Stella

I have been thinking about your request.... it may be possible to legally send them out of the country, but getting them into Spain legally might be more of an issue. However the main thing is I think it would be next to impossible to keep them alive in a parcel.... I have had no luck keeping them in tanks so far, they need very clean, highly oxygenated water. It may be possible, but I wouldn't know how to do it. To answer a few others, yeah, they secrete glowing mucus when disturbed, not like glowworms that have a 'light' inside their bodies. They eat algae and biofilms rather than plants. I think they would need to be kept in a specialist tank just to get the idea of how to keep them alive before they could be kept with others, but they are so small you would have to REALLY want to keep them.... There is also a huge native earthworm that glows..... the point of that no one knows!

I thought I was feeding my kokopu enough. They had nice full bellies and were usually fed daily on frozen bloodworms. They were growing slowly and were NOT skinny. Then I saw some kokopu the same age as mine and they were twice the size.... d'oh! I started feeding them oxheart and they doubled in volume in two months! What everyone else is saying is true: overfeeding is only an issue if the aquarium maintenance is not keeping up with the load. And yeah, it can all be eaten up, but it still becomes waste at the other end, no matter how much or little you feed.

For a less-traumatic instant-kill I put the fish in a thin plastic bag (like the really thin produce bags) and whack it really hard onto a hard surface (table etc). Usually I whack it several times, far more than would be required to kill it, just to be sure. Tis fast and very clean and tidy - you just dispose of the fish, bag and all. You have to see the corpse... The only issue I have with it is throwing away a perfectly recyclable plastic bag... :-? (BTW as a dental assistant be careful with clove oil. I know it is often recommended, but I have seen a really bad chemical burn from it. Maybe it was low-quality? I don't know. But it was hard to tell if she was in more pain from the tooth or the burn. And NEVER put an aspirin against the tooth, not only does it cause a chemical burn, but it doesn't do a thing: aspirin works systemically not topically!)

That seems like overkill! Anyway, whitespot DOES NOT have a dormant stage, despite the rather hard-to-kill myth. Indeed stripping the tank down would mean putting the fish into a completely uncycled tank and risk all sorts of problems with the stresses of cycling... Whitespot may remain undetected inside the gills for a few lifecycles. As long as you were thorough and kept treating the fish for at least a week after the last visible spots were gone you should be fine. The reason for this is because the only time the parasite is killable is when it is free-swimming, a tiny part of its lifecycle. For a very interesting and in-depth article about whitespot look here: http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/health/ich.shtml The most important thing to spot a new whitespot infection now is to quarantine any new fish (or indeed anything else) that goes into your tank for at least two weeks.

Hi Peter, That is not fun I lost a tankful of fish recently to a really bad whitespot infection. So frustrating. Native fish are very susceptible to white spot and columnaris (which is like a bacterial or fungal infection: fluffy bits). They are most susceptible during the settling in stage, over summer when the temp get higher or if the water quality is not well maintained. Handy to do a bit of research now so you understand how they work and how to treat. This site is involved but excellent, dispells a lot of the pervasive myths that plague fishkeeping, excellent piece on whitespot: www.skepticalaquarist.com You and BlueandKim should make a trip up to Palmy sometime

I made the cover! Cooooool 8)

Well that is the first time I have heard that 'One True Method'. I guess all the other sources must be wrong. :roll: So what is a workable measure out of 2.5PPM? Cyano is indeed able to produce toxins. I am fairly sure it was killing my melanopsis snails. Then again the E killed off the tiny snails in my tank, they are only just starting to return.

Try your doctor or dentist as well, they can prescribe it too. You could even ask a pharmacist, I got some through one I know. Always tricky and you wind up looking like a nutter.... but eventually it will work. Think about your family and friends, do any of them work for such people? 400mg per 100 litres. I was told one dose would kill it by the next day. Didn't. Then I found another site that said repeat the dose daily for up to a week. Slowly it just dissapeared. That was mid March and there still isn't a speck of cyano in there, in a tank that was always full of it! So good to be rid of the damned stuff. ON the other hand, how bad is it? How long has it been present? How long has the tank been set up? Sometimes something just tipped the balance and manual removal is an option.

...um yeah... pretty much I have much more of a problem with all these people I seem to run into with their plants/fish etc illegally brought into the country...

mmmmmmmmmm salmon! I want me a salmon too! Probably the same deal as trout

Nup, sorry to be boring yet again, tis technically illegal to keep trout alive without being a fish farm or suitably licensed premises..... Tis also illegal to catch them in a net, even if you are licensed!

Yeah, they are so easy to catch! Apparently you can pick them up easily by holding them either side of the carapace (what would be the thorax in insects), but I tend to squeal like a girl and drop them when they wriggle.... Agreed about smaller streams. It is surprising how small a stream can be yet still be full of fish and critters. I think natives generally prefer the shallow water! The best way to catch things is to get a shallow stream with big stones and some current, Put your net beside a rock, just downstream of it, and lift the rock. You will catch all sorts of leaves and muck, but also heaps of fish and crayfish from a stream that apparently had nothing in it! I am always keen to take people fish hunting, gives me an excuse to go check my favourite spots. Let me know if you are coming by and we might be able to organise something! I will plan another big trip (do all the sites over a weekend) for people early next summer.

Really??? I thought there were people here who had found them.... Someone local will pipe up at some point no doubt

I would only have one per tank as they are highly inclined to eat each other. Maybe two very small ones in a 3-4 foot tank would be ok. They are bottom dwellers (obviously) and rummage a lot, so a lot of floor space is recommended. They are COOL pets. It would be neat having just one in a tank as a pet. With growth rates they grow fast when tiny then slower and slower as they get older. The northern one can breed in less than two years I think, but the southern one takes much longer, the southern one takes much longer to do anything... but also grows longer.... trying really hard not to say anything dodgy here....! As for sending some down.... totally illegal (you need permits from DOC and MAF). Seriously take a torch down to a stream at night, you will be amazed at what you see!

Heir, I suspect your crays weren't interested in peas because they were being fed earthworms! Happy crays Are you tempted to get another no you know it was probably the water conditioner that was the problem before? I have to feed peas directly into the hands of my cray and even then the kokopu still try to steal it from him! Never trust a full insectivorous fish when there is a pea nearby... :roll: Ianab, when they are happy with their caves they stop excavating. Is that the whole bottom of the tank visible in that pic? If you are able to fit more things in there so he can be completely hidden he will probably stop excavating. Cool that he is doing so well otherwise.

Hi there! Latia are cool, and as BlueandKim revealed, most people have never heard of them. In the wild you see them pretty small mostly. 7mm on average. I haven't seen the maximum 11mm they apparently get. I also haven't seen much of them... I got a whole lot and the fish ate them immediately! Amazing as they suck down onto the rocks really hard, you have to slide them off with difficulty, but trying not to crush them! I have seen them glow, had a few in a small tank for a little while. The mucus is quite watery and not much came out, but they had been under stressful moving conditions for a few days, so maybe it wasn't 'full strength'. They need cold water and little sediment. They live on rocks in fast flowing streams. I would definitely try talking to NIWA (National Institute of Water Research?) or Biosecurity. I have heard of someone legally catching native fish and taking them back to Germany (but some idiot left them on the airport runway and they froze solid...)

They spawn in autumn. Spawning is cued by floods. THey wriggle out on the edge of the stream and spawn there. Then the water goes down leaving the eggs high and dry. They will only hatch if they are resubmerged in another flood in 3-4 weeks time. The fry are swept out the sea (in most case). They bum around in the sea for six months then swim back as whitebait. They possibly live for six or more years, become sexually mature at one or two. No idea about how big they get in aquariums. Should be as big as they would get in the wild is properly looked after and suitably housed. The thing about fish being stunted in aquariums is because they are usually not healthy enough to grow big. 27cm would be enormous (and droolworthy!) 20cm would be big. We were catching them last weekend up to 15cm. Need to get the photos off my camera....

Cool! Koaro are beautiful and real characters. Definitely would look stripey from above. I found a trickle of a stream recently with them in. Took a few home but despite my best efforts they died. I have no idea why, it was rather peculiar. It seems they can be a bit sensitive to the transition, though maybe I was just unlucky. They are very sensitive to raised temperatures. All galaxiids are good at getting ich/whitespot and columnaris when under stress. They like rocks to hide under. Normally I would say heaps of current... actually, are there streams going into hte lake? Would be much easier catching them in that. Apparently when landlocked they often replicate the marine migration by going into the lake as fry and out into the tributaries as whitebait. Though remember juveniles are much easier to adjust. I don't know how fast they grow, but it would probably take a few years to get very large. Of course they grow fastest when smaller.

lefty - 10 righty - 11 Lefthanders make more like 20% of the population.. I write in mirror image when I do hand writing. Much more comfortable (and pthers can't read it

Hi Peter, Yes you are nuts, or at least well down the path. See I started innocently enough: a couple of inanga. Then I added a couple of bullies. Then I found more and more exciting native fish to keep. Then I started writing a book on keeping them. Then I realised I had six tanks, 13 species and well over 30 fish... Welcome to the obsession 8) As for books there is pretty much only McDowall. He is Excellent . Mostly they are biology and identifying (the reason I started writing my book is there is nothing out there on keeping them). There are three: A very small pocket field guide, a larger hardcover expanded version and the huge 2 inch thick tome. I have all three.... The first two you can still get from Reed publishers. The second one is out of print, but save it as a favourite and get it when it is circa $40 (some people manage to sell it for $70!!). There have been a good number of threads here about native fish, do some searching (ignore the notice that says the search function is disabled, it isn't). Most of the native threads are in the coldwater section. Happy to answer (or try to) any questions you have! Also check out my photos below, you night be able to start identifying your bullies! (BTW my book is not published yet, will be finished this year, it was supposed to be an article but now it is 37,000 words!)

Hmmm, it is interesting all the different responses.... Also the assumption that it is a fungus, when bacterial infections can look the same. That is why I am treating with malachite as it is supposed to kill both. It looks more like saprolegnia bacteria than fungi. Also, do antibiotics kill fungi on fish? I know in humans fungal infections can be a problem after people take antibiotics as the competing bacteria are wiped out giving the fungi free range. I just redosed him (I can't believe this fish, he swims straight into my net, knowing exactly what is going to happen....). I do think it is looking better again after the earlier dose this evening, but I think the thing of the water washing off the treatment is right. However the tank already has melafix in it..... I don't really want to mix too many chemicals. The malachite is obviously working topically, but then it just gets re-infected in the tank. Right, doing a 50% waterchange, will add malachite to the tank and keep up with the topical applications as it is obviously having an effect on the infection.

My koaro (native freshwater coldwater fish) got an infection on his fin about four or five days ago. It very quickly turned into this white fluffy ball attached to the fin and has been slowly eating away at it. For the last few days I have been getting him out of the tank and applying malachite green very carefully to it with a baby bud. It was making a huge effect initially. Then tonight it is looking worse again. Most of the fin is gone, it is nearly a stump. I just got him out again and this time I put him on a dry paper towel.... once he stopped wriggling and stuck to it I was able to dry off the fin a bit and keep applying the malachite green for longer and more effectively. I kept putting drips of water on his head and gills, but kept the fin dry and BLUE. (koaro can stay out of the water a long time in the wild) Looks like it soaked in well, the fin is much bluer now than after the other applications. I hope it works, if this doesn't I haven't a clue what would. Maybe add formalin to the topical applications?? It is getting to the really serious stage. As it is I suspect parts of the fin won't grow back.... Getting really worried, I don't think I have much longer before this gets to the point of no return. He is still behaving fine, no worries there, just this awful fin infection.

I have a Canon A710 IS. Love it. No complaints. A friend has the slightly newer version, not sure what the code is. As for megapixels most people would never have much need for more than seven or eight. Mine has 6x zoom. That is the only thing I would want more of. It also does awesome macro stuff (really close up) which is handy for fish photos. Check out my pics in the link below, all done on my camera.

I daresay the fish couldn't care less... I am leaving the back of my tanks uncleaned, just a little experiment to see how it goes, might look more natural (then again algae is fine by me and helps 'age' my native tanks). It is proving to absorb the glare from the flash when I take photos, could be handy when it gets more coverage.

oh yeah... um, photos..... need to get them up sometime......!