Romeo

Don't suppose there's any possibility that any sort of chemical or heavy metal has got into your tank? Cleaning agents, bits of wire holding stuff together, dodgy filter material? When you say they're on the brink, what do you mean exactly? Explain their behavior and maybe someone with tropical fish keeping experience can shed a bit more light. Good luck, you'll need it.

That's an interesting one. Because Vince sells them LIVE to restaurants, who then SELL them to the customers. So I don't see why one wouldn't be able to on sell Koura, as long as they provide rock solid proof that the individual Koura was purchased through a farm, legally. It's not something I'd want to get involved with. I guess DOC/MAF will have a different opinion.

+1 Exceptions: Farmed Koura, you can buy them ;D. - IE: Vince Scully of Kaikoura.

Spoon had quite a few in a community tank with some goldfish. Eventually the fish got so large that they started to pick off the Shrimp. His tank looked very established, and had lots of stuff for the shrimp to eat. He gave me 5 for my tank. But my tank was pretty new, and didn't have much for them to eat - so a couple of them died pretty quickly. A couple of the remainders lived for a few months, but eventually turned brown and died. I don't know why, my water parameters were fine apart from a low pH. I had one left when I got my Crayfish, it loved to ride around on it's back and pick at it. But it eventually turned up half eaten in my tank - so I guess it died and the Koura cleaned it up. That's what I'd like to believe anyways... I'd love to get some more, but I think my 10cm Inanga would deal to them pretty quickly! PS: They're very cute, the scuttle around and clean up the place. I miss them ;[! PSS: Apparently they're very sensitive to Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate (according to what I've read). Being crustaceans, I guess they'd like a higher pH as well.

NO SUCH LUCK! It ATE it's entire shell within 24 hours, I have NO idea where it packed all that shell. I never knew it could eat so much! It literally grew 20% immediately after it's moult - I'm shocked.

Anyone who's interested, here's a running tally of the votes shown on a neat map. http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/resul ... t/map.html Go OBAMA!

May have to do some research and get back to you Spoon. Oh, and sorry about the 2foot tank, we haven't got any room ;[! Oh, and my Koura just shed it's shell 2 days ago, my GF thought it was DEAD! It's grown like 3 hat sizes in one shell moult, it's incredible!

Orim has some pics of his old goldfish tank, it was awesome!

LOL Ian I built some caves for my Koura, it completely ignored ALL of them and made it's home up against the glass beside the filter. They're bizarre little creatures. Luckily now it's in a more natural cave. I had a piece of wood, surrounded with gravel with a cave underneath. It pushed all the surrounding gravel to the other side of the tank, then back again. When I had the powerhead pointing directly at it's cave, it built a wall of gravel in front of the cave, then dug a back door - they're actually pretty clever ;s. Speaking of the filter, it seems that ever since I got my big filter it's always out and about. If it sees you it'll sprint up to the glass for a "hug".

I find that my Koura leaves my plants alone (other than climbing all over them) as long as it's well fed. If I neglect to feed it for just ONE day, it'll tear all my plants up out of spite...

Here's a bit of info on the legality of keeping koura from DOC. I spent 6 weeks hunting around Christchurch streams looking for Koura with no luck, so I had to buy some from Vince Scully, the Kaikoura Koura Farmer. I've had my Koura for a few months now and I'm loving every minute, worth the hype!

I've been told by a Koura farmer that the ideal growing temperature is 19°c. I've also heard from a guy on TradeMe who's had two Koura in his tank for a couple of years at 22°c+. So they seem pretty hardy, but the higher you raise the temperature the shorter their lifespan will be.

Cool, how big is your one? I've got 2 in my 50 litre, plus 1 crayfish and they all seem pretty happy. Here's a link to a thread I made recently asking pretty much exactly the same questions as you - may be worth a look. Have you got any photos? Here's mine ;D I'd recommend more than one. In the streams they don't seem to hang out that much, but in the tank they're always within a few inches of each other, so I'd get 2 or 3. You'll probably never see them though, they have amazing eye sight and can easily spot you creeping into the room at night! Waits for Stella...

UPDATE The little goldfish is happily back down to normal proportions. He's also grown out of his black spots, he's almost entirely gold now! As soon as we took the Oxygen weed out he started to lose weight, so we think maybe he was eating that.

Gidday folks, Me and the missus are considering buying an AR620 - to stock with delicious tropical fish! She's pretty set on getting some dwarf honey gouramis, silver sharks and a few other bits and pieces. I'm leaning towards a nice big (10cm-15cm ish) catfish. Not sure what type, but I'm not really too keen on the sucker mouthed ones. I've seen a couple of really awesome ones today. There's one at Bubble and Squeak, it's a prehistoric looking catfish with huge scales and the other one's a Silver Mystus Catfish at Animates Tower Junction. I'm just wondering if anyone's got in input on the two I've seen. Or if they can add anything on keeping these? Alternatively, you could suggest something I might like and I'll do a bit more Internet research on it. I like a good sized fish, that's quite natural looking and has a bit of character - as long as it doesn't grow too big! I love knife fish, but they grow too big unfortunately ;[ Thanks, Any input greatly appreciated! Romeo

Thanks Stella, excellent post! All taken on board ;D!

Awesome, thanks Spoon! I want to change my gravel aswell, I don't particularly like the coloured stuff and want to go for all black stuff. Does this mean I'll have to re-cycle my tank?

Here's some pictures of the offending Inanga... Here's the link tothe larger pictures if anyone's interested

Just a bit of an update and a few questions folks. I've had them for about 3 weeks, and they're slowly settling in. They're sneaky little buggers, you NEVER see them happily swimming around the tank - UNLESS you creep in at about 10pm, then they're going crazy. Darting around, rubbing on each other, scooting around in and out of the powerhead, wriggling through the plants and teasing the Koura. I've been giving them frozen bloodworms. The AquaOne 1cm³ blocks every 1 to 2 days. I'll throw one in, they'll completely ignore it, then I'll come back into the room an hour or so later and the tank's spotless - it's bizarre! They get on really well with my Koura as well, and vice versa. I've noticed on some occasions my Koura will be wandering about, doing the rounds, and one of the fish will be in it's way. What it'll do is gently push the fish out of the way - I thought Koura were carnivores?! I'm just a bit iffy about the way I feed them. Is it a good idea to just throw the entire cube into the tank? I used to feed them by hand with a drinking straw, but they got too accustomed to it and wouldn't eat floating food - it HAD to be on the stick or they wouldn't touch it. Oh, and I'm moving house soon. What's the best way to move a fish tank? I was thinking that I might try and bottle or bag as much tank water as I can, so I can reuse it at my new place. Other then that I haven't got a clue, so any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Over in Avonhead/Burnside there's no chlorine, and the pH is 7.0 - well, it is for me anyway :].

Well, if your tank is infested with... er.. fish... then a good solution is to get a Koura ;D!

The quickest way I can think of is to type it straight into Google. (153*75*51) cc to litres ...returns... (153 * 75 * 51) * cc = 585.22500 litres It's also pretty useful for other things aswell. 1,543,256 cm to miles ...returns... 1 543 256 centimeters = 9.58934821 miles

Hey, My GF loves the aforementioned fish, problem is we've got no idea if they're compatible to share a community tank? Can someone point us in the right direction as to stocking, tank size, filtration, heating, specific breeds etc? Ideally, 1 shark, 1 dollar and 2 gouramis. + I'm into bottom dwellers, so what could we put in to control snails and algae? Cheers, Romeo + GF

Uneducated opinion I had a lowish pH, around 6.4 - due to all the wood in my tank. So I got some seashells from the beach, white ones, and just threw them in the tank. So far they seem to have raised the pH to a healty 7.0 (plus the shell's sharp corners are smoothing off)... something to think about if you can't rectify the problem through science

Excellent, the more Koura the better! Here's a list of threads I've started over the last few months. I went from knowing *NOTHING* about Koura, to having two, then one + 2 Inanga. DOC: Keeping Koura / Freshwater Crayfish / Native species CHCH: I want a Koura - but I've got no idea... First Tank: Want to set up for Koura & Shrimp My Koura arrive tomorrow! Koura *not mine Freshwater Crayfish*not mine how much flow do they need - and how much do they like? I've got an 80*30*30 - but my Koura only uses half the tank and never ventures to the right 20cm of it, so 60cm wide should be sufficient. (My Koura's 8cm from nose to tail) I had a 180lph Eheim internal filter circulating 50 litres of water in my tank - and the Koura was pretty happy. I've now got a 500lph internal Eheim filter and it's probably a bit much, she's always building little mounds of gravel to block the entrances to her cave, to stop the water from rushing in. Somewhere in between would be good, I've heard that filtering your tank water 4 times an hour is a good target for Koura. what other fish are good mates for them? I've tried putting four different types of things in with mine. 1) Shrimp - she ate them 2) Another Koura - she tormented him until he was at his wits end 3) A *huge* bully - she grabed it's fins and rode around on it 4) Two inanga, about 20% longer than the Koura - success, she ignores them completely! THAT SAID, Stella says that it's probably not a good idea to trust a Koura larger than 7cm with fish. I wouldn't recommend getting more than one - as one becomes dominant and harasses the other one. Thusly the other one spends *ALL* it's time trying to escape the tank - not very fun ;[. What temp could i keep them at? Vince Skully - a Koura farmer in Kaikoura - reckons that 19°c is optimum growing temperature. I've heard of them being in water up to 22-24°c, but this is pretty high and will most likely shorten their lifespan. Mine's active in temperatures as low at 8°c, but now that it's a bit warmer she's always moving gravel around and clambering about. Great fun...