Stella

My mudfish tank is just peat substrate with leaf litter over top. No filtration as it would stir the peat up and get clogged too rapidly. 30% waterchanges weekly. Lovely brown water. The leaf littler certainly cuts down the peat from getting stirred up and lasts for a few months. Rougher leaves like rewarewa and ponga last for longer. Though as the leaves decompose they can encourage suspended bacteria. Putting in tiny inverts from the bottom of ponds gets a little ecosystem going that eat this. Plants love the peat, but it can be very messy thinning them. Don't use a mobile substrate like this if you want very active fish, fast-water fish or high stocking densities needing high filtration. Just another way of thinking about things.

Sorry for your losses Unfortunately is is often VERY hard to tell what is causing a disease in a fish - a single set of symptoms may be caused by a bactera, a fungus or a parasite, and each require separate treatment. Like with any form of medicine, a diagnosis is a best-guess, based on received information and prior experience/education. Pet shops don't sell pre-quarantined animals (as far as I am aware), they may have just hopped off a distribution chain and barely stopped moving since they were caught in the wild, hence horribly stressed, so you did the right thing by quarantining them (I hear this so rarely! Well done ) What bothers me is your new fish were in quarantine for two weeks, a week later they died in your main tank (three weeks) and looked like they died from starvation. Surely this means they were thin before you put them in the main tank - a sign they should never have come out of quarantine in the first place. They do seem to be recommending an awful lot of different things for you to buy - a pump and airstone for additional oxygen should be unnecessary on an otherwise filtered tank, unless it was excessively overstocked.

LOL Artem, that sounds awesome! I wanna grow my own dragonflies! :bounce: The window above the tank is always open, so the mossies will get in. In summer I rely on keeping the doors closed, pulling the sheets up tight and earplugs... :roll: (Actually it usually works out fine. And with the 'pond' I can just add more backswimmers if the mossies get out of control, but the increase in food should lead to a natural increase in predators) Thanks Jennifer. The 1ft cube sustained an amazingly high diversity of critters, and certainly the tiny ones (copepods and ostracods) were in really high numbers. I do expect that the backswimmers will die back quite a bit, not in the least due to me harvesting them for the fish But everything will find their own natural balance, and that is the interesting part of this as a long-term project. (I am a postgrad ecology student and my applied theory geekgland is having a fun workout tonight )

Artem, why the caution about adding too many dragonfly/damselfly larvae? I was thinking only adding in a few - certainly the top-down control by too many predators would muck everything up. I might put some shrimp in at some point, and maybe some mayflies or caddiesflies, just to see if they can deal with it. Yes I would like to keep it pond-focused, but it is also an excuse to learn more about any critter Josh_S, last summer I had a mudfish tank set up but had no fish in it (peat substrate, so lovely tannined water that the mossies love). The wrigglers were going nuts! Finally I managed to get the fish in there before they all simultaneously hatched and sucked me dry

On Saturday I finally set up a spare 3ft tank as a pond. I had a 1ft cube tank set up as a pond for a year or so, it worked really well and I wanted to scale it up. So, the idea is I add random bugs to watch, and random collections of things that I pull out of ponds over time, and some will form self-sustaining populations - everything eating each other. The basis of the ecosystem is a combination of sunlight (the tank is half against a window) to feed algae and plants and peat and leaf litter decomposition. Occasional waterchanges and plant thinning will be needed, but generally it will be pretty low-maintenance. The current population: Water beetles (two species, I love water beetles!) Backswimmers and boatmen Daphnia Snails Pea mussels (tiny filter-feeding mussels) Tubifex Copepods Ostracods Plants: Nitella (native branched algae that looks like a plant) Lemna (duckweed, will also try Azolla fern later) It doesn't look like much, but it is fascinating to watch. Still a bit cloudy from setting up, but the pea mussels should deal to that in time. (the big dots are backswimmers, the little dots near the surface are daphnia, everything else is too small) The backswimmers eat insects - they suck their juices! They had been there since the weekend and tonight I added some daphnia. Talk about CARNAGE! The backswimmers clearly chase the daphnia, then to catch them they do this dramatic circle around them. Within a minute of putting the daphnia in the tank, almost every backswimmer was sucking daphnia juice through a straw! :bounce: Next I want to get more beetles (love beetles!), some damselfly and dragonfly larvae, and maybe see if some tadpoles can survive the beetles over summer. The backswimmers have already covered the nitella with eggs! A neat simple experiment in community and ecosystem ecology

Ew, she has been regurgitating finely processed backswimmers tonight. Never see her do that before - though I have seen regurgitated beetles. She looks pretty relaxed about it all, not sick or anything. Not sure why, maybe something about the chitin, or being a novel food? Backswimmers and boatmen are quite different, but it takes a while to get used to them. Backswimmers literally swim on their backs. Boatmen are rounder and swim on their fronts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backswimmer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corixidae

Always good to check them out in the wild to get an idea of how to do the tank and what sort of fish you can find I think if the aquarium light it on, turning the room light on shouldn't bother them too much. (alternatively it wouldn't be much different to the aquarium light coming on in a dark room). I often find my aquarium lights give off enough light that I don't need the main lights when I am pottering briefly in a small room. Yup, coloured dorsal stripe = male

LOL it is! Galaxias argenteus The first part does refer to the spots being like a galaxy (an early description also likened them to hieroglyphics, the spots can be more swirly on large adults). The 'argenteus' bit must have been a bit embarrassing for the person who named it. 'Argent' means silver, but there is nothing silver about these guys, in the sun they are more golden, with the finest sprinkling of gold dust. This is the largest whitebait species, 30-40cm is a reasonable adult size these days (they are pretty rare ) but can also get much bigger. The largest recorded was (IIRC) 58 cm and 2.5kg! Not good eating though, and don't 'fight' on the line, hence trout :evil: They are not a schooling fish, more of a lurker. They hang out in quiet shady pools, in swamps or very sluggish streams. They are nocturnal and hide in wood jams, undercut banks etc during the day (Maxine jams herself under the rocks on the left) then patrol at night. They have a secondary lateral line on either side of the tops of their backs for detecting terrestrial invertebrates that have fallen onto the surface of the water. They can be quite site-loyal and tend not to be found in pools with large eels.

yes, live food! However I also set up a 3ft tank yesterday as a 'pond' tank for invertebrates. The backswimmers that were lucky enough to go in there have now achieved 'pet' status, along with the two different species of water beetle, snails, tubifex, tiny pea mussels, copepods and ostracods Over time I will add more stuff from other ponds and let things take their course, establish a balanced mini-ecosystem Will add photos from this later in the week (no light on the tank yet, but it is up against the window for algae as the basis of the system.)

I found them in a pond in the Turitea stream walkways area, near to the old west road. Go along old west road, where it crosses the turitea stream there is a dodgy little carpark by the road. Going up the hill is a path and staircase through some pines. Wander along for a big and there is a farm pond right by the track (If anyone is unfamiliar with backswimmers, look at the semi-in-focus one in the bottom photo. They swim along on their back, the two 'oars' being a pair of legs, the sticky-uppy thing pointing backwards is its mouth-straw. Their bodies hold a very thin bubble of air all around them for breathing, this does some gas-exchange with the water, but is replenished periodically at the surface.) Thanks Adrienne

I was playing in a new pond yesterday and came home with a whole lot of backswimmers and a new log for my giant kokopu It is looking a bit bare, but I will find a ponga frond for across the back (the remains of the last frond, put in six months ago, is now a nice litter on the substrate) Maxine is looking awesome these days. You wouldn't think she virtually gave up eating for the first six months of this year! No idea what that was about, but her appetite is back now, and just as big as her personality. She is four years old and maybe a little over 20cm, but probably a bit stunted due to some weird health issues over time. She is a bit full tonight. The backswimmers are hanging out in this big group under the lights and every so often she cruises through them while they dive out of the way! Backswimmers are a 'true bug'. They definition of that is they have sucking mouthparts, so group with cicadas, aphids, hoppers, shield bugs etc. Backswimmers suck other inverts, while boatmen suck plants and algae. They also chip! I can hear them on the other side of the room. Quite unnerving at first!

Hi there, Good plan, placing them in a cooler room to begin with. That helps so much with the battle against the tank heating up. What is critical with bullies is to have lots of ground area and lots of hiding places. Your tank is fixed size, but make sure you have lots of rocks and caves and nooks for them to hide in. A tank that size, four small (5cm or less) bullies would be good. There can be big personality differences: some bullies are really relaxed but some can be very territorial and stroppy. It is best to have a few that get on well in the space available than to cram more in and have shredded fish. Good question about the sexes: I haven't tried having more males than females (CodKing might be able to comment on this) but I suspect it would lead to aggression. Bullies are not so good at getting out as some of the other natives. It is more of a side effect of them shooting up and down the glass then suddenly winding up on the wrong side of the glass. Plain glass is just fine. CodKing, interesting about the liver being regurgitated. I haven't tried feeding that before. I recommend you do a whole lot of trawling in the natives archives, some really good info and experiences in there

Yeah, eels are totally misunderstood. While they do like to congregate around carcasses etc, they are a normal fish and do best in clean, healthy water. Trapping for any native fish, I wouldn't bother using any sort of bait. They are just curious (and/or stupid....I didn't say that!) Eels do look awesome cruising gently along at night!! Seriously, overestimate escape-proofing your tank. Wide tape around the edges of the lids to tape everything down. They can get out of the tiniest crack.

How so? Most of the species native to Europe are weedy species that dealt with the last ice age, that or simply naturally spread. Only 3% of the biota in the British Isles is endemic to the British Isles, practically everything there before the last ice age was wiped out, and there has been little specification since. Humans have been in Europe for millennia longer than they have been here, so what could not naturally spread through Europe has long since been spread by humans. There is little intra-continental spread left. I don't know much about the US, but I imagine it is similar, though with more deliberate introductions. As for invasions from outside of continental Europe or the United States, yep, probably similar to here. The number of daily arrivals would obviously be much higher, however the number of species on the Earth that are not in those areas would be fewer compared to the number of species not in NZ. Ultimately, I fail to see your point. Maybe because Biosecurities can't possibly prevent every possible incursion, accidental or deliberate, we should rubbish the work they do and allow any cute furry mammal in so you can have another pet? Yes it is illegal to keep native terrestrial vertebrates (without some serious permits) BECAUSE of the damage wrought on this land by anthropogenic habitat destruction and introduced species. We don't need to make things any worse than they already are. However check out some of our fish and invertebrates. The invertebrate pet trade overseas is huge and they would kill for what we have on our back doorstep.

Being a small country that imports a lot of goods, think of it this way: Think of the number of species present in this country. Next think of the many orders of magnitude of species not present in this country. Now think of all the many hundreds of people, parcels, shipping containers, aeroplanes and ships arriving every day. The nooks and crannies in which things can hide are endless. Now that is a huge job. Aside from all of that are the people who think it is ok to smuggle creatures or plant material into the country because, in their opinion, the organism would be nice to have/poses no threat/will sell for a lot/can't escape their care. It is highly likely that the varroa mite was introduced to NZ by a beekeeper illegally bringing a queen bee into the country, thinking "hey, bees are here already, this strain has genes I want", without realising they were also smuggling a mite that has now caused millions of dollars of damage to their own industry. Given that our major animal pests are small mammals, are you really surprised that hamsters are not allowed? How much do you (ie pro-importers) know about the species that are native to this country? Are none of them worthy of cute/interesting pet status, or are our native animals so value-less that their existence should be compromised by people wanting yet another exotic (and therefore more interesting) pet option? (sorry, rant over. I do get tired of this 'exotic is best, cute animals won't invade' theme.)

What the adult looks like should have little effect. The only physical difference that I am aware of is the sensory pores on the head (fewer in non-diadromous ones). The main difference that you can easily spot is egg-size. I don't have the right book on me at the moment, but I think non-diadromous SPECIES have 2-2.5mm long eggs, while diadromous SPECIES have 1-1.5mm long eggs. I do not know if there is a size difference between diadromous and non-diadromous forms of the same species. It is a possible convergent evolution. Salt probably won't kill them. All native fish have diadromous ancestors. Not sure about hatchlings though.

While it seems an insane amount of faffing around, if anyone has a stupid amount of time of their hands and wants to try this... This paper goes over a technique for raising diadromous inanga (the most common whitebait, a galaxiid, not a bully/gobiomorphus) in the lab. http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/conten ... a920426973 I don't know if it has been tried on bullies. People tend to estimate much faster times to sea, though I guess it depends on flow conditions and distance inland. Given that diadromous common bullies are normally not too far from the coast (can't remember, something like most under 30km inland?), they probably get there pretty fast.

Yeah, salt is good. I do 1tsp per litre, that being 0.6g. Increase the number of water changes, replacing the water each time. Don't worry about 'aquarium salt' or similar expensive things. The additives are safe at the incredibly minuscule amounts that you are using. Do check the salt tolerance of your fish.

Careful, being a banned plant means it is not only banned from sale but also banned from being in your aquarium.... Just so you know.

Oooh congratulations! And I believe you will find that it is Mr Bully doing the work Here is what bullies do: Male establishes a nest site, usually under a stone. He gets really stroppy and drives everyone away. He will frequently turn black when being defensive, and spend his time popping in and out of his nest trying to attract attention to himself and his nest. Eventually a ripe female gets attracted by this display of testosterone ( :roll: ) She will turn very pale golden and start laying her eggs upsidedown on the ceiling of the nest, in a tightly-packed single layer. He will turn quite black and take turns between buzzing around and fertilising the eggs. This takes many hours. Then she sods off and leaves him to it. He is a very attentive father - fanning the eggs with his pectorals to oxygenate them and reduce silt etc build-up, and chasing off others. However he isn't very loyal and will try to get as many females to lay in his nest as possible. When they hatch he leaves them to their own devices. They take 2-3 weeks to hatch (temp dependent) and after one week you should start seeing little eyes staring back at you (SO CUTE!) though common bully eggs are pretty tiny (1.5mm compared to 2-2.5mm for non-diadromous bullies). Now, being diadromous it is unlikely that they will survive. Diadromous fish go to sea after hatching, which is somewhat hard to stimulate in the aquarium! However it is possible, if they came from a lake or well inland and the eggs are big, that they are from a non-diadromous population of commons... Sorry to deflate your excitement... but it is still pretty cool! Neat behaviours to watch and shows that you are doing things just right

Yeah the fish will quickly let you know if a tank is too small for the numbers or just right! I would be most interested to hear how your tank with just males goes. I have never had male bullies on their own. Hard to predict if they would be less territorial or the same. Just to add to your reading list here is a really interesting lab-experiment looking at nest preference behaviours of upland bullies: Threat-sensitive Nest Preferences in Male Upland Bullies, Gobiomorphus breviceps William J. Hamilton ABSTRACT A male's ability to acquire and defend a nest site against competitors is an important requirement for successful breeding in many fish species. In the upland bully Gobiomorphus breviceps (Eleotridae), not all males are successful in gaining ownership of nesting rocks; therefore, male-male competition may be important in nest acquisition. Although larger nests have the potential to hold more eggs, in nature there is a preferred nest size well below the maximum available. I found that in over 88% of dyadic contests, the larger male was successful in acquiring the single nesting site provided. When males were individually given a choice of two artificial nest rocks, they consistently preferred the larger nest. These results suggest that larger males have the ability to occupy the largest nests. In the presence of a trout predator, males preferred nests with three closed sides 93% of the time. This preference disappeared when the threat was a conspecific. This shows that while males were choosing the larger nests their decisions were also threat-sensitive. (Let me know if you can't access the .pdf, I can't get it at home but can at school. That goes for anyone, BTW. I will email you the file.) So, are you studying too? I am doing master's in Ecology at Massey uni. Halfway through my first year

Oh she can eat alright! But since I am trying to put weight on her after a long period of anorexia (seriously this fish has the weirdest eating habits) I suspect shrimp might not be a good choice. However I feel they might have some extra minerals that an invertivore might not be getting on an ox-heart diet. Anyway, shrimpy is now weighed to 4 decimal places and in the oven. Will have results on friday My partner thinks it will turn into a shrimp cracker. :lol:

A tank of water with no fish for several weeks will still go through a cycle when you add fish to it. The amount of bacteria in a tank is completely dependent on the amount of food in the tank. Food for the bacteria is ammonia waste from the fish. Every tank will go through a new cycle every time a new fish is added, because each new fish means more waste overall in the tank. The magnitude of the cycle is directly related to the change in bioload (many more fish = big cycle, one fish more = little cycle). Likewise removing fish will result in the bacteria starving. This may result in die-offs of the various bacteria, or slow their growth and replacement. (Of course a whole bunch of dead bacteria temporarily provide wastes and thus food for other bacteria!)

Hmmm well my boyfriend is currently measuring the ash-free dry weight of inverts at uni, maybe I could get him to measure that? But surely if a food is mostly water then it fills the consumer up with water, so their total intake of actual nutrients is low?

Maybe the females aren't worth his attention?