blueether

I would just place a small amount of limestone/coral rock in there (or in the filter). I have about a double handful of crushed limestone in the filter of my 430L native (and the pH is still in the mid 6's)

Have to agree with Ira, cyano looks like cyano The blackish stuff does look like cyano. Not all cyano is bad, my goldsspot mostly lives on the dark green stuff. In streams the black sheets of 'algae' tent to be toxic cyano. I'd bump the water changes up a little and maybe scrub the wood.

No, I have a 1/2 HP chiller in my native setup, and I could probably keep the temp down at below 10 deg over summer. Well I know I could as the controller locked on one day and I came home from work to find a very cold tank of fish, the temp was sitting at 4.5 deg :fshi: :ske:

The shrimp will tend to turn a nice pink colour at about 26 deg, then smell real bad

Got time to read it Mark, quite interesting. Tested your trop and temp tanks? is there much of a difference? I wonder what the results would show for freshwater aquariums...

TL;DR just look for cyano, if you have cyano you have a 'good' population of bacteria :digH:

Hi and welcome to the native section Koura need a mixed diet, with a good amount of veg. Mine gets what it can scavenge of the pellets (high protein, good quality) and a boiled pea or two a week or so and has grown from around 30mm to somewhere over 120mm total length in the last 2 - 2 1/2 years. She has slowed right down now. Kokopu need a high protein diet and wont touch veg normally. When keeping natives remember that they like cool water, so keep it under 20 deg. And banded will grow to a good 200 - 300mm so large tank is needed

great that you found some shrimp +1 what everyone else has said about plants and gambusia but I would like to add the collection native moss is most probably illegal as most have some protection and only one is very common. if it was java moss the go ahead. Note that is is illegal to collect gron reserves/parks

Have to agree on the biltog, I've not found a good dried meat in NZ. In the UK I was lucky enough to know a SA couple that made it on a small commercial scale for the local farmers market. Could also get in on the legal high market, some of them seem to be doing very well :digH:

Won't, or at least shouldn't find them for sale unless the person has the proper commercial quota etc, so you will have to collect your own ps we just call then freshwater crayfish or koura this side of the ditch.

They are normally found in freshwater streams that flow to the sea, doesn't have to be directly to the sea either, they can even climb small waterfall if they want... :digH:

Not had both but like my new cf2700 on my native 450L

If the riccia is turning up its toes I would expect a temp spike. maybe the heater stuck on for only a while and then turned back off? pH crash?

Water should clear once the birds are gone. You could plant some of the native sedges/carex and rushes around the edges and something like cabbage trees, manuka etc on the north side for shade. What's the temp at the moment? Koura and eels will do ok into the low 20's and inanga night as well. The only bully that will spawn in a pond is going to be common bullies, best collected from a landlocked population. Inanga, smelt and banded kokopu (maybe even giants) should do ok and you might see the kokopu out in the day if they get used to feeding.

I have about 6? jay-car ones meant for panel attachment and they are all with in .1 or .2 of each other, the cheap AquaOne is normally within .5 of a degree but did wander a lot last time the battery went low

viewtopic.php?f=41&t=50025 looks a bit different now, but more or less like on page 6 Yes, you aren't allowed to disturb a natural river bed, the rocks in a river have more protection under the law than most of our native fish.

Not a builder but have a look through the tank build DIY threads for some ideas. For lighting I have a twin 4ft t8, not very bright a 1200x600x600 tank, but then again it doesn't have to be as I'm not growing plants The flow in my tank is quite random but directional if you get my drift.

That sound like the same one

Collecting is sometimes a grey area, but: Don't collect whitebait out of season Native mosses seen to have some protection Don't collect from parks, reserves, etc Plants; most streams have very little native aquatic plants, there are a few lake/slow water ones and lots of marginal plants. My native tank is un-planted except for moss and algae. Square footprint will be harder to do 'flow' in but 700mm will allow for a great depth. I would go for lots of wood and large/flat-ish rocks. As for stock I would look at: Redfin bullies for the centre piece, the males can be very territorial so probably only two males and maybe 3 or 4 females Common and or Cran's bullies - maybe about the same numbers as above? The redfin males will try and boss these around as well as there own species. Torrent fish are fantastic if you can get some good flow - my 430L has about 15-25,000 L/h flow with a variable 5-15,000 l/h wavemaker, a 5,000 l/h wavemaker, a 3,200 l/h powerhead running a coarse sponge filter, the aquaone 2700 and a 1,200 l/h pump on the chiller. Mid fish you will be looking at Smelt and Inanga. I'd guess about 5 or 7 of one or the other. Smelt are very fast swimmers and spook very easily, and will often die in the first 24h. Inanga are easier. It's best the get either of these in very early summer, or as whitebait in late spring. A banded kokopu may be ok in there, but 1200 long would be better - but remember that they can live for many years. As for water, most of our natives have a very wide range, and migrate from salt to fresh water - a change in pH from mid 8 to anything as low as 6 and below for some of our peat streams/wetlands. Keep the temp below 20 and keep the O2 up. My tank is sitting at 20 now (don't want to go too low as the redspot pleco is in there atm) and I was running it at 16-17 last summer. It gets down to about 14 over winter as the canister and chiller are outside, and I have seen it drop to 10 deg. The pH sits about 6.2 - 6.4 and I have about 1/2 a kg of crushed lime in the filter to stop it going too low. Too low and the ammonia -> nitrate cycle slows down and the snails shells dissolve, not that there are many snails as the bullies tend to eat them if the venture out. Any other Q's just ask.

There was a doco late last year that they found some in a man-mad rowing centre just out of the city

That photo just doesn't do it justice, it is a HUGE tank - very deep front to back

I'm not a plant person but i don't think the two on the right ase aquatic plants, marginal/wetland plants I would guess...

What temp will kill java mass without harming my native moss? or is it always going to be a problem on the wood that has had it on?

When the flow drops, and just squeeze the sponge a few times in tank water. You dont want to displace all the bacteria that live in there. In the long run I would be tempted to replace with a filter that has sponge and room for proper bio-media

either a wave maker or the bubble wall should be fine for water movement. You don't want to go crazy like in my 430L tank with ~20,000 l/h of water movement