Stella

I see over and over that Flourish Excell is effective against black beard algae if used in a double dose. Is this only for planted aquaria? Does it still work if you have no higher plants at all? Does it work because extra growth of the plants takes nutrients away from the algae or is there something else going on? What effect does it have on green alga? I actually like and want my green alga.

Oh Spink, my deepest sympathies, sounds like everything is being thrown at you right now! Good point of Livingart's on the cold thing. I was wondering that myself as it can be good for native fish but they prefer cold temps anyway. If the lotion is all gobby I wonder if it is oil-based and therefore not much would have actually got absorbed into the water. AT LEAST HE IS STILL ALIVE AT THIS POINT. That is a really good sign. Sounds like it is nearly 24 hours ago that the lotion got put in the tank. Fingers crossed.

They would probably be fine. Though you will probably feel like a cruel, cruel mother leaving them so long The excellent thing with this time of year is the water quality will be a lot more stable, the cold inhibits bacterial growth to some extent. It also slows down the metabolisms of the fish so technically they don't need as much food (though it would be even colder in the wild). Probably the most important thing is to make sure the waterchanges are very up to date before you leave. Cool that they are doing so well! Bullies can become really tame and eat from your hand with enough encouragement. Especially good that you wife loves them, decidedly handy! How did the whitespot go? Any new spots after taking them to captivity or did they just fall off and come to nothing? What did you treat with? (all handy information).

oh no! I would stand up in court and support you in your plea of justifiable homicide I imagine the filter media is totally shot. I would suggest starting over. Too much risk of not being able to get it completely clean. Good luck.

Thanks guys Enzoom1 - I have absolutely no idea! It was dark and I was getting ferried from stream to stream by some random old guy And everything north of Taupo is a blurr to me. It was actually in the middle of a new development, next to a big field I think. The stream was maybe 2m wide and perhaps a foot of so deep, quite sluggish with the odd tree blocking it. I will PM the guy who took me and hopefully one day he will come online and let us know where it was Ian - no there would have been nothing out during the day. There were also heaps of eels and crays and the odd bully. Very cool site. HaNs - That bully is a prime example of the behaviour of a bully when they are 'top bully' in in an aquarium (presumably it works in the wild too). Most bullies hang about on the bottom but the most dominant one spends much of their time high up in the water column. Presumably it gives them more access to food and a better vantage point to shoo other bullies away. It would also make them more at risk of predation...

I have started a youtube account to put up videos of native fish, both in my tanks and in the wild. Over summer I want to do a few videos showing how to catch various fish, what to look for when identifying them and where to look. There are three videos up now: one of the mudfish feeding, a banded kokopu in the wild and the banded and giant kokopu and common bully in one of my tanks. http://www.youtube.com/user/nznativefish

Yes, inanga are little jumpers. They can be seen in the wild jumping at the surface (night mostly, and hitting the surface during the day at food). I can't imagine an inanga jumping more than about 6 inches straight up, but they are definitely not climbers. I have heard of an adult giant kokopu (nearly a foot long) jumping 1.5 feet straight up and out of its drum (and died). Those are the only details I know about the fish separating bucket, I hope to see a diagram soon. Whitespot does SUCK when it comes to native fish

I had a fish that I wondered if it had a stroke. It did seem a little off colour the day before, but ok. Then it quickly became paralysed from the 'neck' down, could not move its fins or body, only thrash about in circles one way by throwing its head about. Died after a couple of hours, had breathing difficulties, can't remember if it was slow or rapid. Personally I quickly drop a fish in a plastic bag and dash its brains out (then dispose of the bag, don't want to see fish brains). Tis extremely quick and effective.

Also the three kokopu species. Koaro are the most well known as climbers (not sure if they are the 'best' or not). I was talking last night with Mike Joy (massey uni freshwater sciences senior lecturer and major stirrer) and he mentioned an idea they are playing with which allows the climbers to climb out and fall into a second compartment. Thus the more rare fish get sorted from the common (but probably also in decline) inanga.

Dude.... cool! Is it just me or is the word 'mollusc' wonderfully and inexplicably entertaining?

Cool! Whitebait are pretty hard to tell apart but it can be done. There is a guide on the DOC website, shouldn't be too hard to find. I would go for anything trying to climb out of your bucket, particularly towards the end of the season. Inanga tend to have tiny black dots on the head and down the body. Non-inanga tend to be shorter, and kokopu are slightly amber (more obvious en masse). Inanga can be very good in a pond, as they are schooling and tend to be seen out in the open. Kokopu are more lurkers, spending the day under overhangs and coming out at night.

Thanks for posting this Romeo! Very good info and good on you for making sure you are doing this legally. Some of the laws sound so picky, but there are very good reasons behind them. One addition that I would make to this as a general legalities guide is that ONLY people from the appropriate Maori tribes may take koura from various Central Nth Island lakes (taupo, rotorua lakes etc). I do love that legally one may only take 50 daphnia per day. Take care people! :roll: :lol:

oops, I should have sent a message here as well... I did let Olly, Museeumchick and Supasi know that it was off. It rained from about 5 minutes after I sent that message till nightfall.... very disappointing! However, Pete and I did make a quick stop at the Turitea stream, we had a farewell to go to that night and finally left at 1am and still wanted to take my new light sabre for a quick spin. The stream was up of course, not quite as turbid as I expected. The spotlight was AWESOME though, it goes for miles and cuts through the water pretty well. I really look forward to using it when the water is more amenable to fish spotting. We did manage to find three big bullies on a small section of the beach where the water was rather less swift. I think they were probably Cran's bullies. I will of course let you know when I am going out next! I should make a list of interested folk to let know if it happens suddenly.

It is NOT RAINING. Maybe it did a little in the night, as the gravel drive is wet, but the cars parked on it are dry. At the moment it is ON. I might go check the stream later though. Really need to take the motorcycle fir a spin.

Hi Supasi, great that you are so keen! How are those Cran's of yours? I will definitely get back to you in good time on the state of the streams. Fingers staying crossed between now and then! All gods on standby. I imagine we won't do a whole lot of catching (it tends to involve getting wet, not so good in winter) but will probably catch a few. Pete and I have some good nets to share anyway. CookieTime buckets sound ideal! Not so cumbersome as a 10lt, and they have a lit and a handle! (pete, did you remember to put your spotlight onto charge? I look forward to challenging you with my light sabre! I do think yours is more powerful, but mine will keep going and going and going! 8) :lol:

YES :-? :roll: :evil:

hahaha that didn't take you long! (aren't they grotty things to cut up?! I treat it like an anatomy lesson, but still, the red meat smell is not nice! At least it doesn't have to be done very often, those hearts are HUGE!) Oh, the reason for cutting off the fat: (apparently) mammalian fat can not be processed by the fish - too cold for them to do anything with it! Stuffs up the liver eventually. Yeeahboy - even giant bullies start off 7mm long

I have my fingers crossed. The weather has been great all week. Today it rained in the morning while but it has been clear since. If tomorrow is similar or better I am totally up for it! Of course if the weather is crappy I will let you know in advance if we should call it off. I am so looking forward to blinding some unsuspecting fishies!

Kewl! Never seen one myself either, but would love to!

I am a dental assistant (untill 30th Sept... that is a different story). I notice SO much about people's teeth, even recognise people I may have met before by their teeth. Last weekend this revolting guy was trying to talk to me in a bar, can't even remember what he was saying. The moment I managed to get away from him, I said to my friend "gum disease and tooth decay" and promptly disappeared. If you want to have a hope in hell of someone kissing you, avoid advertising your total lack of oral hygiene and ensuing rampant bacteria colonies.... *shudder*

hehehe sure Mark. I don't think I have you in my list of email addresses to notify when it comes out. Drop me a PM with your address Of course the Fishroom will hear all about it, but I figure people come and people go, and the list includes random others I have run into that want to hear also. Still no word back from the guy reading over it. OH! Snorkel, to keep up with the food demands of this huge bully without depleting the worm populations of the Earth, buy an ox heart, cut off all the fat, valves and misc, cut into schnitzel strips, lay on a baking tray and freeze. Allow it to dehydrate by not covering it (freezerburn). This does not affect the nutrition but makes it MUCH easier to cut up. Cut up with a knife, or my latest discovery: scissors!

Sorry, hit send waaaaaay too soon and couldn't hit stop in time! Ok, firstly that fish has the strangest profile I have ever seen on a bully! So very blunt! Nothing like a common at all. It also lacks the 'whiskers' under the eye that commons often have (others have it too sometimes, this is not a major identifying feature). Imagine three very fine black lines under the eye, radiating back from the mouth, just as if someone drew whiskers on it. It is very much a male, from the bluntness of the head and the red/orange stripe in the dorsal. From where your location, the blunt profile, the seven dorsal spines and the reddish dorsal stripe, I am saying Cran's. It has very little facial patterning (the presumed-giant has more typical cheek patterning of a dark Cran's, but also seen on giants). Normally Cran's have kinda swirly dark patterns on the face, but this particular fish is very pale all over, some are just like that. Uplands are also very blunt in the profile, but they 'always' have small orange dots on the cheeks and the northern extremity of their range is about Lake Taupo. (wordy I know, but I figure explaining why I come to a conclusion will help you learn to distinguish them yourself, rather than just saying 'it's an X')

WOW SNORKEL!!!! Awesome photos!!! Just to be bloody annoying.... I don't think that common bully is a common bully.....

well the thing under the silver cover in my yard is a GN250 :lol:

Ok so first up, I omitted to say that the spotlighting is SATURDAY NIGHT.... :oops: So far Olly and Museeumchick are really, really, really keen, and Supasi is keen but needs to ask for permission Now, the weather is looking.... better than the previous few months.... but there is a little rain scheduled for thursday and more for saturday. I usually find the weather comes later than initially predicted, so let's hope for the best! (I did do an awesome trip with friends looking for native snails one miserable cold soggy evening and had a fabulous time, so we may still go even if the weather is crap.) I will get in touch on the day if we need to change the plan at all, thanks for PM-ing your phone numbers. I am keen to start taking some videos on these trips to put on youtube to show others. Spotlighting probably won't be ideal, but will give it a go. Oooh, just remembered I have a video of a banded kokopu in a stream I saw once while spotlighting.... maybe I shall have to create that login sooner! Exciting! :bounce: