fishfreak

Hey donna ive only heard from dave once today but he text me at 11 saying he was taking the turtles to you, hopefully he got there. Ive sent you a pm with his cell number

I sent him a few texts aswell as planting a message on his facebook so even with the text delays he should get it Donna. Cheers Justin

oh god this sounds perfect ill see if i can get him.

Attempting to contact dave but with cells the way they are its slow going, i believe the 2 we had on display are bred in captivity so infact purchased rather than captive caught so may not require permits. I very much doubt we could send anything from christchurch right now as all our bagging, bins and air tanks are trapped underground and i doubt couriers are even operating but im uncertain of this. If you guys pm me your numbers ill pass them on to dave, hes like a one man army atm trying to save whatever he can.

Hey guys, as many of you may already know southern encounter aquarium is releasing what fish we can but we have a couple of Giant Kokopu that we cant really release in this area and need to find a home asap. This really needs to be a local fishkeeper for now. We dont believe we will have access to the facility for much longer.

Mudfish have been released to travis wetlands which is where they were gonna go anyway in a few months. Im unsure if he managed to get any other fish out but if he does they will likely get released.

UPDATE: Kiwi out, Mudfish out, Tuatara and Gekos out and hes gonna try for the turtles and frogs next but it sounds like the buildings not well. I wish i could get hold of him maybe the two of us could try and get some stingrays out but thats prolly a bit unrealistic

We got the kiwi out thanks to daves bravery once again, he also got the canterbury mudfish out to travis and is currently trying to keep the life support going but it may be a lost cause. I was cleaning an aquarium at the entrance when it hit and was knee deep in water evacuating people in the first few minutes before the first aftershook. we lost several tanks at first and many fish were on the floor but we were helpless to save most of them. the dome ontop of the building collapsed inward on the left hand side and more came down after the first aftershock. Im pretty proud that all the staff got everyone out without major injury considering the amount of water and broken acrylic/glass everywhere. As the phones are obviously playing up atm i cant really update on if we will survive this but realistically i cant see us being open in that building anytime soon if at all and unless power is restored and the building stablised its not gonna look good for the remaining fish as i doubt they will let us back on site but im sure dave is giving it his best as they couldnt stop him before. As for me i lost 14 tanks including my beloved 1200ltr and all but 3 fish so prty much my entire fishroom. p.s anyone hiring a Aquarist :-(

Yep mysis, we get a few thousand a week out of the estuary for our seahorses and triplefins etc.

Mention who you are when you come in and if we arent that busy im sure someone can show you around. Although if its sunday ill be in a vegetative state on the couch (In before bdspider suggests i come in on my day off).

I like Cycle but ive only ever used it when setting up a tank from scratch, Southern encounter had some cultured for them to add when we initially setup but i cant remember who cultured it but can probably find out.

I see your in christchurch, ive got some Aqui-s you can overdose him with if you want. ill send you a pm with my cell number

We just spent the day with a few wetvacs at the Aquarium, had a structural engineer come thru and its all good except for the fasade which was getting worked on today. We lost few fish initially but several including our lovely Porcupinefish spent some time on the floor and will require some attention. The place smells like a Wet Wookie atm but we are hopefully going to be able to open thurs with luck. The generators kicked in like they should and the police have allowed us access when we needed it so we have been pretty lucky really. At home I lost several lids and a few lights ended up at the bottom of tanks but the only fish loss was a Clown knife that was washed out of a tank

Sponge filters work great for small to medium quarantine tanks. I tend to keep a few of the sponges in existing systems (in sumps etc) prior to use so you will allready have them colonised and ready to go.

Hmmm a week away...I guess i better pick up all my junk from behind the scenes then lmao. Oh and bdspider give me a we text when u guys are on the way . Being saturday ill most likely be doing a dive at 3 but if theres not many other patrons I could maybe delay it for a few mins :-)

Ive had glass shrimp in low salinity around 10ppt when they were caught with mysid and they seemed to do fine but wouldnt think you could keep them in straight fresh for very long.

Theres freshwater mussels on the Brooklands cold water price list for $1 each so you could order from any pet shop i guess. It doesnt have a scientific name on the list however.

Not sure what happened to the hokitika eels . might have to ask about that . I heard they were huge but never got to see them myself. I wouldnt worry about then not getting a chance to breed stella , if they are like us they would of noticed them changing and released them. we have had to release several of the ones from S.E.A over the last 7yrs ive been here. its pretty easy to tell the heads change shape , blue rings around the eyes and they stop eating etc etc

Yeah its not the biggest (85ltr) hes the only thing in there other than the shrimp and he seems happy enough.

The plant in the koura tank here at southern encounter is actually plastic though it does get bent around by the little sod a bit :-) we actually feed them on koura pellets(the same stuff they fatten them up on in the farms) most of the time but of late ive been throwing in some of that stuff they wrap around sushi forget what its called. also some mussel from time to time. as for the shrimp they have been in there for a good year we had a few hundred downstairs so i figured id put 20 or so in and none have been nailed so far.

Thats a good idea i may have to do something similar. as for hot glue its only ever lasted a few weeks at most for me it tends to just come away when its been fully submerged

When are you guys planning your next meeting . I wouldnt mind tagging along and checking it out . ive been in the hobby since i was a kid and was a member of the wanganui aquarium society as a teenager about 15yrs ago.

which one lol , hagfish are cool apart from the slime but thats only when they freak also theres the pain of having to explain to everyone that sees it that it isnt dead. also if given a place to hide u wont see it again! other than that they are really cool to watch especially when eating :-)

Pulling bucketloads of hagfish slime from a tank = not much fun lol though it actually fells more like web than slime. as far as keeping lampreys u can but as they dont display dont eat and will just sit there slowly getting skiny and evenyually disintegrating after a year who would want to

Just the one blue only a we guy too maybe 10cm at the time but yeah was dam fast. Wouldnt be something i would want to experiment with lol