Stella

WOW How awesome!! I am hoping to go spotlighting tonight. Just need to Get Out. A banded is unlikely to get to 30cm, more like 25cm. A giant can get to 30cm+ but the markings should be pretty obvious. The trick with picking kokopu and trout is to look for the dorsal fin: in kokopu it is at the back of the body, in trout is dead centre. Sometimes it can be hard to tell when looking at fish in streams if they are trout or kokopu. The first adult shortjaw kokopu I saw was a fluke with that technique: a pool full of trout and one that looked a little different... Could you describe the bite with more detail? It is amazing the injuries they can recover from and how fast! It may have been unwell (letting you touch it etc) but sometimes you get ones like that. Kokopu tend not to flap about when caught, but some do. Thanks for sharing. You sounds absolutely awe-struck!

thanks for making me smile! First time today :roll:

and they say transsexuals are unnatural :roll: I don't know anything about that species, but are you sure they don't simply develop male appearances later on? Can be handy if you don't want to get picked on.

To those considering the auto-sprayers, and those who have found them to be no problem with your tanks: Remember certain things will result in more air-borne pollutants getting into your aquariums, particularly an air pump or fan (for evaporation cooling). Personally I wouldn't go near such things. Being surrounded by poisons all day? What about: Flyscreens (you can get some really good designs these days, windows too) Those electric zappers with a uv light that attracts bugs I have a daddy long legs spider in every corner of my house. They are most welcome. I remove the old and dusty webs, but generally leave them free to catch bugs.

Thanks for posting those Ian! I had a good time. Really nice to meet you and always fun exploring a stream! The cray was the biggest one I have ever found, and the bullies burying in sand thing was really neat. After the fish hunt we went looking for invertebrates that come out at night, saw some really interesting ones, including big millipedes, a beetle, and a harvester (looks like a daddy-long-legs with two massive probes out the front, about four times the length of its body, which are apparently part of the jaws.... a new take on eyes being bigger than your body...! )

A native fish section would rock :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: (but everyone knows I am biased :roll: ) There is a special section for: Breeding Plants, Livebearers Cichlids Catfish Anabantoids and misc others I forgot.... And we are just as special indeed one might argue that this is the only (functional) group of NZ native fish enthusiasts in the country.... 8) I do get that it would be annoying to have a precise category for everything, but.... I just want one for us!

apparently green water is ideal. she had tanks of it growing outside to feed hers. Another person here did one on what size particles were getting filtered out of the water. Large ones were selected for. It didn't go into *what* these particles were made of, but clearly they are not filtering everything indiscriminately.

I am currently in New Plymouth at the NZ Freshwater Sociences Society conference. (I am having a fabulous time!) I was talking to a girl today who has been studying freshwater mussells. We talked quite a bit about the difficulties keeping them. She thinks it is very very difficult to provide the conditions they need, and especially enough of the right foods in an aquarium environment (she tried, and had some success, but overall found it too hard to monitor their condition). The big problem is if there is enough food in the water for them, the aquarium would be pretty unsightly.... Her study looked at historical mussel gathering sites of iwi along the Wanganui river. Of 22 sites that used to be really good places (like, hundreds and hundreds of mussels) now 7 no longer exist and the rest show dramatic decline. She also compared the 'health' of the remaining sites based on western and maori ideas. The western science idea was of sustainable populations, requiring a high proportion (>25%) of juveniles indicating recruitment. Maori 'health' was (her words) 'enough good-sized ones for a feed'. There were quite precise ways of quantifying these things. Basically the 'western' way indicated two sites were 'healthy. The maori way showed one site. There was no crossover of these sites, as the maori 'healthy' site had absolutely no recruitment in the past five years, basically the population was aging and would die out with these remaining individuals. I am definitely going to revise the section in my book on keeping mussels to include more of the ethics and practicalities.

wow, congratulations! Firstly congrats for being able to keep several in the same tank without them eating each other! Crayfish reproduction.... They mate fact to face. (random trivia ) The females hold the eggs under thunder their tail, externally. ('in berry') The northern cray (which presumably yours are, if locally caught) stay in the eggs over winter I think, quite a few months anyway. The babies hang on to the mother with a special hook on one pair of legs. After the hook dissappears (after the second moult) they leave the mother. There can be a long time between the first and last hatching, and between the first and last baby leaving the mother. Everything is temperature dependant. They grow faster if it is warmer (within the paramaters of a coldwater habitat, they should NOT ever be put in a tropical situation) I don't know if the babies are at much risk from the adults, but due to the adults inclination to eat each other I would suspect there is risk. However if there is plenty of cover they might escape detection... As the others said, don't release them. But :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: for having bred them, albeit accidentally!

I had a nightmare about a fish last night.... Dreamed I was sitting by a lake watching fish moving around (looked like bullies but behaved like trout). Then I realised under the trees there was a big fish..... hovering in the air... It was a vicious, 1 metre long banded kokopu, skinny and a little dessicated, and it could hover above the water. I 'realised' (still in the dream) that it was a hallucination. It attacked with great ferocity and eventually I managed to get it on the ground and smash its skull with a rock.... Then someone came along and I explained I had a hallucination, indicating to the (quite obviously real) dead huge fish on the bank.... it had big scary teeth... Anyone else had a fish nightmare (or dream)?

People have different ideas on the medication-for-prevention idea. These are mine: Prevention only works if there is something to PREVENT. To me that sort of prevention is the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, and good maintenance, stocking levels, feedings, habitat etc etc are lines of fences at the top. If you have all those fences in place then the ambulance is a waste of staff and resources, and usually by the time someone hits the rocks at the bottom of a cliff it is a bit late. If something goes wrong in my tanks it is a symptom that something else is not right, and I can correct it. If a disease is held at bay in the tank because it is constantly medicated, then you have no idea that the balance is all wrong in your tank and it is unhealthy. One of my tanks has never had a disease. Ever. A good regime of weekly 30-40% waterchanges, careful feeding, quarantine for any new stock, and careful observation means I also don't have problems with "worms and flukes or bacterial nasties" (does salt treat flukes and worms?)

hmmm, no idea. Check your edmonds cook book I tend to guess for the dips. Just chunk in two not-huge spoon-fulls to about a litre of water. Does that work better?

300lt @ 1tsp salt per litre = 300tsp salt 1tsp salt = 6g 6g x 300 = 1,800g 1800g = 1.8kg.... Have fun dissolving! (I like to post the formulas as others can pick up if we get a little lost...) At least salt is cheap and easy Just dissolve the whole lot, and pour in about a third at a time. It isn't precise, just lets them a short chance to adjust. Dips: just sit the fish in the water for 30sec to a minute, do it up to twice or three times a day, depending on how the fish responds. If it seems to help do it more, if the fish seems to be healing ok, you don't need to repeat. (lol: rinse and repeat ) Remember it is pretty tough on the fish, but sometimes just what they need. There really aren't perfect formulas for what to do. Sadly it involves a lot of sick fish to get good at medicating.... Get on to it ASAP as this disease can mow through fish really fast. May only affect some, may affect all. Good luck!

I honestly haven't! (my tanks are never level...)

clever :lol: and indeed lucky.

What they said. Use salt. 1 tsp per litre. Add in thirds over an hour. Waterchange out once symptoms are gone. also try a dip of about a tablespoon of salt in a litre of water. Dip the fish for 30 sec to a minute or so, depending on how the fish responds. Take it out if it rolls over. Leave the fish in the net, makes life easier, just dip the net in. Usually pretty hard to stop unless caught early. WATERCHANGE Figure out why they got sick. This is one of those ones that is always in the water and gets stuck in if the fish are under stress for whatever reason.

WAS: a dental assistant NOW: Unemployed (made redundant) NEXT YEAR: studying Ecology at Massey Uni please employ me

Black? Weird.... Whitespot sucks a lot. Am dealing with it on my new Cran's at the moment. They have hardly any visible, but were scratching like crazy, I think they have them in their gills. Not nice seeing your pets unhappy. Many sympathies to you

I know (those fish are far too expensive to chuck out of the car into a pond by the side of the road and practically, I don't think those fish would survive there) but you never know what ideas people might get

Hmm, that doesn't sound like a great mix! How familiar are you with whitespot? I was duped once thinking my fish had whitespot but it was actually columnaris in little tufts on the edge of each scale (thus not on fins). Though you say pictus are scaleless? Just thinking, I remember once at Wet Pets they offered to try and cure a fish of mine when I was getting really stuck with it. I think for a rather inconsequential fee. Could save you a lot of bother by giving them the pictus and BN and then using whatever treatment for whitespot that your fighters are ok wih.

skin falling off..... look up columnaris. If you think it is that: Salt may help, though it sounds like it has got fairly advanced. Try 1 tsp salt per litre. You could hit it with a dip first of more like a good tablespoon of salt per litre for a minute or so. I don't know anything about Pictus specifically, so salt may not be good for them. Regarding the other cures (although it doesn't sound like whitespot): I really don't get how halving or quartering medication is going to have the same effect on the parasites. If that was the case then we could use those rates for all fish. The full dose rate is enough to kill the parasite, the half dose rate is not enough to kill the fish. Two quite different ideas.

Check out the NIWA Fish Atlas for all freshwater fish species in NZ and distribution maps. http://www.niwa.cri.nz/rc/freshwater/fi ... fishfinder

Smoke. Drink alcohol. Take drugs. Have unprotected sex. Drive like teenaged boys trying to show off. Walk alone at night. Sigh, we are a totally mad species!

40% of bone fractures in young women (can't remember exact age group) in the US are directly related to weakening of the bones due to frequent coke drinking. As an ex-dental-assistant I have seen people with very little enamel left on their teeth due to frequent coke intake. They now have a lifetime of extremely soft and sensitive teeth due to the protective layer being gone, higher wear rate, easier for decay to get in etc etc etc. I only drink coke with bourbon

Hi Romeo, Good to know your inanga are doing so well and settled down enough to let you see them! Is the lump firm or does it flap around a little? Inanga are good at bashing their mouths/noses when they dash about. Sometimes loose skin or scar tissue from these accidents can look like diseases, and both look white. The other option is some kind of tumour. Don't worry, on fish tumours are rarely much to write home about, usually caused by a virus. I had a kokopu with a tumour in its mouth. It was growing slowly with the fish but looked annoying. One day it disappeared never to be seen again! Of course a disease is possible. Based on the photos I wouldn't worry too much. If it was fungal it would be hairy. If it was my fish I would keep a very close eye on it and watch for changes. If I was really worried I would add 1/2tsp of salt per litre of aquarium water (your koura will be fine). I wouldn't worry about the worm, it is probably just something left over from live food etc. You say it was wriggling around like crazy: swimming in a figure-8 shape? Euthanasia is a bizarre overreaction, IMO!