Stella

Talking to a friend last night about these guys, apparently they will got belly-up very easily if you put them in your average freshwater tank. They have been living in hard water with a lot of other mineral content, and if you put them in freshwater they can't cope. Apparently they do better if your water is naturally hard and/or your tank is salted (apparently mollies are naturally slightly brackish fish anyway). (This is all what he said, I have seen this population but know nothing about them) Regarding releasing stuff, don't you dare :evil: there are enough exotic pests out there without you creating more for the fun of it. I know people are joking at the moment, but please don't take it further. Cookieskennels, there will probably be people going from Palmy you could get a ride with

Imagine all the lost holes out there there must be masses of them, piling up in drifts, never to be seen again!

Have you tried pressing a little on the fish to try and 'extrude' anything? What about popping it with a pin? Sounds like a case of desperate measures.... (is it just me or are a lot of people having fairly good-sized disasters and misc unfortunate events at the moment?)

What sort of substrate do you have? (and other aquarium decor?) You could try putting some substrate in a jar with some tap water and testing the water after a week or so, see if that it changing it.

yeah, it would have been SO much easier if we could have just taken the rock. It was too difficult to separate them

True true. Sadly. What about reefs? Sounds like some of the collection techniques going on there are leading directly to the destruction of habitat. (I wonder if we need to get the MODS to divide this up into the original Molly Hunt thread and the rather noisier Wild-Caught Issues thread? Interesting dicsussion but always a bit rude to take over a perfectly innocent thread...)

The other side of that idea: are there species that are extinct in the wild BECAUSE of aquarists? That has certainly happened because of other animal/plant people. Orchids being the most well-known example. Taking wild fish is always a conundrum for me. As a native freshwater nut, all of my fish were taken from the wild by me. I know I can provide what they need and keep them with very very few losses or disease incidents. But if I were to keep tropical fish, I would be sure to only buy fish that were captive-bred, as I could not personally guarantee the care of collection and holding etc of wild fish before I bought them. (I would thoroughly support the licensing of people to farm native fish for sale, and I would rather buy them than take wild specimens, thought it would remove the hunting satisfaction and habitat awareness from the hobby)

I will definitely keep people informed with what I find out. It is funny how eels are not really thought of as fish! Yes they are fish, even though you often see reference to 'fish and eels' as if they were different. There ARE differences in how the law covers eels, but that is really only because they are a commercially and non-commercially harvested fish, with their own set of peculiarities (like whitebait). From what I used to understand :roll: anyone could catch and eat an eel, but only commercial eelers with appropriate quota/license could sell them, and they have to sell them to people with a license to receive them.... DOC also told me that you can take eels non-commercially from conservation land, but who knows now.... Sigh, I think I blew a bunch of brain cells before I got up this morning. Would be nice to have a little less to stress about. Anyone want to employ me?

I got something remarkably similar today too: _____________________ Hi Stella, While there are a number of controls on how native fish may be taken from the wild, released into the wild or transferred between islands of New Zealand it is not actually illegal to sell native fish. It is illegal to release them without an appropriate permit from DOC or the Ministry of Fisheries. I hope this clarifies the situation for you. Regards Natasha Natasha Grainger Senior Technical Support Officer Freshwater Research & Development Group Department of Conservation __________________________ This is very frustrating as this lady and another DOC person helped me with the legalities for my book, and at least my understanding of the wording was that you could not sell them. Sigh. The whole area is remarkably complex. Am replying to her for more clarification as I really need to be sure on this stuff for the book. Sorry for accidentally misleading everyone :oops:

Totally true for most wild-caught aquarium fish. I imagine, for at least some species, very few actually make it to the shops. Back to mollying, it seems to me the simplest method of catching them would be to sink a large net over the accessible area, and have strings to the corners, go away and have lunch, then come back and pull up the net with billions of fish in it. But somehow the ease of it seems like cheating

I thought taking them as live food was ok too? People breed them as live food.

There is a wild population, been there for decades. They are able to survive in a pocket of warm water but can't spread (for a change!) due to lake taupo being too cold. I stopped there a few weeks ago and there were HEAPS I could potentially be keen.

Preacher: Sorry, it was a kinda spontaneous thing. I was supposed to be spending some quality time with my father, so didn't want to schedule in other things, then he suggested we visit the stream... I am *very* keen to come down again and go hunting with you guys though Ira: yeah, the rock had a hole in it.... just the *important* bit was the hole... like Lifesavers mints... they are a hole with a mint around them. Dad thinks it was bored for putting explosives in. Certainly was pretty old as the water had smoothed it.

Lo and behold! The listing no longer exists I know the point of these sorts of threads is not to be annoying to people but to look after the animals, but when someone gets so obnoxious it is kinda satisfying.... The sad thing is, it would have been interesting to know how she raised them (if she did).

I have just sent the links to my tame local DOC guy, hopefully he will be able to direct it to someone who can answer the question with some real authority. Supasi, you are indeed a mean and nasty individual, just out to ruin her day

LOL I want the aquarium that the rock would not look over-sized in! (you should see the number of large rocks littering my lounge.... tis getting ridiculous) The cameraman (my father's partner) had one brief go at carrying the rock, then she decided it was a job best left for the clearly insane father-daughter team!

It is actually a woman. Obviously with an anger management issue.... :lol: Aaron-Betta: legally any native fish or other aquatic life may not be put back into the stream it came from without a permit. The disease introduction risk is the reason. Personally I think the disease risk is incredibly low, as the diseases that affect native fish are found in all wild systems naturally. At Mahurangi Tech they are wanting to be able to farm native fish for sale into the aquarium market, if there was a legal way of doing this, they would be doing it right now. It simply IS NOT CURRENTLY LEGAL to sell native fish in any form (previous exemptions excluded )

I emailed the trademe person simply stating: "It is illegal to sell native freshwater fish. You need to remove the listing or Trademe will remove it for you." Just got back two emails in quick succession: "not according to the conservation department its not exspecially as they are tank breed and will not survie in the wild" "who are you and what right do you have to treaten me. I am reporting you to trade me" :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll:

I have heard a quite specific rumour of that happening before. I am fully in support of a law change one day allowing for other native species to be farmed for aquarium sale. (at the moment it is very very difficult/impossible to do) While hunting for your fish is great fun, and very educational on the state of our streams, not taking wild animals would be preferable.

I was in Wgtn on the weekend visiting my father. We went for a walk up Kaiwharawhara Stream (starting at the 'detritus collector' and heading upstream to the first footbridge). Nice area, but some fairly exhaustive rock-turning turned up no fish (I thought you guys said it was a good spot?) I did see a few dark shapes moving very quickly upstream, maybe five total, and about five inches long. Not schooling or anything. Couldn't get a good enough look to guess what they were, but they were stocky. Could have been bullies, but could have been anything else too! And for the VERY FIRST TIME in my native fish hunting career, I completely lost my footing and landed in the stream!! Those who know me can testify that I am incredibly poorly balanced and good at slipping, so that this was the first time is a minor miracle. At the furthest point we got to I found a hole in the stream that had a large rock wrapped around it... (Dad thinks it was probably bored through to lay explosives, quite old as the hole was smoothed by the water). Of course we just HAD to bring it home... it will grace his garden in some way now. But really, what I want to know, is where on this stream IS good for fish? It does look like an excellent sit for spotlighting.... many large easy-access areas with shallow fine gravel and minimal water turbulence..

ICE: Tank temp fluctuates wildly, stressing fish You can never go away Risk of dropping slipperly wet bottles, breaking tank Fridge/freezer stops working properly, too much drain on it FAN: (cooling through evaporation, leave on 24/7 preferably) Greater cooling power when warmer, as more water will evaporate, but lessened when humidity higher. All that evaporation goes straight into your home making it humid. Cheap and no fuss. Noisy. Works better on larger tanks where there is a larger surface area and less temp fluctuation anyway. Risk of fish jumping out as part of lid needs to be off. Have RCD switch on electrics, risk of fan falling into tank (I did that four times last summer, amazingly both the fan and myself still goes!) CHILLER: Costs a lot to buy and run (circa $1000 for unit) Have thermostat so you set desired temp and hopefully it stays around that. Go for bigger unit than you appear to need (eg if your tank is 250lt and a chiller does 'up to' 250lt, get a bigger one!) Can be noisy. Reliable if correctly sized. DIY CHILLER: Can be a lot of work and cost for an uncertain outcome. May work, may not. AIR CONDITIONER: Portable ones available for around $700-800, vented outside Fixed ones are cheaper but need to be professionally installed. Good for cooling several tanks. If the ROOM doesn't get warm then the TANKS won't get warm. Expensive to run. Cheaper to have one air cond than several chillers (buying and running costs) You get to be nice and cold too I have a portable air cond for my fishroom/office. Another four foot tank in the lounge just has a fan on it. Somehow the fan seems to work on that tank but is not enough in the fishroom. Both rooms face north, but the fishroom is much smaller so heats up more. OTHER THINGS TO DO: Insulate your tank on all sides. Get a bigger tank (more stable) Keep the water quality impeccable!! (bacteria grow faster in warmer temps) Good circulation of water encourages gas exchange (higher temps = lower oxygen)

NO. Or koura. Or freshwater mussels. Basically anything native and wild-caught. Exceptions: Galaxiids caught legally as whitebait. Eels (but you have to have a commercial eeling quota, and can only sell to someone who has a license to buy them off commercial eelers) Why??

That is ok, thank you very much for the offer though

A friend was given a 10c second-hand Mills and Boon for her birthday last year. It was BRILLIANT! We all sat around reading select bits out in our best dramatic voices. Best stomach muscle workout I have had since quitting bellydance classes.... There were even repeat sessions! (of course suitability depends on the nature of the recipient)

I read an interesting article today about freshwater mussels. Just musing about why their numbers are down and the possibility that mussel numbers are low because host fish numbers are low. And then following that algal blooms in lakes are happening more often *because* the mussels aren't there to filter the water, rather than the algal blooms killing off the mussels. All very interesting stuff.