Mikey

I'm not sure what was on the door of my principal's offices... I got to know the inside of the offices well though, rather than standing outside :roll:

Good to hear it isn't glandular fever. Yeah, pretty much what I did...felt better.... go play hockey/overdo it... Back to square one... takes a while to shake, so when you feel better you have to resist the urge to run off and peer into your local stream Need a bit of patience, like this guy:

Erstwhile

Island

Just came across and read this whole thread... Awesome to see the marine set up from start to finish... sorry for the blip you had in the middle with the loss of fish, you always wonder if you could have done something different to prevent the deaths. And fantastic photos throughout this thread... really helps to get people involved I find Well done, and great looking tank!

Congrats on completion... I have been following your thread on MonsterFishKeepers for a while, and it is awesome to finally see it all finished! Looks fantastic and I like the fact you have a school of fish chilling out in lots of space than just a couple of big ones... Well done!

That is great... nice to see the before and after pics... glad to see the black plastic has been "overgrown" by the plants... Some very nice occupants you have in the pond as well. PS: How big are the dimensions of the pond area? I have got a patch of ground at my place that would be pretty good for a pond, just wondering if it is big enough.

Well this stream is just up from a big estuary system, so I guess that helps in the shrimp production department. It's also another reason why I thought It would have native in it, because they can get to and from the salt water from here. Didn't get back there over the weekend though... weather has been rather interesting to say the least! This Thursday night is when I'm planning to go back... hopefully it isn't as full and churned up from the rainfall by then. Will keep you all posted. PS: I'm really hoping to find some Koura!

I had viral pnuemonia a few years ago... it isn't pleasant in any way shape or form! Wish you all the best with your recovery... I was better after a couple of weeks, but it took aaages before I felt properly "recovered" from the whole ordeal... you just have to look after yourself... I went and played hockey... I was young and dumb at the time... silly me. :facepalm:

Old

Yeah I was blown away by the number of shrimp that were in there... I was expecting to see some... but they were everywhere I looked I saw the little orange/pink eyes reflecting back.... There were groups of them playing in the areas with higher flow, groups just hanging out, and others motoring around the edge of the pools... was actually pretty impressive to see them all. I wonder if that is normal amount of shrimp for the area? Or whether due the full moon and full stream they were having secret meeting? I guess I will find out over time... I plan to go and visit this area many many times more in the future... mostly just to observe the area and the life in it and see how everything is going... Thanks for the clarification on the bigger fish as well... I was sure it wasn't a torrentfish, but looking at it from top on it didn't look like a bullie... but now I have seem them from top it will make things easier... Rain predicted for Auckland this weekend... so I guess it will stay full for a while longer yet... I might try go have another go at spotlighting this weekend weather depending and see if there are any eels or crays hiding away

So last night I was driving home at about 9pm, and I realised I had a camera and my LED headlamp in the car... the weather was nice, so I decided to head down and visit the stream... and I had A LOT of fun down there... was there for about half an hour, started low, and worked my way up the stream. I was a little bit limited by where I could go due to the water level being higher than normal due to rain over previous days, however I managed to get where I wanted mostly. It was awesome down there! :happy2: :happy1: Few things I learned: 1.) My camera isn't the greatest, it is just a day to day average point and click digi... so next time I'm going to get my mate to come along with his expensive flash camera and get some really good pics! 2.) The stream is full of life... there was stuff everywhere! I got photos of some, others I took photos, but when I got home they were very blurry. Photos: Shrimp: These guys were literally everywhere... there were hundreds of them, every single pool had shrimp cruising around...couple of the good pics, first one is a single shrimp that came up to say hi (you can see some others in the pic too), and the second is lots and lots of shrimp all chilling out. At the edge of one of the deeper pools there were a lot of fish hooning around, problem was, they would skip away from the spot light and swim off, although they did zip down a very narrow flow going down some rocks, so when it comes to catching, I can put a net in that flow and scare them down into the flow and therefore the net... Could be Inanga? But really could be anything Galaxid I spose. Here is the two best photos I got... first one the fish is at the top centre of the photo, and second one is towards the left corner... like I say the fish were running off which made photos hard. (In both photos there are more shrimp around edges too) Then came this guy... I was about to head back when I looked into a still part leading up to the mini waterfall and found the highlight of my night...a fish that was just sitting there, not moving giving me a chance to take heaps of photos with flash on, flash off, different angles of light...and here are the best three I recon... two without flash, and one with. Looking at Stella book... I'm not really sure what type of fish it is... I was thinking torrent fish, but the stream and patterns on the fish doesn't seem right? There were some bullies in the lower part of the stream where I started out, however the photos I took were rubbish, so I need to go back and get more So I headed back to the car, and found a cat using it's laser eyes (those two orange dots are the cats eyes) to try and zap me!!! So in conclusion... I will definatley going back there and I'll be taking my mate/his camera down with me, and will see what I can get next time... I'll also take a something that I can take a water sample with so I can test the parameters, ph etc, and perhaps a net and a square jar so I can catch some stuff and put it in the jar for easier I.D and photos Enjoy, comments and thoughts on the above are much appreciated!

That is promising... im in the North Island looking for Koura in streams, so maybe I get smaller versions Cheers.

So, I am keen on all things native... I have got a tropical tank and thought it would be cool to do a native tank... Didn't know anything about NZ natives, so I starting looking on DoC websites, signed up to these forums... bought an awesome book (thanks Stella!) and have recently been doing some recon of my local area. My idea is to try and work out what is around my area and then plan the tank around that... I'm really hoping there will be some crays kicking about, because that would be an awesome pet for vistors to get chatting about, but if not that's ok too I was walking the dog the other day and I found this bit of stream which looks like it could be well suited to some form of life. I did peer into some pools and around the shallow areas, and saw some life there... problem was my fox terrier promptly leapt into said pool because he wanted to know what the fuss was about. So here are some of the pics. I'll be going back there at some stage at night armed with light and camera and see what I can find under the surface. (and the dog is staying home!)

Depends if P44 can train it to like plants or not. nice looking Koura you have there p44...wish you all the best with your new friend!

Cool looking fish, and I like the look of the tank with the big rocks and wood too. If you do get a cray, will the bullies be ok with it? I'm guessing big bullies + little cray = ok? And out of interests sake, how big do the crays get? It isn't mentioned in your book

That is a dramatic before and after... that sucks. Good luck with the council and getting the information out of them, hope you get some answers. I have recently found an awesome spot and would be gutted if it ever got taken apart like your spot has. Which reminds me... I need to go get some photos so I can share with everyone on here

Holy Moly - Motocade

That's just plain mean... giving me a wt to start with... Don't have a wt, but wt is shorthand for Weight, so I'll go with an ht, and this is an Island in Bangladesh: Htia Hopefully that makes it easier for next person :happy2:

Stab your lover and run... Still better than praying mantis... mate and then have a feed... on the other mantis

Awesome... I always like seeing fish pull through in these circumstances... Tis nice to get good news stories every now and then. Well done!

That's a good link Ant, ties in well with the chapter in Stella's book that I have just been reading... they are cool animals, would never have thought eels were so cool... migrating out to pacific ocean once, breeding and dieing... always amazes me when you find stuff like this out. So like most NZ Native species (fish, birds, mammals etc) they are slow breeding, which means they are at more risk than exotics...

I also had one go down when I first introduced my group of five ottos... it didn't disappear though because I noticed the Cories going nuts at one point of the tank, and on closer inspection was the dead otto... which I removed... my Cories weren't happy with me! So I'd say in your situation one died, and was "transferred" into the other fish :roll:

Great looking bird... Good luck with the youngsters

Aw, that sucks... didn't say that in the article... Ah well, go to Kelly Tarltons anyhow