Rob

The goldspot plecos that I've seen for sale in the $10-20 range have been Glyptoperichthys joselimaianus (L001). I personally think goldspot is a misnomer - copper spot would be more accurate.

Matthew - it may be more an issue of hoping that the 6 fry that you do have are a mix of sexes (the guy down the south island that bred them only got males) and that hopefully being bred in your own tanks are more robust than their parents.

Hi Frenchy - saw your lonesome post - I suspect the lack of responses is that no one over this side of the ditch has had experience with these fish. If you could post some over for me I'll have a play with them and report back to you

Congratulations to the spear fishers and bow hunters for helping to eliminate a menace to New Zealands water ways.

Just be aware of the $5,000 fine for possessing a live Koi (Freshwater fish regulations 1983) or the $100,000 fine for releasing, spreading, selling or breeding unwanted organisms - includes koi (Biosecurity Act 1993).

Just to be sure we're all talking about the same thing upside-down-syno = Syndontis nigriventris. The 5 that I've got haven't shown a patterning like CatBrats mystery syno (even when they were smaller than 6cm).

@ CatBrat - I haven't seen synos with those markings before (talking about your mystery syno - not the Angelicus). As suggested on Planet Catfish I'd wait for it to grow some more to see how the patterning changes (possibly it's juvenile colouring for something - not sure what though).

I change 25-33% of the water a fortnight - don't dedicate a day to it though, just work through the line up of tanks doing one or two each night.

The ones that have been breeding are 10-12cm long (not including whips), my breeders haven't got their full growth yet as their parents were 15-20cm long. The ones that I'm breeding from are ones that I've raised from eggs - got given the eggs by another club member to see if I could get anything to hatch. The young for sale are about the 6cm mark (again not including whips). They're cave spawners and lay lime green eggs that hatch after ~12-14 days. As soon as the fry hatch they leave the nest (unlike bristlenoses where they'd stay with their father for a little while after hatching). @ajbroome - yes Andrew there are probably other things that you'd be interested in but nothing that I'm prepared to part with. @andyman98 - for those of us who are a little out of touch with the school system - what date range is the first week of school holidays

@northland Chic - let me know closer to the time and we can arrange a visit and sort out some young whiptails for you. @andyman98 - talk with ajbroome about what can be sorted out, I'd be happy to send some whiptails down for you with Len and Richard when they visit Andrew. @ajbroome - putting some aside for you shouldn't be a problem (I'm always suprised by how many of them there are in the tank - I started off with 80, I've sold some and there have been minimal obvious losses - when I pick up the rocks/wood in the tank it rains whiptails).

It's not catfish specific, but the list of allowable species is HERE there are still a number of things that turn up despite this (ie most of the exotic plecos).

CatBrat - haven't seen any that match zebrinus around this area - only the juvi featherfins and the vermiculated (S. schoutedeni).

I tend to think that the Brazilians are more carnivore (like zebra plecs) than algae eater. What I consider as the common clown pleco are the small Panaque maccus type (which have stripes), the spotted clown plecs grow larger (about 15cm) and I've only seen for sale once (took me sodding ages to track down a female). Yes I'm prepared to sell some whiptails, but I'm not sure about getting them to Nelson. Probably look at $10 each or 2 for $15 - they're not sexable at their current size - ideally I'd prefer people to pick them up.

Hey CatBrat, a few questions about your possible hybrid syno: does it have sort of scribbled white stripes on a dark background, did it cost around the $10-20 mark. The reason I ask is that your 'zebrinus' makes me think of that colour pattern also the 6cm size means it could be a juvenile - young feather fin synos have this colouring, and when they come in they're in this cheaper price range.

The ones that I've successfully bred (ie got them to a reasonable size) so far are: Pygmy cory Sterbai cory Whiptail cat (Rineloricaria cf eigenmanni) Spotted clown pleco Brazilian butterfly pleco Bristlenose Royal whiptail (though only had a few survive to a reasonable size) I've had spawnings and fry (but not surviving to a good size) of Twig cat and Rubberlipped pleco (the juveniles I now have are from a guy in upperhutt who bred them). The ones I'm trying to get to do something at the moment are the 2 types of twig cats. There is also a half-hearted attempt at a couple of types of cory and the smaller clown plecos.

Never really considered keeping more than a few - really they're just the clean up crew behind the real fish

The catfish I currently have are: 2 Clown pleco (Panaque maccus) 5 Bristlenose (Ancistrus lineolatus) ~60 Whiptails cats, 3 adults, the rest juveniles (Rineloricaria sp. - possibly eigenmanni) 3 Twig cats (Farlowella acus) 2 Alligator twig cats (Farlowella henreqei) 14 Brazilian butterfly plecs, 2 adult, the rest juveniles (Zonancistrus pulcher) 6 Rubber-lipped pleoos 1 adult, 5 juveniles (Chaetostoma cf. thomsoni) 10 Spotted clown plecos 2 adults, 8 juveniles (Peckoltia brevis) 5 Columbian plecos (Loricaria sp 'Columbia') 1 Royal whiptail (Sturiosoma panamense) 5 Skunk Cory (Corydoras arcuatus) 5 Diagonal stripe cory (Corydoras melini) 20 Pygmy Cory (Corydoras pygmeaus) 12 Dwarf cory (Corydoras hastatus) 3 Nanus cory (Corydoras nanus) 4 Napo cory (Corydoras napoensis) 3 Axelrod's cory (Corydoras axelrodi) 5 Schwartz cory (Corydoras schwartzi) 4 Tailspot cory (Corydoras caudimaculatus) 5 Elegant cory (Corydoras elegans) 5 spotted cory (Corydoras melanistius) 5 Flagtail cory (Corydoras robineae) 6 Sterbai cory (Corydoras sterbai) 5 Three-lined cory (Corydoras trilineatus) 5 Netted cory (Corydoras sodalis) 4 porthole cats (Dianema longibarbis) 4 Flagtailed cats (Dianema urostriata) 2 Clay Hoplos (Hoplosternum littorale) 2 spotted talking cats (Agamyxis pectinifrons) 4 Chocolate stripe cats (Platydoras costatus) 1 Asian bumblebee cat? (Leiocassis siamensis) 3 Pearl mystus (Mystus armatus) 2 Featherfin synos (Synodontis eupterus) 5 Upside down cats (Synodontis nigriventris) 3 White finned synos? (Synodontis cf. caudavittatus) 3 Vermiculated synos (Synodontis schoutedeni) 1 Decorated syno (Synodontis decorus) 3 South american bumblebee cats (Microglanis iheringi) 1 Pictus cat (Pimelodus pictus) 1 or 2 moth cats (Hara hara) 6 Glass cats (Kryptopterus minor) 5 Striped glass cats (Kyrptopterus macrocephalus) The catfish currently on my wish list (apart from numerous expensive plecos that I don't have the space for) are the Bearded Cory (Corydoras barbatus) and Borneo glass cats (Ompok eugeneiatus).

The culture medium I ended up using was a porridge mix made of roughly 60% rolled oats and 40% cornmeal. When I used only cornmeal the medium liquified too quickly but didn't smell as bad as old cultures based only on rolled oats (that's why I now add some cornmeal to the mix). I prepare it like a porridge (not salt or milk though - just water) - you want that heat to get the mix to gel. Once it's cooled sprinkle over some bakers yeast, a little sugar and give a light misting of water. I found that fruitfly all have a morbid facination for water droplets (normally investigated by putting their head in them and drowning) - so perhaps wipe the sides to remove the drops or bang the container so the drops run to the bottom. The only problems I had with mould growth was when the initial medium was too dry. If the medium in the container is getting a little runny (but still smells ok'ish) then you can put in a piece of dry bread to soak up some of the liquid and act as a life raft for the flies. I had problems with the lid of my culture initially - just did the standard thing of stabbing holes in the plastic - the adult flies couldn't get out but the maggots (which climb the sides when it's time to pupate) climbed through the holes and pupated on the outside of the container. So now when I set up a culture the lid has a whole about the size of a 10c piece in the middle that I put a reasonably tightly wadded piece of filter floss or cotton wool in - I've also seen people glue a piece of stocking over the hole. Harvesting can be a little problematic in that, while they can't fly, stump winged/wingless fruitfly are still quite good at jumping. The way I ended up doing it was opening the container over the open tank shaking the flies into the tank and then spend the next 10 minutes rounding up any escapees.

I guess people around the Black Sea thought similarly before the Comb Jelly wiped out their fishing industry (250,000 tonnes p.a. down to 30,000 tonnes p.a.). I expect it's also very comforting to the Tasmanians, that no one thought that seastar (Northern Pacific Seastar) would do too much hamr - now that it's spreading along their coastline devouring any bivalve it comes across. Admittedly a few clowns released isn't likely to do too much harm - but did you also have some Caulerpa taxifolia in the tank with them when you dumped them?

Now - what can I cash those gold stars in for? :lol:

As NZ also has a coastline it's possible to dump marines straight into the ocean so the same reasoning should apply.

Without a picture it's a little difficult but is this a bit closer to what you've got? You may want to check out some of the other Mastacembelus species to see if they're a closer match. I was going back through the previous posts in this thread and saw that you'd put a basic discription about gold with stripes, you may want to do a search for Macrognathus aral

Yeah with Koi if you land it, you kill it, same with mosquito fish - there's something about it being illegal to have them alive in your possession - so any one collecting them for live food should ideally have discussed things with a local DOC representative (some of them seem to appreciate that the mosquito fish aren't going to live too long after being added to a tank with a borneo tiger or similar). MAF used to have a banned species list (as well as the allowed list) but they took it off their website as they said it confused the issue - I'm not sure if they still use in house though.

Andrew made the comment: >...days I no longer have the dwarf one (although Rob Torrens has one or two females I think). The two female hoplos I have are Clay/Cascudo hoplos not dwarf ones - that's the origin of my clarifying comment on that bit. As for sexing them - I doubt you'll be able to sex 2.5cm individuals but what you are looking for in adults specimens is thickening of the leading edge of the pectoral fins - males it will be quite thick, can become pinky-orange and also upturned at the end depending on the hoplo species in question. Another thing to look for is the chest plates associated with the pectoral fins - in males these will cover most of the chest region almost meeting in the middle, for females the chest plates are smaller and only cover the edges of the chest region. I know this chest plate thing is a definite for port hoplos but I'm not sure if the other species we've been talking about have it as well. Just a side comment - when I had port hoplos it took them less than a year to get from 2.5cm to adult size - it could have been less time - I was away in England at the time and my sister was looking after them. Cool guys though, would come up to the surface and suck blood worms from my fingers

Just a comment on spawning them - I observed that the male tends to guard a particular place the he's chosen as his spawing site.