Stella

yes, certainly designing something escape-proof will be interesting... Markvs - what is a hogger??

After a recent visit to the Napier Aquarium I got all excited about setting up a locust culture for my kokopu. Now it is looking like a lot of work.... What about cockroaches? They sound pretty easy and fairly bullet-proof. Any tips? What do they require? (I am struggling to find anything very useful on google)

What a great idea! I suggest you write it up (with photos) for the mag

Pete, your muddies are still wriggling about, they love the leaf litter! Your black mudfish have smaller mouths than my brown mudfish. Sorry, they may not be able to bite you! :lol:

My workmates thought I was nuts, but I made them redundant (it just sounds better that way) due to a lack of taste. I am now seeking to hire a new employer who also has weird interests. I set off home from Napier today with a bag of freshwater shrimp and a cup of locusts. All live. Critter Geek, and proud of it.

From my understanding 'marine grade ply' does not mean it is water-proof/resistant etc, but rather it is designed to be bendable, like for on the sides of boats. Marine grade is often mentioned in regards to tanks/stands but is not necessarily what you want.

but anyway... back to the manifold design....

Do you get competitive? Never underestimate the stress-relieving benefits of peaknuckle

Oh Spink, that is awful! Not sure what I do.... wallow? Dancing is good. Just in the living room! Or going for a walk.

Une freshwater shrimp? A diving beetle? There are some COOL aquatic invertebrates out there, go check out your local stream

Tis a neat idea. What sort of fish are you going to put in the tank? I was thinking of trying it for my native torrentfish, but in the end was lazy and cheap, and just put two kickass (3500lt/hr each) at one end of the tank disguised under a pile of rocks. However I did have bit of a chat with the guy who wrote the article about amount of flow needed. He recommended a *minimum* flow of 16 x total tank volume per hour. (so if you have a 10 litre tank you want a 160lt/hr pump or combined output. However I could see for my fish 16x would have been way too low. These fish would sit 1cm from the outlet of a 300lt/hr pump) so I just went with the strongest I could get. With the 7000lt/hr combined flow I definitely have some awesome current in there and the fish are *quite* relaxed about it. I am sure it could be stronger! I have the outlets of the pumps aimed across this large flat rock. Frequently the torries will sit on the rock facing the outlets simply VIBRATING in the current before they relax and go WEEEEEEE backwards! Fun to watch but I suspect it is more fun to do. To see my torrentfish moving about in the current of my riffle tank: The only problem I have is the pumps crank up the temperature drastically. My fish need *cold* water. Not a worry if doing tropicals of course. If you keep fast-current fish I STRONGLY recommend doing a fast-current aquarium. It will really change the behaviours and *make sense* of the shape of the fish. (oh remember that your external filter flow won't count into the equation as strongly as the lt/hr label on it says. That is the flow if there is no 'head' (vertical height) on the pipes. It goes down dramatically the further the filter is below your tank) Keep us updated on your project!

Cran's bullies?

Welcome! We are getting a good collection of people from Palmy!

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: Brilliant.

:lol: that is always an odd feeling! Soon after the D.vice (um... 'adult') shop opened up here I went in. I recognised the staff member as having working in the Wellington shop (but didn't say anything). The thing is SHE recognised ME as having been to the Wgtn shop.... a random customer who has visited maybe five times in the last five years and didn't buy much....! You get recognised by people who work in pool shops, I get recognised by people who work in adult shops! Hope the pump isn't too dramatic or expensive to replace.

Crocodile! :lol:

We are quite happy to assist you to maintain and strengthen your addiction! Welcome

:lol: well it is possible! And I only have one alibi for each event...

That is really interesting that they are spawning with both males! Eggs in baskets :lol: I wouldn't worry about your giant bully. They are able to lay their eggs without an appropriate spawning partner. I have had two do that, and promptly eat them. The 'ovipositor' is the genital papilla. Though 'ovipositor' is a pretty good understanding of it. Both sexes have it and they do become more pronounced around spawning. Apparently the male one is more pointed and the female one more rounded. Again apparently it tends to be more pronounced in fish that deposit their eggs rather than just squirt them all over the show. The males bullies have more of a 'brush' on the end of it (microscopically!) so they can apply the milt with greater precision... This photo shows a small (4cm) female upland bully I had last year. She was so stretched with eggs I thought she would explode! She just kept growing and growing, despite the attentions of the two males in with her. I guess she knew when they were ripe. (Normally bullies don't look like guppies, the abdomen is more like a straight line between gills and tail) The photo is before she spawned (obviously) and the papilla is huge:

european carp?

Thanks guys, it was awesome. One of those "did that *really* happen?" moments! Makes sense freezing when scared. Though this little guy did look around a bit, it wasn't stone-still. I find tuataras usually look fake, they are *too* still! Yeah it was only a fish native to your own country which is also on the threatened list and probably under greater threat even than the tuataras (which are apparently dead easy to breed, raise and release, unlike mudfish). They are almost never seen unless trapped first. :roll: Each to their own, but I find it tremendously sad that people put more value on the exotic rather than the amazing animals in their own country. No wonder our threatened species list is so huge and growing by the year. MiNcIE, it is an awesome place, well worth a visit! On display they have green geckos, some cool brown geckos, tuatara and some other lizardy things.... sorry I didn't spend a whole lot of time in that section :oops: http://www.ngamanu.co.nz/

TROUT!

Learn to love it? My kokopu tank has a lot of algae on the rocks etc, totally fits in with the look I am going for, makes things look mature and natural.

What about the other male? Did no one else want to spawn with him?

I have spent the last three days at Nga Manu Wildlife Sanctuary (Waikanae) helping a master's student with her mudfish trapping. At one random point one of the guys that worked their showed me their tuatara rearing facility. He managed to find one and put it on my hand for a few minutes! :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: Just amazing and totally unexpected! The skin on their body is really *really* soft and is quite loose, but the tail skin is quite firm and doesn't slide around when you touch it. Odd observation, but that was what really struck me. It really seemed quite unworried and sat there on my hand fairly calmly (but run off quickly when put back). It was probably 25cm long. And of course I didn't have my camera with me and there was no one else to see it! :roll: AND last night we went spotlighting for native mudfish and saw a whole lot! Imagine a really soggy forest with puddles on the forest floor. That is what they live in. We were just looking in the puddles nearest the boardwalk. We had tried the night before and saw none, but this time we saw at least 13 fry (circa 3.5-4cm) and two medium/small ones (circa 7cm). Very exciting and very rare. Life rocks