blueether

Henward, see this big wooden spoon in my hand?

Top 10 reasons a gun is better than a woman. 10/ You can trade an old 44 for a new 22 and even get money back! 9/ You can keep one gun at home and have another for when you're on the road. 8/ If you admire a friend's gun and tell him so, he will probably let you try it out a few times. 7/ Your primary gun doesn't mind if you keep another gun for a backup. 6/ Your gun will stay with you even if you run out of ammo. 5/ A gun doesn't take up a lot of closet space. 4/ Guns function normally every day of the month. 3/ A gun doesn't ask , "Do these new grips make me look fat?" 2/ A gun doesn't mind if you go to sleep after you use it. And the number one reason a gun is better than a woman. 1/ You Can Buy A Silencer For A Gun

But it has a bung eye, who would want a 'prize' fish with a bung eye?

Hi and welcome. As above make sure to keep the water cool ie below 20deg, same goes for the bullies. If you have any questions there a few native keepers here.

I have had them on both floating and sinking pellets, but after buying the FD krill they didn't want to go back to them. might have to starve them :dunno:

The biggest problem I have with feeding my natives is they dont like most commercial foods Love heart Love freeze dried krill/shrimp Love AHT bloodworms (Wont eat Jinbida bloodworms) Love garden and aquatic snails Love wood lice Love mosquito larvae and boatmen etc

That is what I used to do, but got tired of cold fingers and SWMBO didn't like me using her cheese grater... Hence the butcher doing mine now Has to be fresh though, this is one time where it tastes better fresh and not aged for 14 days.

I (and most? native keepers) feed ox heart. If you have a real butcher get them to put it through the mincer for you after trimming the fat off. Just once through the fine (about 5mm) plate looks good for smaller fish (just right for the inanga and bigger bullies) , the next lot I get I might get put through the coarse plate (about 10mm) and see what that comes out like, might need twice thou. I spread this out thinly, freeze then cube into 10-15mm cubes for the fish to fight over/play with.

Welcome here and to TA

Or the white ballance on the camera or photoshoped

per month for pH and NH3 for the test slides (and online graphing)

That is bad, a few mm would not be too bad to even out.

Four spawns in four weeks is not too bad I hope I get that many, I'm finding it hard to keep them alive :tears: I'm hoping that these net two spawns have a better survival rate than the first two. If I get too many I know someone that wants a few, and I could always try trademe or the LFS Plenty of entertainment, just a lack of tools

:smot: And waste the best bit?

For those of you interested in a different spawn how about gobiomorphus basalis Cran's bully Thread in the native section and the latest spawn of today with pics on page 3

You do know that you don't have to deep fry and over cook the steak don't you?

Iodine and a starch. nice and easy to do as many firstaid kits have iodine in them

Update 13/11/11: As of last night there are 25 fry still alive, and I guess I lost about that many in the last week. They seem like hard little critters to keep alive. Also as of last night the male Cran's bully is guarding another clutch of eggs, and is today trying to entice yet another female in to his man cave. [Edit] Photos of them spawning (sorry about the distortion, photographed at ~50+ deg through 10mm of glass): [Edit 2] A pic of the second spawn that only a very few hatched from, most died without dad looking after them:

As above, an unwanted organism so have to be killed if caught. I note many of the sport fishermen that target them don't always follow the rules. The are also in the waipa river upto and past pirongia and many of the peat lakes in the waikato

Nikon D40x and the macro shots were with a 36mm and 36m + 20mm macro tubes

Update 10/11/11: I think the eggs need to stay with dad untill hatching... I have had to get rid of about 1/2 - 2/3 the eggs at a guess as they had died. It looks like over 1/2 of the first spawn hatched and a few of the second did as well, but most of the second spawn have died. A few of the fry have died and a few more look deformed/bent... too long in the eggs not able to get out with out dad? At a guess I would say that there is about 20 or so good looking fry free swimming, some very well.

Not sure about rocks around cambridge, but a trip my way and out to pirongia could be worth the effort for round-ish river rocks. Dont worry too much about the chlorine in the water, if you let the water sit for a day or to to stabilise the temp most if not all of the chlorine will be gone One option for fish for a small pond are white cloud minnows

I fear I may have killed many of the eggs as some have started to go cloudy and there is less movement in the others :tears: Hard to tell how many fry are in the tank alive. Have newly hatched brine shrimp, hope they are not too large for the fry.

Edited my above post as I unforgot incorrectly :-?

The trout were only very small The stream that this creek drains into was part of a long term study in the late 80's They found high numbers of common and very few Cran's or redfin - I have found about 60/40 common/Cran's and no redfin bullies [Edit] remembered the wrong stream for this one, they found no large galaxiids in the stream I was at: They found some shortjaw kokopu and a few bandeds no galaxiids - I have found these giants They found lots of torrent fish - Still atleast some there, hard to spotlight these guys They also found Rainbow and Brown trout and both our eels - All still there