coelacanth

the rainbow skinks aren't protected, being an introduced species, but I believe DoC or MAF or someone has deemed it illegal to possess them because they were getting released into new areas by people. (Perhaps only illegal to sell or distribute them, rather than just keep them, I'm not sure exactly)

that doesn't sound right. Any fish-importers out there who can tell us the story?

um.. best if you talk to your nearest pet shop that has quarantine facilities for importing fish. Its a bit difficult and pricy (to say the least!) doing it by yourself

does anyone still have zebra plecs in NZ? Seeing as how they aren't on the importable list now, if there are some still around perhaps their owners could pool them with well-known breeders, or let them go on breeding loan. They are such an awesome wee fishy it would be a shame if they disappeared here entirely (if this hasn't already occurred)

a few years back there were four native lizards that were unprotected -- the common gecko, forest gecko, common skink, and I think the fourth was the copper skink from the North Island -- but now all are fully-protected. The main reason for this was that on the one hand people were legally exporting these species to collectors overseas and mixing protected ones in with them; and on the other hand, locals were catching them for sale to pet shops in ridiculous numbers, often destroying the habitat in the process (especially after common geckos on Banks Peninsula where they would rip slabs off boulders with crowbars to get at the geckos sheltering in the cracks). Because the geckos are very slow to reproduce this was decimating the populations, and in the case of the common geckos in particular it has now been determined that rather than one nation-wide species it is actually a species-complex (for example, the common gecko in Canterbury is a different species to the one in Wellington, and so on).

it is illegal to keep any of the native lizards without a permit. The only lizards around Chch are the common skink, McCann's skink, spotted skink, common gecko, and the jewelled gecko on the peninula.

I've bred Sturisoma, Panaque maccus, Chaetostoma sp (bulldog plecs, but were being sold here as green rubberlip plecs), common whiptails, common bristlenoses, zebra plecs (in about 2002-2003), two species of Otocinclus (don't know the species, one was probably vittatus). Only ones I've got now are the bristlenoses and GBAs (still baby ones)

the male GBA wasn't the very first male imported from the wild, just the only one that was leucistic or amelanistic. The case originally was that patches of the wild colour would reappear in the offspring, but it seems from what BlueandKim was saying that the hybridising with common bristlenoses is now another factor. I guess the answer now is both a) and b)

hear hear! It is a continuing problem, and the thing that is worst about it is if the young from crosses look like either of the parent species, then they get bred back into those species by unsuspecting aquarists. Same in bird-keeping, with people breeding different species of pheasants or finches together. I think its disgraceful behaviour personally

don't worry, that won't be a problem for long then, lol

just a quick note regarding the fish lists for MrsCatalyst, the lists that the shops have are stock-lists from the various importers. There are several such importers, so if the Greymouth shop only orders from, say, Brooklands, and their list doesn't have surinamensis on it, that doesn't mean they aren't available, just that that particular supplier has none. Many of the smaller shops only deal with one importer so have a more limited stock range than larger or more specialist shops

no, GBAs and common bristlenoses are definitely NOT the same species. If they were, then GBAs wouldn't have an L number. That seems fairly obvious!

don't see why not. Get two patched specimens, breed them together, breed the young together... nothing like a little inbreeding lol (although seriously, ALL GBAs are completely inbred due to the way they were produced, although on the other hand they are also crossed with bristlenoses by some silly people). Anyway, I would predict that you wouldn't be able to produce a strain with set patches -- that is, with black areas in specific places on all individuals -- they would just be randomly blotched. Just my opinion of course...

one leucistic male L144 was imported to Europe from the wild and bred with a wild-colour female, and then bred back to his resulting offspring to fix the yellow form. It is not the natural colour. It is common for black or dark patches to appear randomly in broods. I would assume that the patch would stay the same as the fish grew (neither shrinking nor growing, seeing it is just a patch of pigment)

first thing I noticed was the number of spelling mistakes in the list! Its irritating that the list is alphabetically by genus rather than arranged by family, it makes it far harder to actually find the fish and of course genera are always changing with taxonomic updates, eg, the clown loach is under "Cromobotia" so if you're looking for it under Botia you might be under the impresson it is now banned. But there are still heaps of fish on there that we can get -- I was bored, so counted up no fewer than 41 Ancistrus species, 54 Hypostomus, 77 Corydoras, and 13 Apteronotus (thats the ghost knife genus)!! I saw Ancistrus ranunculus on there -- anyone have any of these currently? They are AWESOME fish!

for what its worth, with most loricariids I've bred I do water changes every day in the fry tank, but with the whiptails the babies didn't react well at all to these so I just did small ones weekly or less. The ones I did manage to rear were in a tank that basically never got cleaned or had water changes so I guess they were getting someting from the detritus that fed them better than what I was giving them. (otherwise newly-hatched brine shrimp had better results than vegetable food)

is he inside something with his eggs, like under a bit of flowerpot or something? Thats what it looks like, maybe its just the photo. Anyway, mine would spawn on the top of a flat rock out in the open.

I bred whiptails on numerous occasions and found the fry almost impossible to rear. Didn't have any problems at all with Sturisoma fry, interestingly-enough, but regular whiptails just couldn't do it. Out of several hundred eggs, I only reared three to adulthood. Anyway, I would remove the eggs on their rock to a small bare tank (the adults were in a community tank). The male would immediately abandon the eggs so I would just put an airstone next to them to keep them aerated and they would hatch fine. Tried all sorts of techniques but just couldn't rear any of the resulting fry past a few weeks. I even tried taking all the other fish out of the 3ft community the adults were in and just leaving the babies to hatch in there but that wasn't any more successful than removing the eggs. Not much help from me I'm afraid. I don't know what species mine were but they laid green eggs (not the yellow ones seen in most books), which would turn darker to almost black as they got closer to hatching.

Apparently Stanmore Critter Kingdom is going to be getting red danios soon. One of their staff (I think) has about 300 that have been bred by them.

actually, does anyone know of a website that has pics of all the spiny eels?

in a lot of books and internet, there does seem to be confusion between circumcinctus and aculeatus, with both being labelled as each other. As I understand it, aculeatus is the one sold (I think) as "peacock eel", with the row of outlined spots near the tail. Circumcinctus is the one with banding along the length of the body, which is the one being sold at the moment as 'banded eel'. Anyone know if that sounds right? Or is it completely wrong?

really? That's wierd. Should be the same fish. Anyone else out there know for sure what the banded eels being sold at the moment are? Mine definitely looks just like Mastacembelus circumcinctus, as far as I can tell. But then again, I'm happy to be proven wrong!

He's about 15cm or so. I don't like calling them 'banded eels' which is why I put it in quotation marks. I call them half-banded or common spiny eels (they are Mastacembelus circumcinctus if you need the scientific name). He's really awesome. His name is Denim Joe because he looks like he's made out of denim. He spends lots of time out in the open, and eats little earthworms, mysid shrimps, frozen bloodworms, things like that. I used to have one years ago too, but he spent most of his time under the undergravel filter plate (don't know how he'd get under there, but every so often he'd reappear in the tank itself). Funny wee guys they are.

they're awesome. easy to look after, easy to feed, easy with other fish. No problems at all. Mine does spend most of his time inside his pipe but when he's out he certainly draws your eye!

no