museeumchick

Excellent! lucky theres a lid on the tank huh? Yesterday i met a fish called slinkey who leaps up to snap food off its owners finger - great party trick (lucky for the finger the fish only has little/not so sharp teeth) :lol:

I havent heard anything about people keeping them but I cant see any reason why not. they are pretty cute fish, i would be interested in how things go if you decide to try them out. Heres what I have on them: Common smelt/ cucumber fish - Retropinna retropinna 80-100mm, and max known - 160mm long. Anadromous (adult life in the ocean, young and breeding animals in the rivers), but also found in landlocked waterways. Found in waterways from sea level to 300m asl. to 150km inland. hope that helps, or at least is interesting

What beautiful frogs awww, i'm going to miss mine whent hey go. Mine are currently in an asymmetrical terrarium with mesh lid and lamp in one corner, a removable pond for easy cleaning (too small for an actual filter) sphagnum moss flooring (layer of gravel then dirt then moss), patches of rocks for sitting on and a branch covered in leather leaf fern for climbing on/hiding under, also two other small potted ferns (one gets sat on so is rather flat). all looking fantastickly green and leafy = green frogs (am loving their colour changing habits) :bounce:

Yum, we used to make this recepie at home although we never failed to have it boil over - best solution = clean the microwave plate first then you can eat all the gooey boiled over bits of the plate (plate is usually far too disgusting for considering eating off, although others might be cleaner). mmmmm, yummy

I am thinking a chiller is beyond my budget, hopefully careful use of bottles of ice water will do the trick

so i have aquired some bullies (commons) and many shrimp Yesterday they were in a temporary tank (rather too small for them) and there are a few less shrimp via bullie nibbling now theya re settling into their nwe place where the koura is king of the patch and I am immensely entertained by the koura's (so far unsuccessful) efforts to get a pincer full of bullie what fun! Good mission fellow fish collectors :bounce:

Excelelnt costumes y'all and i just wanted to say, grrrrrr I hate trick or treaters keep your children under control (a leash or cage seems appropriate), there were a few visiting the party I went to and they were rude, and smart arsed and stole the decorations, uninpressed :evil:

did they get loose? i thought they were avondale spiders and normally found about the place since well before the movie

Heloooo and welcome!

Malcom its soooo good to see you are thinking this through and doing some research, please do chat to phil about releasing them the snails I had in mind were all sorts - landsnails included, and i was more thinking of things being passed around than disruptions in the food chain. and even if your frogs are disease free, could they pick something up and move it around after their release? less mobile animals that wouldnt normally come into contact with certain pathogens could be at risk? I'm all for dedicated individuals working towards conservation but you have to be so careful, happy thinkings

I finished my exams a couple of weeks ago, and i thought things would be less busy alas this is not the case real world, sigh :roll:

Or bite them back?

Is there a threat to anything else? how about snails, or other inverts, or existing bell frog populations? Just try to consider all aspects first. Informed is the place to be. Dunedin huh? you should totally exploit your wicked local resources and see if you can get the opinion of the frog man (Phil Bishop) or one of his team at the uni.

Gawd art boards were the bane of my existance in 7th form, sigh (but to be honest, also one of my fave parts) theres alot more work to do throughout the year, I remember every lunchtime and free period for the last terms being in the artroom, and many hours spent hoping the oil paint would dry in time but many hours of fun none the less I second good luck to all

Its just so hard to be sure, and really not worth the risk The non native frogs in NZ should have some consideration made towards conserving them as they are threatened and important in their own right, but efforts towards captive breeding for release should be concentrated in their 'natural' habitat and done with serious testing to ensure nothing goes wrong because in these cases SO much can go wrong and it could be at the expense of our natives So my opinion (and it is still just that, an opinion. although i like to believe it is an informed one) is nooooo, dont do it. and if you are going to go ahead with this regardless then please do some serious data searches and reading and be informed about what you are doing. Think then act Please

Gustatory spectacle, Gus for short although entropy sounds more accurate for a kitten. Do you do kitten back massages? requires one thick jearsey to avoid scratches and one laser pointer operator to run the light up and down your back = hours of fun for all

some computer geek once promised me a robotic attack centipede , but alas he is too far away to bug enough that it will ever happen but in the theoretical model it would be solar powered = recharge in a sunny patch. in some respects lizards are solar powered = need to warm up to get going, but theres still that fuel issue

you can take some native animals too (not frogs obviously, but other not protected things), the issues is usually with selling things. Just a thought

Some interesting thoughts all round Stella, what I was trying to say is there is still no evidence that we cant keep our native flora and the tar - but sadly that idea is often overlooked by opposing parties. sigh, we get rather stuck in our ideas somedays and its difficult to change your mind (I know coz i guilty of it). Tar are a special species in their own right and in terms of preserving biodiversity on a global level they should be protected, whether they should be protected at the expence of NZ species is another matter (it all depends where our longterm conservation priorities lie). But tar as a replacement of Moa? well i dont think i believe that either, thar and deer might have similar browsing patterns to Moa but this is still jsut an idea and looking at extant birds suggests their selectivity for browsing material may have been rather different. But its still up in the air really, the usual -> need more information Use of poisons and comtrol of mammalian predators is another issue (there have been a few threads on this already).

Getting a little on a tangent here but Tar are an interesting story, we might have the only insurance population here under our noses (theyre quite endangered in their homeland). Theres a great short film on them called 'shooting to learn' about a guy who starts out hunting them but ends up studying them. then theres whether theya are even having a significant effect on the alpine flora, which to the best of my knowledge is still in the research stages. Facinating stuff

Snake kid strictly speaking you arent allowed to collect stuff from the wild to sell without permits n stuff (correct me if i'm wrong people) so while this sounds like not a big deal, i wouldnt widely advertise the fact just a thought

Yep, but dont ask me where, I only know coz I have some freshwater mussel shells that the guy who was ID'ing them from me said were not a NZ species

I had black acrylic paint in my hair and it came out alright, mostly it looked fantastic! with this really vivid colour, and setting paint is fun to style but it did look like i had filled the bottom of the shower with concrete mix when i tried to wash it all out (white bubbles +black paint flecks) and i am still finding bits every time i comb my hair. Although i can understand the lingering red, as red is one of the most tenacious colours to get out of anything (=the best temporary hair dye as it lasts the longest). enjoy your stripes.

pretty unfortunate really, some of the so called experts seem to have alot to learn from keepers with more practical experience.

i would LOVE a couple, theyre pretty neat critters buty might leave that till i'm a bit more sure about my aquarium keeping abilities, and not so keen on taking things from the wild where possible. difficult decisions here