for a new fieldguide to freshwater fish in NZ! He is about to set up to take photos of a 2cm one tonight Ok, so black flounder are a catadromous species, meaning they spend most of their growing time in freshwater but migrate to the sea to breed. Larvae come in after a couple of months.They are commonly found around estuaries, but this is probably partly because they are easily caught there. There are many records of them between 60 and 250km inland, in low gradient rivers. Sadly there is very little known about this species, despite it being the only freshwater member of its genus, and being a 'managed' ( :sml1: ) species. The quota management thing is a problem. *Technically* you are only allowed to catch them using certain techniques and there is a minimum size of 25cm for flatfish. I have just emailed MinFish (or whatever they are now) and will let you know. The answer probably depends on the mood of the person answering, as the laws regarding native wildlife are a complete mess. In the meantime, the size and shape of flounder greatly affect how you keep them. Obviously they need a LARGE ground area. Given the shape of the fish, there would be little going on in the tank elsewhere. Other fish could be used, but, to quote a friend, they are 'wee predacious flying carpets'. It would be very easy to overestimate stocking due to the size and shape of the flounder. While many little flounder could be ok together, they grow very fast, and aquatic life cannot be released into the wild without a permit. I would advise having one baby flounder and keeping other short-lived native fish with it (inanga/smelt). As the flounder grows the others will die off (and/or be eaten), creating room. Actually, what would be cool is also getting a young giant bully and growing that up along with the flounder! They are also astonishingly good at getting out of tanks by shooting along the bottom and up the side. All that said, the babies are seriously cute, and, given the right sized/shaped aquarium, they would be a fascinating pet! ilwis, it is the sand flounder (I think, or perhaps yellowbelly?) that is our chameleon flounder. Someone might have a copy of 'A Treasury of New Zealand Fishes', the author clearly had a lot of fun playing with them. I think they mimiced fishing net perfectly, but an abstract triangular patterned lino was about their limit.

Finding more detail on the Waipahihi fish. It seems the guppies and mollies were wiped out before the mid-seventies. Around the mid-seventies the swordtails were put in there. Originally they were orange, but soon reverted to the green wild type. The stream was surveyed in 1999 but they were not found. To my knowledge they haven't been seen since. Is there a Taupo fish club, and/or some fish nuts that have been in Taupo for a long time that might know more?

ENVY!!! I so want to see tadpole shrimp! Apparently there are lots in the South Island (though I have just missed the season here). We were looking for them around Manawey live in ephemeral (temporary) pools, which of course have been agricultured out of existence now.

Will be interesting to find out what your fish is! The (known) guppies are well south of there, and gambusia shouldn't be white...

LOL no one was around to make records then! My understanding is that there have been lakes there before, and every couple of thousand years they get vaporised by eruptions. The last eruption would have wiped out all life in the lake, and also poisoned all the fish in the rivers to the north-east. Diadromous (sea-migratory) species recolonised once the water was healthy again, but the non-diadromous Cran's bully couldn't easily return, though some have. This is the distribution of the Cran's bully, the gap is pretty obvious:

LOL d'oh! (I assume platties would need warmer water than the Wairoa would provide?) Thanks for the update on the fish farm!

aw torries are so cute! Tis ages since I have seen any. Nice having such a good closeup focus for video!

I am writing a fieldguide on freshwater fish in NZ and currently working on the Poeciliid section (gambusia, guppies, mollies, swordtails, leopardfish. Got a few questions. Known distributions. This is what the scientists know, but aquarists are more likely to know others! Guppies - around Reparoa, north of Taupo (Waihunuhunu, Kawaunui and Waiotapu streams) Mollies - Tokaanu/Waihi wetland south of Lake Taupo Swordtails - only Waipahihi Stream, Taupo (probably extinct) Leopardfish - scientists know of one site in Kamo, Whangarei, but you guys have told me about sites in Western Springs (Auckland), Wellington, and Ohauiti, Tauranga (near old tropical fish farm). The Waipahihi Stream in Taupo is an interesting site, having had guppies, swordtails and mollies. From my reading I *think* this is the history, but I would love it if someone could confirm this: 1. guppies and mollies present 2. circa 40 years ago developments changed the temperature and they both went extinct 3. mollies then introduced at the Tokaanu/Waihi wetland south of Lake Taupo 4. swordtails introduced to Waipahihi Stream 5. further developments in recent years cooled the stream and swordtails are probably extinct. Are there any other freshwater aquarium fish species (apart from goldfish and koi) that are in the wild in NZ? What about white cloud mountain minnows? Surely they are around! Some people might worry about mentioning sites in case MAF or whoever they are now go and eradicate them. The reality is the above species are confined to geothermally warmed water and cannot spread, or are not confined but haven't spread, thus are a local curiosity and to be honest no one really cares that they are there. However it is important that other new species are known about in the wild, so it can be checked to see if there is a potentially major threat. In which case they might be eradicated (though sadly this is usually really difficult in practise) and you can take the credit for saving the country from the next water-weasel

NICE! Must be good to be able to see them all again properly. (neat colours on the torries!) Time for some wood to fill in a bit of the vertical space and distract focus on those blinds? (what you guys can't see is the KICKASS FLOW he has got going! The fish look amazing working it. Next we clamour for video

wuss

Sorry, I have moved on to Dunedin. Am here till the end of the year. I have hooked up with the DOC fish people and can tag along when they go fishing. The lack of a guide in Chch put an end to possible excursions

LOL it so does! :lol: Also anecdote is not evidence. And correlation is not causation. Of course you may chose to go the path of non-evidence-based medicine, in which case I have a spare bottle of snake oil, which TOTALLY cured my whiplash, and you can have for twenty bucks.

:thup: I wish more people knew this! I am sick of people recommending a chiropractor for my shoulder pain. I am NOT going to spend my money on something that is more based on snake oil than science.

He is great! Thanks for the reminder, so many people to catch up with in Chch!

You don't fish??? (To clarify, this is randomly looking for native fish, or whatever we might find, as opposed to trout fishing. Though if anyone does that and wants to show us how they do that while we dabble for natives nearby, that sounds like fun too!)

Right, I am in Christchurch for the next two weeks. Let's go fishing! I need people who know where to go, and people who want to come. Nominations please! :sage: We could do several nights spotlighting in different places, some day trips to streams where we can flip rocks looking for fish. Hell, anyone else got their electrofishing ticket and access to the university's electrofishing machine? (And no, I promise I won't be driving!)

Right! Am starting a trip thread in the natives section, I bet there are other Christchurchians keen for a trip.

On Saturday I visited the Kaikoura Marine Aquarium, after having read this article a little while ago: http://www.stuff.co.nz/marlborough-express/news/kaikoura/7571361/Marine-aquarium-expands It is very new, very DIY and very much a work in progress, but at $2 entry you can't be disappointed! And it makes it easy to go back again and again to see how it is coming along. The girl running it, Megan, has got so much passion and drive to make things happen, that she just DID IT, and started up in a shipping container. She has already have TEN THOUSAND VISITORS and been open just under a year! Megan is basically my new hero, and my mind is now churning with how to do something similar. Especially after having seen Navarre's insulated-shipping-container-fishroom yesterday. I am now imagining a public native freshwater aquarium, starting in one shipping container and eventually expanding to have several, paint the outsides with fishy murals, a huge watertank for recirculation and keeping the temperature stable, get some native trees growing outside and me sitting with my laptop and writing books in between showing visitors through! !drool: http://www.marineaquarium.co.nz/ The website could do with some help, and left of these useful details, which thankfully another site listed: Now, this place is run on the smell of an oily rag and donations, sponsorship etc is important to help it grow. If you are having a clear out or upgrade or got some aquarium bits and pieces your partner wants gone, do consider contacting Megan and seeing if it would be useful for her. :mbh:

Wooo another natives person! Good timing actually... I have just arrived in Christchurch and will be here for the next couple of weeks, visiting as many freshwater scientists as possible and hopefully going out looking for fish. I am writing a field guide to NZ freshwater fish (natives and exotics). Wanna go fishing? :thup:

But it would soon warm up, kinda like a wetsuit.