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Keeping NZ Fish?


Milet

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I had 25 varieties of marine fish plus a few different anemones as well as some baby flounder found while catching tubifex worms. The commercial fish have a minimum size but many others don't. We got ours from mainly rock pools in Kaikoura because they are more used to being warmed up.

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awesome.

I dont think im going to be able to bring home over 200L of saltwater though lol. next smallest tank i got is 150L. and then i think a 30L. agh.

Would i be better off with Sand (from sumner) or Shingle (birdlings flat0) ??

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What is in the rock pools you will be collecting from? Use similar. I gathered rocks from around the rock pools - especially if they had anemones and chitons stuck to them, and sand as that is what was in the pools (I went down the Kaikoura Coast)

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K i'm going up to kaikoura in easter to my bach i hope so ill take a look around at all the rock pools

One more question. Do the tanks smell? I was thinking bout puting the tank in my lounge since its the coolest room in the house with a Air con.

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Hmm I never fed mine anything very often. The shrimps would reproduce and the young get eaten. I made sure I had varying sized shells for the hermit crab to move into as well as he grew.

We gathered our critters at the rocky outcrop by Half Moon Bay.

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Where did ya get your shrimps from? and how? Ive seen them in rockpools at seal colony in kaikoura but they were too fast for me lol.

I'm most likely to start off with things from rockpools around Taylors mistake, Some bays in lytleton and akaroa and wherever else i can find good pools. Then once i get time to go to kaikoura i know exactly where im gonna go :D

But yeah, how bout them shrimps caryl?

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As I said, they were all in the rock pools by Half Moon Bay. We had shrimps, anemones, sea cucumbers, chitons, starfish, brittlestars, rockfish, triplefins, and anything else that moved in the rock pools.

Never had a skimmer on it.

You need patience to catch the shrimps, plus one big net and one little net.

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Went to organism today and talked to the guy there, he use to have a coldwater marine too. Ive got it all pretty much sorted out now, just gotta choose wich tank i wanna use.

Gonna start out with a Filter then maybe upgrade to a skimmer. saw some cheap ones today.

Does anyone know if a paddle crab or tuatua will dig into shingle?

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Heya,

I have been plying around with native tanks for the last 6 months or so. Not to many casualites :P

Heres a few pics of how its existing at the moment:

440346468_2b0009045e.jpg

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Probbly the biggest issues I have is I don't have a proper lamp, Im just using a fluorescent one, instead of a proper daylight lamp. Its enough to keep some algae growing, and the plnts alive, BUT not enough to get a real culture of pink algae growing at this stage.

I can hand feed the triple fins and rock cod (some are up around 3 inches long now and will nibble my hands when I readjust the anomoes).

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My set up is as follows:

tank 100 litres

floro light

weipro hangon skimmer

jebo filter pump

powerhead

I had a few extra attachments but I found that they didnt seem to improve the tank to much, increased the amount of cleaning I have to do, and killed all my brine shrimp .. before the fish do :)

I have imported coral sand in the tank, but I'm going to remove that and go for native sand. I have discovered that the critters will only sit on native stuff, plus awesome stuff keeps hatching out of the native sand (I think I'm about 10% native at the oment).

One funny aspect I have noticed is that the fish are terrorterial and have there own rocks, cracks and corners they protect.

The coral I'm keeping in the tank, but at this point I have pulled some out and put native rocks with lgae on them to try and spawn the algae on the rocks. At this point I have a brown fluff and some green. The brown is apparently poisonous, but not to star fish and snails who are loving it.

Weed is probably one of the most important bits I have noticed. For a start the fish sleep in it, and are suddenly more relaxed in the tank. And boy do things come out of the weed, current I have fan worms, anonmoes, shrimp, heaps of things I can't even recognose.

The last thing I have picked up so far is the current. Its a mongrel to get right, currently in my tank I haveit real string at the top and its quite low towards the bottom. If you get a wandering anonomoe you'll be in for a fun time getting it stay still. I'm always rescuing it.

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the best sand u can get is from Whitesands up north. its pure white looks amazing. i currently have triplefins, baby sweep and maomao school, baby goatfish afew glass shrimp, hermet crabs ect. have never had a skimmer and never had any probs.. native tanks are awesome!

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