preacher
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Posts posted by preacher
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Sadly my wife Ruth still has my camera since we separated, but I have to say what an awesome experience it was visiting this aquarium.
I got to the National Trout Center just before 1pm, bang on time for feeding. Seeing the Koaro, the bandeds and all the other fish was heaven
Having seen all those beautiful fish I hope I get to take my little girl one day. Its definately worth a day out.
P.
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The bullies I suspect are commons. Love the trout hehe.
Birchville supposably has Banded and Giant Kokopu though ive never seen any up there.
P.
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Well after weeks of earthworks that didnt seem to amount to much more than shift that boulder to the left.... um... no actually move it too the right. Mother nature seems to have decided to take a hand in it. Our recent big storm flooded the river and utterly destroyed their little dam, and most of their road down to the river. With the raised river level and their earthworks however the flow dynamics below the weir such that fish should, for now, be able to bypass the weir without too much difficulty. Fingers crossed we see a bit more life upstream now.
P.
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Well the fish have all vanished, but it may be that in doing the construction work they have made a viable fish pass and they've all gone upstream. Can't say for sure. The nearby stream has some amazing red fin bullies.
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My ears are burning, someone must be talking about me.
Hey Joff, nice to know theres another native buff here in the Hutt. Where abouts are you?
Sounds like you had a fair bit of fun up Birchville
Now. Did you actually see them in the stream below it, or in the dam itself? There are Common/Crans Bullies in the Dam, Koura and Trout and I am told Banded Kokopu. I suspect the Dam itself is way to high (about a 5 metre over hanging waterfall) for fish to get up successfully. I have seen baby trout and eels in the stream but never anything else sadly. Theres a few spots around the Hutt I know. The river is always good for fish, especially down Silverstream Weir. Theres a local stream with Koura (last visit I found a bunch of dead ones, not sure what the story is there, but there were still live ones too). A nice of spot in the river near my place in Totora Park for shrimp.
Drop me a line and maybe we can get together sometime
P.
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Just over a year ago the weir across the river got badly damaged during several days of heavy rain which caused the river to threaten it. Unfortunately this created a massive barrier to fish travelling upstream, especially over the white bait season, while the river level was low.
Finally though it appears the Council has got off their backsides and started to do something about it.
Looking across the river, a large wall has been built across it channelling the river away.
The damage to the base of the weir is amazing
The water poured over it in one huge waterfall, because of the overhang nothing could get up. Even the baby eels that tried to slip up along the edge got caught by the overhang. I really hope they sort it out.
Looking across the lagoon they have created at the new entrance to the river, the base of the weir used to be alive with bullies and Inanga. Now... nothing. Not sure if they can get upstream along the temp. bypass. All I saw today was a single trout gliding around the lagoon.
I will try and keep an eye on the place as they repair it.
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Took the opportunity of the overcast weather on Sunday to do a stock take and clean up of the pond.
Some Pre - shots.
Not much changed since October. Except I cut down the dead tree as it kept shedding sticks and branches everytime a gale came through.
My Big Momma, gosh she's grown. Shes about 9.5 - 10cm nose to tail and 1.5cm across at the shoulders
Drained it, was amazed at the amount of sludge and mud at the bottom. Almost my entire hand deep. Cleaned out a lot of it and rearranged the stones around the edges again. I figure they are better there than buried in a pile of sludge.
The bottom pond had become swamped with azolla so I chucked as much as I could out. I don't mind the Lemna as much.
Final Tally (I say final, 3 hours after I drained the pond I was still finding Crays appearing out of nowhere and fish stuck in weeds) came too :
18+ Crayfish. (I'm sure I lost count and there was at least 1 still hiding in his little hole.)
5 Goldfish
6 Bullies (2 redfin, 4 Crans/Commons)
7 Inanga
1 Banded Kokopu.
6 Southern Bell frogs
1 shrimp.
2 Mussels
No snails in the bottom pond, suspect they have been crayfish snacks
Lots of Damselflies and even a Dragonfly around this year
P.
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Soooo jealous
Beautiful fish though
P.
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Lol, with all these earthquakes about im beginning to wonder if they know something about Wellington we don't!
Maybe its a case of so long and thanks for all the fish....
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After all the heavy rain we've had up here in the Hutt Valley the last few days I went out a couple of nights ago to check on the pond to make sure it wasn't overflowing. The pond was very full, too murky and deep too see much so I turned around and discovered I was being stalked... by my big crayfish in the middle of the lawn. Naughty girl, back she went. Went out again tonight and there was another one! Just quietly strolling through the grass, didn't care a bit until I picked it up.
Adventerous little buggers arent they. Good thing I found them before the local hedgehog did, though I imagine they would give it a nip or 2 on its nose for its trouble.
The fish all seem to be doing ok at the moment. I have 4 bullies (2 crans and 2 red fins) in an outdoor tank waiting to go into the pond. The reds do love hiding... I also have some fry around 2cm long which appear to be galaxxid in the bottom garden tub. Certainly not bullies and they don't look like trout. Time will tell
P.
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Nice photo's, sounds like you had heaps of fun.
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Being in the pond I rarely feed them at all. But occasionally I drop in some crumbled up COOKED Shredded chicken. They go mad, the Inanga rush about tearing chunks off, the Goldfish are like active vacuum cleaners, the Koura grab what they can and even the bullies dart out to take a bite. Its fun to watch the Inanga, they are like little sharks. Circling around then darting in, grabbing a mouthful, tearing a chunk off and darting away to gulp it down.
P.
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Assuming they hatched, the eggs are certainly gone from under mum. I imagine they are hiding in the rocks and mud. Having said that I haven't drained the pond since I saw her in berry and with them being so small it would be hard to spot them. Plus theres about 10 crays in there who wouldn't mind a tasty little snack. I keep popping out every other night for a looksie though
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Well the weather gave me a nice break to get out today, so as requested. The photos!
Back in January 2011...
October 18 2011...
Looking across.
Top corner pool.
Middle pool.
Bottom mini pool.
Shallow end Main pond.
Pond Life.
Fresh Water Mussels:
Fish.
My big Inanga lurking in the shadows midday.
Crayfish.
Enjoy.
Peter
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Hahaha, yes it has been ages since I took some shots. I will try this afternoon.
Was surprised to find one of the frogs survived the winter too.
P.
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Hey all, been a while since I was last on here. So busy at the hospital with moving into our new operating theatres. Anyhow, with the nice weather today I was able to get out and drain the pond to give it a bit of a clean up post winter. Not too much to do, cut back some dead reeds and do a stock take of my fish. 6 Goldfish, 8 Inanga (from 12cm - 7cm), 2 smallish bullies and about 7 or 8 Koura. Nice to see my big girl (about 15cm), haven't spotted a lot of Koura activity at night of late. Possibly because she's got eggs and lots of them! One of the smaller 9cm Crays was also in berry so someones been a busy boy
I believe thats the first time my Koura have bred in the pond.
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Stuff.co.nz posted an article on the Southern Encounter Aquarium.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/new-zeala ... its-beasts
Apparantly many of the fish were released into the wild.
What a sad loss to Christchurch.
P.
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A man who will be sorely missed.
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Fantastic photo's
Love those Koura, they are so cool.
P.
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Last count was about 7 Inanga, 6 10-12cm's and 1 about 7cm. As for the Crays I lost count hehe. Not sure to be honest, roughly 15? Ranging from 10cm down to 3cm, having said that however I found 2 tiny 1cm Crays when I drained the pond a month or so ago so goodness knows how many I have now
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Hi Mikey, its been a bit damp down here so I haven't got out to measure the pond accurately.
Over all area of the Ponds is probaby about 3m wide, 4m long and roughy half a metre high for the top pond.
The top pond itself is around a metre long by 600mm-700mm wide, about 200mm deep.
This overflows into a bog type pond which is only 20-30mm deep and about 400-500mm diameter.
That then flows into another smaller pool which measures 200mm diameter and is about 100mm deep.
The main pond at the base is in 2 sections, a 1.5m long shallows which is roughly 800mm wide and about 150mm deep. This runs into a deeper area which is about 1.2m - 1.5m diameter and 400mm-500mm deep.
Cheers
Peter
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Thank you everyone, its still very much a work in progress.
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The amount of damselflies around the pond this summer has been amazing, blues, greens, reds...
But here's some of the awesome nightlife...
The small pond at the top transforms from a brown muddy bottom to a carpet of red worms...
This lil cray is about 3cm long
Adult Inanga, about 10-12cm long
Close encounters of the third kind?
7-8cm Cray
And for my second book....
in New Zealand Natives
Posted
Seriously proud of you Stella, now all you need is a tractor to storm parliment and bang some heads over the whitebait industry and you will become a household name
P.