Stella

Snorkel, would you believe that that law, 50 per person per day, technically also covers DAPHNIA?! Weird eh!

OK anyone who is keen to come fish hunting this weekend, this is the plan: MEETING: 7pm, my place. VISITING: Turitea Stream by Massey (Bledisloe Park) then Kahuterawa Stream (if the streams are up we can just look for native snails and other critters!) REQUIRED: Gumboots, Torch (no matter how pathetic, at very least should stop you tripping over in the dark), Some seriously warm clothes! This will trip be entirely weather dependent. Supasi, if you are keen to come, there is a comfortable couch available should you prefer to go back the next day. IMPORTANT: If you care coming, please drop me a PM with your phone number in case I need to call it off, and I shall reply with my address. YAY FOR NFHS!!! :bounce:

Instead of cruelly stressing an animal by slowly forcing it to live well outside of its requirements, why not *work with what you have got*? I would be THRILLED to have a tank that naturally stayed within that temperature range year-round! You already have the koura and mussels, why not look into some other natives? Bullies are very active and easy to care for. The redfin and upland bullies are particularly attractive. You are currently trying to combine a multitude of ideas into a single small aquarium. They all have different requirements which are not possible to replicate simultaneously, which means on some level they may all be a little stressed already. As it stands your fish have these preferences: Goldfish - coldwater, no current, need lots of space koura - coldwater, no/low current (may wind up shredding the goldfish) borneo suckers - tropical, torrential current Remember, if people could keep tropical fish at lower temperatures it would be done! Keeping tropicals involves a higher power bill, extra equipment and extra fussing. If it was that easy everyone would let them 'adjust' down or at very least selectively breed them to withstand the cold. This doesn't happen for very good reasons: it doesn't work.

Oh look! In the foreground of the mudfish one - tubifex worms! Slightly blurry pale vertical lines, and at the very base is their 'tube' made from the loose peat substrate) So Pete, when are you going to do some photos of your muddies?

had a quick play with the camera yesterday. A mudfish pretending it is a lurking moray eel: My male redfin bully, Rufus II, who always manages to have an expression of abject horror in photos: And a rather nice old torrentfish pic I just discovered I had! Yeah, so I am feeling talkative tonight....

Good on ya, Spoon! The tank is looking great! Good thing the java fern requires tying down, your future koura would just tear them out of the gravel anyway! Bear in mind any plants may get eaten, but worth a shot. I wonder if you could tie them to something awkward for the koura to climb? So exciting seeing this project develop! Your enthusiasm is great!

PREACHER: It is indeed a rechargeable one, and surprisingly light and small! It was $90 on special at Bunnings at the weekend, full price was a little over $100. (And you can scare people by aiming it at their cars and looking like a cop with a speed detector! ) Same as this, only it is silver not yellow, and doesn't have the shoulder strap (us Kiwis are tougher and don't need one?) http://www.euroffice.co.uk/i/4x12/Energ ... Ref-628330 Olly, will definitely let you know! I just talked to my friend Pete who is always up for fish hunting, and this weekend, possibly Saturday night (weather dependent only). Who else is keen?

I saw a photo once of a typical large giant bully caught at a 'local' beach. Imagine a young woman's hand. She is wearing a watch. The bully's nose is touching the watch and the tail is hanging over the ends of her fingertips! Oh I just remembered, giant bullies can wind up eating everything in the tank that is slightly smaller than themselves... keep an eye on him! (I have even heard from a reliable source of bullies eating whitebait longer than themselves! ) Stella McQueen, Powerhouse of Knowledge.... mwahahaha! I shall let that one go to my head It has been good writing this book, it has forced me to learn about all sorts of things I never would have otherwise. To be honest I first heard of native fish three years ago!

I WANNA GO FISH HUNTING!!!!! It is cold and wet and the streams are up and the have been for weeks, and I just BOUGHT A SPOTLIGHT (finally) and I REALLY REALLY WANT TO GO FISH HUNTING!!!!! Just had to get that off my chest. Thanks to Supasi for the diagnosis. BTW the spotlight I got was a new Energiser 3watt LED one, lasts 3hours on a full (12hour) charge and the shines a beam over 300 metres! It is amazingly focused, so I think it will cut through the water well. I wanna try out my new toy! Shining it on the neighbours' homes doesn't quite cut it....

Sounds like everything is going well! I love how you caught it! Though that is a rather odd position for a bully to be in... Regarding the whitespot, I was talking with Preacher about something similar last night, have copied and pasted the appropriate part: "As I said, it is normal for wild fish to have a natural loading but it only causes problems if the animal is weakened or stressed, which tips the balance in favour of the parasite. I had a delivery of five large mudfish straight from the wild, each one had about five whitespots each. Amazingly, despite the stress of being captured, they fell off and were never seen again! A lot depends on the state of the critter. Sometimes only the one weakened fish who had its own personal issues gets sick, sometimes the lot are weakened and they all get it." Studies have been done on mate selection of bullies (uplands?). A heavy loading affects the females 'taste in men', while the males tend to avoid spawning with well-parasited females. Six spines and it could be a giant bully. They are not normally found far inland, I think Whakatane is on the coast, isn't it? What are the other bullies?

Try doing a bit of research on www.scholar.google.com. Most info on our aquatic life is in the form of scientific papers. Quite an involved read, but you quickly get the gist from the abstract. But there may be something useful for finding them. A quick hunt turned up this: http://www.rsnz.org/publish/nzjmfr/2000/46.pdf about the distribution of the southern cray in relation to habitat variables. Could be handy! Not sure what type of streams you are looking in, but the smaller the better for natives usually. Also don't overlook tiny farm creeks with no cover, amazing what can be in them! But you really need a net or two, you won't see them out and about. Indeed. I often have moral dilemmas with my book, namely encouraging peole to take wild animals for pets. But out of sight out of mind, and it really makes people aware of the issues we are causing in their habitats.

hehehehe Hi Pete! Sometimes you just have to bully people into these things. Plan B was to just make you a login and send you the details

Hi Romeo, YEah a bucket should be fine. The water sloshes around plenty to aerate it as you are driving along, I wouldn't worry about an airpump. Some soft stream-side vegetation or similar will help give the cray something to hide under and feel less exposed and therefore less stressed. Not necessary but might help. It is so true what Supasi says about knowing where and how to look within a stream. There is a koura farm that sells them into the aquarium trade, not sure which one (I think there are two). Worth a shot. While I love the satisfaction of sploshing about in streams catching my own fish etc, it is still taking a critter from the wild. I fully support the law change required to make it possible to buy genuinely captive-bred native fish for aquariums.

Bingo! Interesting, this shot seems to show six spines in the first dorsal, the first one looked like seven to me. Snorkel, can you confirm? How is it doing? What is it up to? Had a go at any food yet?

What sort of filtration have you got? (Um, what is the background to this thread??)

The same photo is in his slightly bigger "New Zealand Freshwater Fishes" and it is indeed listed as a male. There is also a female there, with the tapered head like in Snorkel's photo. You might be on to something there.... I wish McDowall was a little more imaginative with his titles, it it easy to confuse them!

Wow you have been a busy boy! I do hope you find one soon, it must be getting frustrating! Are you moving rocks or just looking for ones wandering about? Did you try asking at the Aquarium where they have found them?

ah ha, you beat me to it! Will be interesting to see if it is male or female

Well done!!! Now that is a lovely example of a big COMMON BULLY. The reasons for this: Note the tapered head. It tapers from the front of the first dorsal right down to the snout. Other bullies have a much blunter profile, except the giant bully, who looks very similar. Why I say it is a common and not a giant is the number of spines in the first dorsal. It is not exact unfortunately, but giants 'always' have six spines and commons 'usually' have seven but 'occasionally' eight. (There are the odd exception to these rules.) I can count seven spines on your chap. I say 'chap' as the males are usually bigger and darker than females. On the other hand, the belly is kinda swollen, though it is probably a bit early still for that sort of thing. Confirmation would be is you see a coloured stripe on the outer edge of the first dorsal fin, probably orange. If it gets the stripe it is male. With the size, according to McDowall (you have to get at least one of his books if you want to learn to ID natives) for commons they often reach 10cm, and the biggest was nearly 16cm long. Giants often grow to over 15cm and have been recorded to 24cm. You have a really lovely specimen there. Take care of it, I have found big ones can be a little harder to adjust than little ones, but bullies are pretty cruisy anyway.

Looking great, well done! (Good to know I am not the only one who is useless with a saw I find a really good way of neatening up a tank and 'framing' it is to get some black electrical tape and do a line around all the edges. This covers up the silicone and makes it like looking through a window. If you get the wide stuff (try bunnings etc) you can do it right down to the water line, which cuts a bit of glare from the lights. Love the torches btw! Cunning. A few more caves would be good. The more hiding places the safer the cray feels and the more it is out and about. Neat seeing this project coming together! Well done.

Another great one Caryl! Yo really put in so much time and effort, you are a legend! It is sad that you are not getting the support you need re articles, and I really like the idea of people having to write an article to get to go to the next conference! I wonder if I could come up with an article on how to write articles.... Lots of good native fish content this time! SUPASI - I really enjoyed your article! Particularly FHS (Fish Hunt Syndrome). I am definitely going to start using that one. I was only saying yesterday that I *really* need to get out poking about in a stream, I am missing it so much!

Preacher, you absolutely made my day! Thanks.

Cool I am always keen to take people fish hunting! I have plans for a few 'official' things over summer, with FNZAS and Forest and Bird, but also go out a bit with my friends for the sheer joy of poking about in streams And of course anyone is welcome to drop me a line and come visit my tanks. I don't bite! 8)

yeah I have heard they are there! Amazing as it is pure liquified duck shit! Not sure if they are in the pond itself, but I definietly know they are in the stream between the duck pond and the turitea stream. My friend caught one in the Turitea Stream in Bledisloe Park, but it was pnly a couple of months post-whitebait and doesn't really count I really do need to explore that area...

LOL! Ah the joys of keeping natives! I have been known to search the floors and move everything over and over desperately trying to find a fish before it dried out, only to find eventually it was still in the tank :oops: