snorkelboy

bug tank!??? hmmm.... white clouds. one of my favourite fish. i'll get some more!

thank you! all sorted now. hydra is a rotten little sod lindeloo. came from my outdoor pond. grrrr.

i am keeping some small bristlenose in a tank. at first they were doing really well, but now they are loosing condition and a cple have died. hydra have now appeared in the tank. any ideas on this? i am sure the hydra are causing these fish trouble.

A single white spot usually means dead fish in the future. Do you quarantine your new arrivals? I always do. Bullies from the wild are just about certain to have white spot disease. A bare tank is the best way to quarantine and also treat the dreaded white spots.

Wow, man those are cool pics!

What an achievement. You rock! Congatulations to the people behind the scenes as well, a great effort.

Thank you Super Simon, thank you Stella. I have a 1500mm X 500mm X 500mm quarantine tank setup in my freezing cold garage that has been running for a week now. The water is the same lake water that I'm planning on capturing the smelt from. Town supply here comes from the lake just off the main lakefront beach, so I'm hoping the change will not be to great for the smelt. Planning on getting a dozen or so. Spotlite and a scoop net hopefully will do the trick. Smelt were introduced into Lake Taupo about a hundred or so years ago to prop up a failing rainbow trout fishery. It sort of worked, and now smelt are the main food source for the trout. I have never kept them before and do not know very much about them at all. They do, it seems, gather in numbers at certain times of the year to spawn close to the shoreline. There life cycle I know nothing about. I wonder if any studies have been done on them at all? When rainbow trout were introduced they grew to tremendous sizes, rapidly, and the fishing for them quickly became world reknown. However it did not last, what they were feeding on, was soon exhausted and the trout became pathetic specimens. The trout were culled by netting in the millions in order to bring back a balance of sorts, but it was not successful. In the end, smelt were introduced in an attempt to restore a balance. Apparently this has worked. A interesting ecological balance has evolved in this lake that is completely man made! Trout running up rivers, spawning, dropping back to the lake, feeding on smelt. Smelt spawning along the lake edge. All very interesting. I cant help wonder what those early trout were feeding on that grew them to such tremendous sizes? Will keep you posted on the sucess or otherwise of the captive smelt program. Stella, the Giant Bully is doing great. A well loved fish indeed! Hopefully, the smelt will co-exist with him in a peacefull manner and the smelt will add a bit more interest to the tank.

Is anyone keeping smelt in captivity here? I am considering capturing some and keeping them in a 300 liter tank that has a giant bully in it. What would they require?

If experianced fishkeepers are saying the display sux, then it sux. Do not be offended. It is very difficult to set up a beautiful display tank. Some people can do it, most people have no show. I am hopeless, and my tanks look pathetic, like the vast majority. Karaori Wildlife Sanctuary is a fantastic place. Lucky you!

Bloodworm?

I have a giant bully that has been captive for 26mths now. I am wondering how long it will live? What fish have you got and how old are they?

Please report back with success or otherwise of the hole drilling night.

Thanks guys, very interesting. My tank is 10mm and assembled. :-?

I am considering drilling a hole thru my tank. Up high as an overflow to remove surface scum. Has anyone done this? How?

Two part epoxy paints last for years on boat hulls. Mitre ten mega, Bunnings are the cheapest places to look fot them.

My Crans Bullies have been spawning today. Thousands of eggs have been spawned. Don't they know it is still winter?

I have a 300lt tank with 5 bullies in it. I have no substrate so that it is easy to keep clean. Just a couple of pieces of wood for shelter. The fish are fine. However two alien creatures have turned up, both small, one a worm type creature that wiggles hard out in figure of eights, perhaps 4-5mm long. This one is not very common. The other creature, however is very common, after a wipe down of the inside glass it gathers on the bottom, perhaps in their hundreds, it is very small, about 1-2 mm long and moves in a jerky manner. Does anyone know what these creatures are?

Frogs just turned up one rainy night and they lived with my goldfish for years without any problems.

They are cool alright. Last wkend we had a 4yr old visitor who was immediately drawn to the tank, inevitably slapping his hands all over it. They didnt blink an eye, not phased one bit. Cool as a cucumber they were... Fish&Game do a great job of looking out for our freshwater resources. Mainly pushing their own barrow of trout angling, but they're great watchdogs all the same. Sorry to hear of U'r Dec 08 disaster. Bummer.

Gumboots? Shoulda been wearin ya flash waders!

Thinking about it, I reckon it is a response to the enviroment that they are living in. In a large enviroment like a lake, they gather in vast numbers in an area where they are comfortable, mabee this is temperature related or could even be food or shelter related. But gather they do, not in tightly packed schools moving as one, like some fish do, more like a loose association consisting of possibly billions of individuals. I hope that makes sense! Last time I was diving there I was ascending from 30meters (where it is a really cold 12*C), getting to around 17meters the water temp got noticeablly warmer and a dense band of weed was growing. It was here that the bullies were extremely abundant. The trout in this lake feed almost exclusively on the bullies. Many are infected with whitespot, the bullies that is.... However, weirdly, I have never seen a trout with white-spot?

Bullies do school. I have seen it with my own eyes. Just a couple of days ago while scuba diving in Lake Rotoma, Rotorua. They form a loose grouping in their hundreds, more likely thousands, at about 15-20 meters. Next time I,m down there I'll take a photo to prove it. :-)

The lid on my tank is in 4 pieces, and I have the two front pieces of glass permanantly removed. Moths just end up in there as they are attracted to the light. Crans bullies go for them hard. Slightly off topic, just lately I have discovered their alltime favourite food... baby koura. Got some large adult koura for a xmas snack and a lot of them had baby koura under their tails which I simply scraped off into the tank.