Stella

Tank crawl is a good idea! There is no club here, but I am sure we can organise a bunch of manawatu people off here willing to show their tanks off! Just watching my tank now, the light is off and it is fairly dark in there, but I can see the fish moving around, just doing their own thing quite separately of each other. The most satisfying thing is it feels believably like looking at a cross-section of a river Still haven't sorted the leak... filter is sitting in a 20lt bucket just in case.

wow, cool thread! If you don't count the peanut butter jar full of aquatic invertebrates and a snail that I had in lieu of a fish tank.... Oh hell, a plastic goldfish bowl with three tiny goldfish! No filter or anything. Poor fish. Surprisingly those ones did all right..

Hi Mystic, I had forgotten about that aspect! The tank is 23 degrees..... somewhat warmer than I would like.... No chiller but I have a portable air cond for this room over summer. Will have to see how the temps go.... will make a little more room for airflow under the lights, that makes a difference.

Thanks guys! I hope to make a video of it this weekend and put it up on youtube The fish just look amazing, never seen the torrentfish being so active! Caryl..... yeah.... maybe..... when do you need articles by for the next mag? I need to do part two of my incredibly brief intro to native fish. Yes all the fish are local (or near enough) Kahuterawa Stream Turitea Stream Ohau River Mangahao river Tokomaru River As always, if anyone here interested in natives finds themselves in the Manawatu, I am quite happy to show you my tanks and go fish hunting if you like!

I finally put my riffle tank together today! A riffle is a shallow, rocky, fast flowing part of a stream, kinda like a mini-rapid. I wanted to design a tank specifically for the NZ native fish that live in this habitat, namely torrentfish (name is a giveaway, huh?), bluegill bullies, koaro and shortjaw kokopu. The tank, just starting to paint and tape it: It is 122cm long, 50cm front to back and 40c, top to bottom. 220 litres roughly. First I needed to clear away three 2ft tanks and make a whole lot of space. THe tank is to go along the wall on the left: three hours later - SPACE! Tank positioned. The stand is 85cm tall. The tank is quite short, as the habitats are usually shallow, and the fish are largely bottom-dwelling, so I needed the stand tall to be able to see in comfortably. It is just the right height to look in comfortably when seated at my desk beside it. What makes it a riffle tank: 2x 3500lph pond pumps! Ok so they make one hell of a racket (may have to upgrade later) but they sure pump that water! These are at the right end of the tank. Starting to come together. Unbelievable volumes of rock and gravel. Secondhand Fluval 303 underneath. The inlet is on the left and the outlet is a submerged spray bar on the right adding to the right-left flow. The finished tank looks awesome! I have uploaded two different photos, one with and one without the flash. The real thing looks much better and is somewhere between the two photos. The fish took a little while to start exploring, but now six hours on they are all being very active - it is great to see! The torrentfish are out more than they were before, even sitting right in front of the pumps and being utterly pummelled by the current! Looks like fun! Even the bullies are playing in the current more than I expected. I love that I will never be able to see all the fish at once with all the hiding places in there, I am sure they will feel very secure. Total head count: 6 torrentfish 3 shortjaw kokopu 1 giant kokopu (to be moved out once he gets a little bigger) 2 Cran's bullies 2 redfin bullies 2 upland bullies (I intend to remove the Cran's bullies and later get some more bluegills and a couple of koaro) I am so pleased it has finally come together, I have been wanting to do this for a long time. Now I just need to sort the slow leak on the filter.... (Huge thanks to my friend Pete who helped transport stuff, spent this afternoon helping setting up and actually supplied the tank in the first place...!)

They spawned again last night! This time I got photos I have given the eggs to a friend who is slightly more set up that I to try and raise them. He is under strict instructions to get daily photos of the eggs

It does take extra lenses, it just needs an adapter first....

That is *such* a cool idea! (btw tomorrow I am putting my 4" native riffle tank together! Imagine: 7000+ lph flow.... mwahahahaha!)

Awesome photos! I have been looking at getting a macro lens for my Canon A710. Well, just thinking about it really, I know nothing of price or quite what it does or how to use it.... I mostly use my camera on the macro setting (fish, insects, plants, fungi) and I think the lens could be really useful for me. Could you please fill me in a bit on the detail?

How have you looked in the streams? By night with a torch is pretty good, they show up as reflective eyes (though so do crayfish) Use a net downstream and kick at vegetation or move rocks, they will be carried into your net. By day you won't see them out and about, for starters they are see-through... What are they going to be with? Various people say they can be 'adjusted' to tropical temps. In reality it will just stress them, shorten their life and be much like putting a goldfish in a tropical tank... They are also easily crushed or eaten, but in the right conditions they are very cute little critters

Good point Simian. Could still be worth experimenting, it would be interesting to see the results of putting that tap water into a cycled system and see what happens over a period of time. Do some experiments with whichever ideas may work for your situation, then see what you wind up with. Rainwater is usually soft and may be slightly acidic. If that is what you wind up with go for fish that like that, instead of trying to then change the water again for fish that like totally opposite conditions (unless you heart is set on that. Soft acidic water.... sounds like NZ native fish to me! (you will note I am ever so slightly biased)

Wow... weird! The 'spring' water (is it really? check what it actually is) would probably be fine. There is a product called ammo-lock which binds onto ammonia and effectively negates it. Not sure how expensive it would be using it on all water that goes into your tank.... Other options: Set up a couple of 40 gallon drums and some pvc piping to collect and store the rainwater off your roof. Try using the ammolock while cycling the tank, when the tank is cycled start doing small regular partial water changes to see if the bacteria will be able to eat it (maybe once it is cycled it can cope better, though I am surprised when you say the ammonia killed the bacteria... the bacteria are supposed to eat it...) Set up an initial water holding and treatment facility (40 gallon drum with some kind of huge but basic biological filtration) and use that water for your water changes, refilling the drum with your tap water to feed the bacteria.

I know the feeling. My brain died at 6pm YESTERDAY. I just can't process what others say to me today, quite embarassing. Now WORDS I can look at until they make sense.... OK, mal green is a bit photosensitive, it will lose the colour faster if your lights are on. Deosn't seem to affect its effectiveness, but someone else might be able to answer for sure.

Slightly odd topic, but I figured someone here might know. The element I use all the time on my stove is no longer capable of doing anything cooler than Hot as Hell no matter what the dial is set to. Tis a plain ol' electric stove. Is it something quick and cheap or something more involved? Thanks

Methylene blue now... are you confusing the names (easy to do) or mixing meds...?

Supasi, that tank look fabulous! Great wood!

Hi Supasi, There can be different bullies in the same stream. In one stream I regularly go there are redfin, commons and Cran's (at least) though another has only uplands! All depends on the habitat preferences and access. Different species can be kept together, but they can be quite aggressive as they get bigger, particularly redfin males and banded kokopu. Torrentfish and bluegills are the only species I have found so far that seem to behave peacefully. Aggression can be greatly reduced if you have a quite low stocking level and plenty of rocks to hide in. Bullies rock as aquarium fish as they are really easy to keep and are real characters, always moving around. I am quite enjoying my tank of small uplands. The only thing is they tend to hang out of the bottom of the tank, so the middle can look a bit bare. Good recommendations from everyone on books, McDowall 1990 is The Bible to have. Second hand it does crop up of trademe with reasonable regularity, I paid $35 for mine. I have seen people asking for $75 and more for it, just wait for a cheaper one to come along. Ask as many question as you like

They probably can be raised away from the male. Apparently putting an airstone near the nest is a common trick for raising eggs of other fish with similar brooding behaviours. Keeps the waterflow up, similar to what the male would be doing. I am not too worried right now, not sure I will be able to raise them at the moment (my life getting in the way, not that they are difficult), but one day I would definitely like to Uplands are one of my favourite bullies, very pretty and active.

For the first time my fish spawned! My upland bullies. They do readily spawn in aquaria, but this is the first time for me. A bit of background, bullies (nz natives) spawn in spring and summer. The males defend a little 'nest', usually the underside of a rock, he goes very dark-coloured and tries to get females to spawn there with him. Spawning takes many hours as the eggs are laid carefully on the ceiling of the nest. He may look after the eggs of several females in his one nest. The female then leaves and the males protects them from intruders and fans them to oxygenate and prevent sediment buildup. When the eggs hatch he has nothing more to do with them. The fry of some species go to sea for six months, others (like my uplands) stay in the freshwater. Ok, so I have seven uplands, only two males. I knew one was being very territorial but htought it was too late in the season for spawning. Got a bit worried when I realised I hadn't seen him for a while so I went hunting. Under a very flat rock was a very black fish and a small collection of 20 eggs! Obviously fertilised and stuck to the rock. He came out now and then (and kept the other male away while he was out) but spent most of his time under the rock. Now four days later all are eaten.... He is still treating it as his nest but is out and about more. THe other male has a nest ready in the corner, it is much easier to see into. He comes out to defend it when I come over! One of the females is nearly bursting with eggs, will be interesting to see which male she chooses. These fish are 4-5cm long and I am assuming only a year old. Some old bad photos of uplands: http://picasaweb.google.com/nznativefish/UplandBully

Well done Supasi! It is such a surprise seeing them in the wild for the first time! I love going fish hunting, any excuse. Reddish fins, probably red fin bullies! Imaginative huh? It takes a while to get used to the different species. Only the redfin males have the red, the females have the same pattern but in brown. The main way to be SURE with a female redfin is the three diagonal stripes on the face (both sexes have this). One of my favourite bullies. Eels: You can tell the difference between the species by the way the skin wrinkles. If the eel is bent and the skin seems to wrinkle quite freely inside the curve then it is a longfin. Shortfins also wrinkle but in a much more limited way. Easy to spot in a net. So where are you keeping your koura? Any names yet? Winter is a good time to get into natives. Much nicer fishing for them in summer, but winter means you have to worry less about the temps of the tank while you get used to keeping them, just make sure you have an idea of what to do over summer (I start keeping a close eye on my temps by later october, usually cooling by november, depends on what the seasons are like)

1 drop per litre of each med. Do a decent waterchange in three days (more frequently if there are a lot of spots) and add enough medication for the new water (if you need to replace 20 litres add another 20 drops of each med. Keep treating for a WEEK after the last spot is gone. This is crucial.

Is there much actual nutritional content in shrimp? They seem to consist of ether or similar I would like to start adding shrimp to my kokopu's diet. So I just get frozen ones, break them into suitable sizes and feed the ones to the fish that I don't eat?

1 - is it physically capable of eating the pellets? 2 - do those sort of pellets resemble their natural diet at all in nutritional makeup? (ie are your fish more carnivorous or more vegetarian and are the pellets the same) 3- Go the ox heart!!!

So are the freshwater ones! (actually they *may* be the same one) They have their noses high in the air like they are snobbing everyone and scurry about in any direction as if 'front' and 'back' held no meaning to them. I would love to have some again, very cute.

Crayfish are easy to find in small streams, especially at night with a torch. Really easy to keep, and indeed preferably singly. There are heaps of threads here about keeping crayfish, do a search (ignore the message saying the search function is disabled) THere are native shrimp too, very cool but they can make good crayfish food if they aren't quick.