Stella

Local stream Two options: night with a torch or day with a net. With a torch, find a slow flowing stream where the water surface is not too disturbed so you can see through it. Crayfish eyes glow orange... During the day, in a stream with a bit more flow, put a net slightly downstream of a rock, lift rock so all the debris etc is carried into the net. Do a bit of reading up before so you know what some of the other fish and critters are Both options are great fun Oh and legally there is a daily bag limit of 50.... good luck finding that many!

That is a shame Unfortunately we all learn the most important lessons the hard way. There is a fair bit said about crayfish/koura on this site(and the other fish, I am a little native-obsessed...), you might find some interesting things if you trawl through the archives. The search function does work, despite what it says.

Ok it turns out I will be in the Forest and Bird tent, I just heard :bounce: Cool, that will make things a lot less stressful. Seems they are very keen to have me I will at least have: crayfish, inanga, upland bullies, redfin bullies, a mini giant kokopu and... whatever else I decide on the day... This is me, even if I am busy when you first come past, do hang about, I am always keen to put faces to names

I am going to be running my first live fish display this saturday. It is for a Forest and Bird community event, a multisport thing with a strong focus on the river and environment. I don't know many details but it is at the Centennial lagoon, Saturday 5th April, 7:30am-3pm. There will be other stalls from business/community/environment/food places and the sport will include a run, bike ride, kayaking etc. Quite when I will be there I don't know (NOT 7:30 on a saturday!). I will have two tanks, a bunch of native fish, some photos on a display board etc. Feel free to come down and meet me and see some of my fish! PLEA: does anyone local have some kind of 4-legged sunshade type thing? I desperately need something like that, but have no idea how I will get one. Definitely don't have the money, time or transport to hire anything.

I sent the forms and money for me, Andrew and Pete, haven't heard back from anyone to confirm our registration. Who do I ask?

The common bullies are not naturally in Lake Taupo, they were put there as food after the introduced trout collapsed the tremendous original koaro population.... :evil: At least the bullies are doing well... Do you really mean a 16 litre? That would be way too tiny, the temperature fluctuation would be terrible for them. I just realised I hadn't had my air conditioning on all day and some of my tanks were way too hot, particularly the torrentfish at 25 degrees! Did emergency massive waterchange and now they are down to 21. Not good but not fatal either! Also turned off one of the lights on that tank, it was way too warm under them... (chillers, fans and ice are other options. Unfortunately my entire house faces north, be good if I had a cold room for all these fish)

ah ok, that would be fine, it is Lake Taupo those laws are for. But using.... native fish as food......?

Depending on what 'they' are, it might be illegal to take them - must protect the trout food! :roll: There are three native species in the lake: Smelt: can only take as whitebait Koaro: can take as whitebait or older Common bullies: cant take ever oh and: crayfish: can't take ever unless you belong to the appropriate tribe. Merely passing on the information

I would love to see these schooling bullies one day HaNs, it fascinates me that they do it! I don't know where Lake Hayes is, would probably be harder to see on my little distribution maps. Try googling. It may take a bit of hunting, but if the lake area is obvious there are distribution maps here for every freshwater fish in the country... http://www.niwa.cri.nz/rc/freshwater/fi ... fishfinder 6cm long with a strong schooling habit.... could be smelt or inanga, they look the same from above. Inanga would only be there if there was sea access. To tell them apart: inanga don't have scales, smelt have very silver scales, smell very cucumbery and have a purble sheen. I imagine koaro would be over schooling by that stage, possibly not though. Smelt and inanga are great in tanks, inanga are less twitchy and less inclined to die in transit. Find out what fish are in there then we can get more into specifics The other fish sounds like a bully. There are six species, but to narrow it down if it is landlocked you are looking at possibly common or upland, sea-access: upland, common, redfin, near estuary: common, giant. I also find the torrentfish swim very much like plecos, but they live in very fast water usually. Native fish need: COLD water, preferably under 20 degrees. Can be a huge issue in summer. Hiding places: lots of rocks and little caves Invertebrates: they eat bugs. Either live food or frozen bloodworms. Many also love heart meat and some will take trout pellets. Length is much better than depth for all native fish. They are highly susceptible to whitespot in the early stages or if it gets too warm etc. Be prepared. Sorry, I don't know much about plants. This is handy though: http://www.niwa.cri.nz/ncabb/aquaticpla ... ch/species Also hunt through the archives here, a lot has already been asked and answered on various native fish.

What is going to go inside the stand? Would you be able to put a board across as a shelf and some weight down there to straighten the stand? Though with no central strut it may just bow the board. Hopefully the poly under the tank would take a lot of the stress out of the situation. Yes you are probably being paranoid, but I can totally understand! A cracked tank is a pretty serious issue.

ok, I have run up a quick article. I sent to to Andrew several hours ago to read over but haven't heard back (shocking! ) Will just send it on to you. It was thrown together very quickly and is horrible having to be brief (what do I leave out??!?!) but will definitely fill a page or three.... Am trying to get Andrew to do an article on the native fish hunt we did.

Woohoo I can access the forums again! the sweats and shakes might start to wear off now....

They are more correctly call bullies (cockabully is often used, but wrong, more correctly applied to marine triplefins I think). Yes they are indeed native and are really cool in the tank! :bounce: Real characters. However you say they were schooling..... bullies don't do that..... Smelt do, as do inanga. Just looked through a book of mine with distribution maps. I assume you are talking about the lake Queenstown is on? ( :oops: ) The only native fish I know are in there are koaro and common bullies. Koaro may school a little when young.... very young, and are very beautiful fish. Sorry I don't have any up in my album yet. I imagine in aquariums the schooling behaviour is seen less because the small volumes and low numbers of fish.

I saw the plea and was about to hit reply (while skimming your post) then saw my name.... :oops: I will start the photo essay of bully species NOW. Should be easy to do and fill a few pages. There are five species, I will crop a few photos and do some captions. Will later do galaxiids then misc...... You do a great job with the magazine Caryl, and helped me out tremendously with reading over my book, only too happy to help you out

The Balance Bridge near the gorge and Whariti Peak?

Changing the filter wool means removing a big chunk of the nitrifying bacteria. Those bacteria were eating ammonia, so now that ammonia is not being converted hence your readings. Probably a similar issue with the pump that wasnt working, it killed off a bunch of bacteria. Dead bacteria decompose (eaten by other bacteria), which create more waste products for the good bacteria to eat. I suspect your problem is solved I know it is necessary to change the filterwool at times. It does mean a reshuffle of the different bacterial populations each time. Your test kits will be fine years after the expiry date (I think a FNZAS club did a wee experiemnt, everyone got their test kits together and tested one sample, the new and ancient ones read exactly the same I don't know anyhting about Flourish Excell sorry. I suggest just keep up with your waterchanges, monitor the changes and let nature take it's course. Equilibrium will return

do a drain and fill waterchange from one spot, don't go in and properly clean. The waterchange is the most important part, they don't care about the mucky not-aesthetically-pleasing bits. That is what I do when I have newly captured fish, makes it less stressful on the fish but also keeps the water healthy.

Have you added anything new to the tank recently? More fish = more waste, so the whole ammonia cycle thing needs to readjust the population. Feeding more, or the fish being off their food briefly will also do it.

Interesting question. I don't know anyhting about this fish and did a quick search, turning up this Code of Practise: http://www.fish.govt.nz/NR/rdonlyres/33 ... actice.pdf It is an unwanted species and there are stiff penalties for having much to do with them other than killing them. If a non-commercial fisher catches them it must be killed immediately. Possession of a live one carries a penalty of $750. If you are serious I would suggest contacting DOC or MAF and seeing if it is possible to get a permit to own one. I suspect not, but sometimes these things are possible

I prefer the idea of people hunting and fishing for THEIR OWN food, not for sport of to sell for obscene sums (whitebait are our most expensive fish). I find it quite disgusting the idea of 'sport' fishing where light tackle is used so the 'play' happens for as long as possible (so the fish doesn't break the line) to tire the fish before bringing it in. No excuse. Imagine if deer hunting involved a number of non-fatal hits over a period of time before finally killing it? VinsonMassif: how is 'sustainable, at least for now' sustainable? At least it is carefully timed so it hits the peak of the most common galaxiid species run, not the other species. I would like to see commercial whitebaiting better regulated or banned. That would make it properly sustainable and people could still get food for themselves. At the moment anyone can catch and sell whitebait. Given the way people fish for them, they often sitting in a bucket outside for many hours at a time, it is a wonder it isn't a public health nightmare... I guess I do my own form of catch-and-release. What we did this weekend as a big group catching native fish. Ok so we use nets not hooks, so the fish are undamaged, but it is stressful sitting in a bucket... I do try to be as ethical as possible and release them as quickly as possible. It is nice to see all the different opinions and practise of the wonderful quote "I disagree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it"

I am always hearing people ask if I eat fish. They seem the think because I keep them as pets I would not eat them. Well I do, I love fish! But I try to learn what is more appropriate off sustainable fish guide, and I refuse to eat whitebait (juvenile native fish) on conservation grounds. Anyone here not eat fish because they keep them as pets? Not eat certain fish?

Thanks James for coming along, it was really good to see you! I think torrentfish are a favourite of many, so cute and different-looking! Peter contemplated setting up a tank of those after seeing my photos I think we will definitely do another one next summer, this one was such a success. Hopefully my book will be printed by then

Wow, Day Two was incredible! It was Saturday. It started with Pete, Andrew, Richard and I. We went down to Levin and picked up Mark, his young daughter and Paul and went to Lake Papaitonga. Mark had set a trap the previous night in the hope of catching the kokopu we had seen in the tiny muddy forest streams there. I had made the trap very cleverly out of an office style wire mesh rubbish bin with cloth netting added to make a funnel like an eel trap. This was held open with wire and held inside the trap with wire clips. The idea was undo the clips and the funnel inverts, pouring the captured fish into the bucket. It worked perfectly.... Except the fish were SOOOOO much BIGGER than I ever expected would get through the entrance! I am guessing the sizes here, but there were three banded kokopu (20-25cm, 15cm and 10cm roughly) and a eel possibly 50cm long. It took a lot of poking to get them out of the trap. Just stunning fish. The surprising thing was after all the fish were out, there were two dislocated crayfish claws in the trap..... no other parts left....! That site must be just thick with kokopu. So I bounced out of there happy as Larry, the others followed slightly more sedately... and on to Ohau River. There we took nets each and went about lifting rocks and catching heaps of fish. Lots of redfin and upland bullies, four sweet wee torrentfish, a couple of good eels, seven inanga and a multitude of crayfish! We spent a good bit of time there, had a small picnic on the gravel and eventually left. Paul and Mark left our group at this point, leaving Richard, Pete, Andrew and I to go on to the Mangahao stream out the back of Shannon. This was a tiny tributary of the Mangahao stream, barely 5cm deep and a metre across, though it got wider and deeper and faster and narrower in different places. Richard had a very fast first catch, a juvenile banded kokopu (or so we thought). It took a long time to catch much in that stream, but we had some very good catches: six koaro (only site we saw them) two were large 10cm fish and four just-post-whitebait. Also several very nice redfin bullies, and I think that was the total species count. We chased some 15cm kokopu around for a while, but they eluded us in the end. Oh, and Richard caught a good-sized eel. I took the 'banded' home as I had a few of my bandeds jump out and needed to restock. I noticed it looked rather unlike a banded in the tank, its mouth was tiny in comparison. Could this be a shortjaw? Surely not, the chances were so remote... Bear in mind that these are not often seen and I have NEVER seen one before. Anyway, we returned, I set up the new fish (certainly a tiny proportion of what we caught) in their quarantine tanks, we went out for curry then met up with Peter (from the previous day) and Paul (from earlier in the day) and went spotlighting up Kahuterawa Stream . We seemed to break into two groups. Pete, Paul and I went on ahead and Peter, Andrew and Richard were behind. My group were just looking and the other group were catching (lifting rocks). There were heaps of trout again, a good number of eels, crayfish and redfin bullies. Then my group found this small pool. About 1m wide and 1.5m long, .5m deep, fairly still with lots of big stones in it. We saw about 5 trout lurking in there, a few crayfish and some bullies. Then this other fish that looked different.... We had figured the way to tell a trout from a kokopu was the kokopu have their dorsal right at the end of the body whereas trout have them in the middle. This dorsal was definitely at the end. Paul was called over and a combined netting approach was carefully orchestrated. The fish was caught and... it was a kokopu... it *could* have been a shortjaw... It was about 20cm at the most. We kept it in the net but in the water, then saw a smaller one.... caught that, looked like the 'banded' that Richard caught earlier... Then an even bigger one appeared! Also caught it, I would say this was a little over 20cm and DEFINITELY a shortjaw kokopu! I was bouncing off the walls! Went back to find the other team, they had a bucket of nice redfin bullies and a lone small galaxiid - yet another shortjaw! I took them up and showed them our fish, all very exciting and many photos taken by all. As we were leaving Andrew found a HUGE dolomedes (aquatic) spider SO much fun. I can't believe that we saw every single species I not only expected to see, but also the ones that there was a tiny weeny chance we might see! Bullies: upland, redfin, common, cran's (I think) Galaxiids: Inanga, banded kokopu, giant kokopu, shortjaw kokopu, koaro Torrentfish Eels: long and short fin Crayfish Oops, just realised we didn't see any smelt! Well, we will just have to do another trip then My thanks to those who came along and made it such a great trip! I know everyone had a good time and seemed to learn heaps. This is the biggest shortjaw we caught: More photos to follow, I only took a couple. Andrew and Pete had more.

I realised I may be seriously underestimating the size pump. 1000ltph would probably be fine for a 2 foot tank for my needs (assuming the second hand ones were putting out the appropriate volume) but maybe not for a four foot.... which is my new plan. Ok, this is what i am doing: I want to set up a four foot tank as a very fast flowing stream habitat for various native fish who like it FAST. I want some serious movement and turbulence in there. The tank will not be very high, maybe 30cm water depth. There will be lots of big stones for the water to tumble over and provide refuge for the fish. Any suggestions on pump size? Ryanjury: Yes I did have them underwater. I think some just aren't working properly (impeller doesn't run smoothly and others just rattle and annoy me.

Oh and congrats on the house! Looks stunning