I have quite a few of these I think, the females are a lot larger than tropical and the male seems to be generally smaller. Got them when I purchased a fish tank many months ago and they are used for keeping down the mossies in my turtle ponds (do a fantastic job)

ques- are they a nuisance or a prohibited fish??

they do not appear to breed at a great rate - certainly not as prolific as tropicals, and the same ones appear to be in one of the local streams close to my home in Papakura Auckland.

Ideas, information etc, tks Graeme

p.s. they are too fast for the turtles !!!!!!

If they are prohibited MAF will probably have a full time team of people concentrating on trying to remove them from the lakes and streams around Rotorua (they are in their thousands in certain parts down here).

P.S. If they're to fast for turtles imagine the problems MAF (or fish &game)will have!!!!

If they are mosquito fish they are ilegal and not very good at getting rid of mosquito larvae. I think the turtles would be better at that.

If you google " bringing things into nz biosecurity new zealand " they have a list .Mosquito fish are classed as unwanted organisms but do not have the letters NPPA after the name. I don't know for sure but I think this is very relevant, there is also a contact phone no. and e-mail address.

Turtles are absolutely useless on eating larvae or anything else that moves really, pretty sure they are reasonably harmless and are everywhere up here.

really want to know if anyone has more info on what they actually are, wild guppies ??? or mosquito fish ?? p.s. they ARE VERY GOOD at eating larvae. They are in a fairly large swimming pool that was lousey with larvae( that I was catching regularly and feeding to my tropicals) and cleaned the lot out in just a couple of days

Greame, they aren't "harmless"

They are a real bad predatator.

I put some into a pond on my brothers farm to control mozzies,

Within three years, there were no more tadpoles or frogs.

They'd wiped out that population of the little green fellas.

as usual, a commonsnse reply from Mystic (HIYA), looked up the ref and that's what they appear to be alright.

Now don't panic people. They are in with turtles, not whitebait or trout or much else really !! from my point of view they do do a great job - they are not able to escape, not being sold, not given away, breeding but I have some very large tropicals, I have no frogs (that I am aware of), I DO HAVE - a damn blue heron that periocally spears a few goldfish, a couple of kingfishers that do the same, heaps of cats from the neighbourhood that eye up my goldfish and turtles periodically (untill deterred by a well placed shoe, rock or anything else that is handy), so sit yourselves down and have a nice hot cup of tea and a bicky

Mystic - CONGRATULATIONS, - competition for your attention !!!!! well done you two :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :roll: :roll: :roll: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Yeah well, I was reasonably sure it was not a immaculate conception !!!!!! - keep well

Arrr yes the "Gambusia Affinis". From the Poecilidae family.They also come in a spotted form. They make great food for cichlids. They love mossies larve but they compete with native fish for food. keep them or dont keep them? I think that as long as they are controled then they should be fine, as long as they are kept out of our water ways , where they can compete with our native fish.

:evil: Gambusia also attack other fish and are known to eat the eyeballs of native fish and various fry :evil: .

Throughout the world they have been introduced for mossie control only to be shown that they are less effective than the native fish and creating enviromental havoc at the same time. NZ isn't the only country that has them on a hit list.

We have a few stormwater ponds at work that have them in and I was looking at removing them and introducing natives for the mossies. But both DOC and Fish and Game would have to approve the process and it would cost over $5000 for the permit :evil: .

They can't make us get rid of them, so at this stage they'll just have to allow them to continue escaping into the harbour.