blueether

I guess that beats three butterfly on the wall of the house

It gets plenty of light, and too much warmth The lighting on the tank was 2 * 8w fluorescent tubes one white one blue, the internals of one of the fixtures let it's magic smoke out so there is just the white tube running. I then added a blue cold cathode tube from a PC case to increase the perceived colour temp. The filter is some un-named thing on the back

Sophia, Have just noticed that I have 20-30 Yellow Buttons (Cotula coronopifolia) seedlings that have just germinated. You want a few?

um... one (probably over over stocked now) cheep Chinese ~50l tank - 450mm x 350mm x 350mm with a 350l/h filter. Contents: One torrent fish ~20 fresh water shrimp - getting less by the day :tears: 2 female red fin bullies ~ 30mm? 4 common bullies (unsexed atm) ~25-35mm 1 disabled common bully (female?) ~40mm 1 bully common bully (male?) ~50mm 6 inanga 50-70mm WTB 300-400l tank

I don’t think the inanga would like much more current than that, although they do seem to spend a little time in the inflow, trying to get further upstream? I'm liking the sand although it isn’t really the torrent fish or the inanga's natural/normal environ. I have taken much of the leaf litter out and only left in the bugger bits. They do look good, and you never know where in the tank they are going to be. At the moment the are mostly eating daphnia, waterboatmen, backswimmers, mozzie larvae and small amounts of beef (need to get some heart). oh and the inanga have taken a liking to the shrimps :an!gry

I thought I would share a (poor quality) vid of my torrent fish feeding the other night http://www.flickr.com/photos/blueether/5264024421/

No but some of the Ranunculi (sp?) could do ok... /me finds "Native New Zealand Flowering Plants by J. T. Salmon" Cant find Ranunculus amphitrichus in there Yellow Buttons - Cotula coronopifolia "...is a creeping plant found along the edges of costal muddy swamps, damp sand dunes, and along lowland streams..." I got my plant when I caught my shrimps

That little tank above has yellow button in it

Give it a week or two and it might look like: Green with a few bugs :nilly:

Will keep an eye on the new arrivals, no they weren't quarantined as I don't have enough kit and I was feeding live invertebrates from the same stream.

I doubt that the iron sand will get into the filters, it hasn't here, as it is very heavy. I have a 10L bucket that is 2/3 (at the most) full of dry iron sand and I cant pick it up by the handle as the last time I did that it did break'd it.

No lump/stub, might be a slight dip. It swims well enough but does favor the end of the tank with less current. It uses its pelvic fin a lot and is always on a slight lean in the water and at rest. The pelvic fin on the damaged side is always held a lot more vertical than the other side.

Chips?

Good spot. I was wondering how long it would take for someone to see (or not see in this case)the obvious. I'm guessing it is a birth defect along with the red mark, or it was the lucky one that got away from a trout/cray. Got this one last weekend with another 3 to make the bully count upto 6. Unfortunately one of the other new arrivals has got whitespot - just a single spot so far. treating with salt, as per what I read in some random book I found Oh... Dobsonfly don't like salty water - one of them up and died after only half the salt had gone in, at least one has survived though.

What's wrong with my Bully? :-?

Toxic? From the back of Liquid Nails "Avoid contamination of waterways"

/me gets the spotlight out and starts looking for kokopu

Thanks, spent yesterday trying to get some nice shots of the daphnia and copepod instead of doing up the front room... SWMBO was not too impressed :oops: And yes that is Stanley the torrentfish.

The daphnia look light - medium brown and swim quite smoothly for having a common name of water fleas The copepod look very light brown/grey to almost white and swin in little jerks/twitches, in some of the macro shots they do look to have a green tint - I would guess their guts fill of green algae? The copepod look to only be about 1/2 - 2/3 the size of the (large (female?))daphnia

That's not what I meant either :oops:. What I should have said was: Do any of these three photos, with more lifelike sizing help with your identification?

any of them work for you?

I'm not sure what you mean... Do you want the photos at 1:1 to ID them? The above pics were taken with my DSLR with the (cheep kit) lens mounted in reverse and held on with rubber bands, no microscope in sight.

After seeing this thread I went out to my parents to have a look in their troughs/pond. The troughs had mosquitoes, stonefly and little beetles in them, the pond had lots more: female copepod female copepod & female daphnia female daphnia female copepod, male copepod & female daphnia Now have a good collection living in a few buckets on the back veranda and in a little 10l tank on the desk beside the monitor. Cant wait for them to multiply :bounce: ps the bullies went mad for the mosquitoes and a few of the above that went in last night [edit]

I got my copy yesterday and I too think it is a good little read. Thanks Stella, and the others that have posted here, for the depth of info that is now around about keeping natives - I must have read most of the archives here in the last month or so. The book brings it all together in a format that is easy to read and is funny to boot

Iron sand is very fine unlike silica sands