preacher Posted November 2, 2008 Report Share Posted November 2, 2008 Hi all, I am coming up from Wellington to Hamilton around December 8th, possibly auckland december 9th. Does anyone know where I can get 2 - 4 fresh water mussels? Cheers Peter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stella Posted November 2, 2008 Report Share Posted November 2, 2008 Many pet shops sell them. The problem is they are largely taken from the wild for sale, which is illegal. I am not actually sure what the law is on taking freshwater shellfish for personal use. The crustaceans one is a bag limit of 50 per day per person (which technically covers koura, daphnia and copepods!) I would suspect there are no freshwater mussel farms, as they are not even sure of their total lifecycle. At one point they are a fish parasite! They are either on, or nearly on, the threatened species list. I know they are in the Wanganui River. I know not where. Unfortunately I will be in the middle of nowhere those days, would have been keen to meet you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supasi Posted November 2, 2008 Report Share Posted November 2, 2008 I know where to find them wild, but Im not telling ,as Stella said, they are nearly on the threatened list. The local LFS here sells them though( cant confirm where they source them from though). They had about four or five available the other day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
museeumchick Posted November 2, 2008 Report Share Posted November 2, 2008 i would LOVE a couple, theyre pretty neat critters buty might leave that till i'm a bit more sure about my aquarium keeping abilities, and not so keen on taking things from the wild where possible. difficult decisions here Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Insect Direct Posted November 2, 2008 Report Share Posted November 2, 2008 interesting didnt know they were threatened - doesnt surprise me though people eat them as about 6months ago a local was telling me about there lil spot to collect them, i was thinking about getting some for me turtles but never ventured out to have a look and wont be doing that now knowing there status.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tsarmina Posted November 3, 2008 Report Share Posted November 3, 2008 How could they possibly survive the wanganui river unless it is somewhere WAY up river, lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supasi Posted November 3, 2008 Report Share Posted November 3, 2008 How could they possibly survive the wanganui river unless it is somewhere WAY up river, lol Who said anything about the Wanganui River???? Wanganui area Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supasi Posted November 3, 2008 Report Share Posted November 3, 2008 :oops: :oops: :oops: OOOOOOOOOPPPPSSS :oops: :oops: Stella did, Yes they are in the river further up, but I know where there is some closer to town, in a side stream where the water is not brackish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spoon Posted November 3, 2008 Report Share Posted November 3, 2008 does ane other country have fresh water mussels?(or even mussels at all) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HaNs Posted November 3, 2008 Report Share Posted November 3, 2008 There are fresh water pipies(sp?) in lake taupo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
preacher Posted November 3, 2008 Author Report Share Posted November 3, 2008 Well I don't want to go removing threatened species just for a pond. If they were reasonably common that would be a different story. Cheers all. Appreciate the help. P. Oh Stella, we have met. I came up with a couple a girls from the Upper Hutt society a few months back when there was a tank crawl on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
museeumchick Posted November 3, 2008 Report Share Posted November 3, 2008 does ane other country have fresh water mussels?(or even mussels at all) Yep, but dont ask me where, I only know coz I have some freshwater mussel shells that the guy who was ID'ing them from me said were not a NZ species Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishfreak Posted November 3, 2008 Report Share Posted November 3, 2008 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stella Posted November 3, 2008 Report Share Posted November 3, 2008 HaNs: pipis in Taupo?? what do they look like? There are freshwater clams/pea-mussels/fingernail-clams that are quite widespread. They are tiny (hence fingernail, but think woman's little finger nail) http://www.nzfreshwater.org/clam.html I have a couple in a container for a while, amazing how quickly they could whizz around by extending their foot and pulling the shell along. Would love to get some more for my freshwater crab tank. Preacher........... :oops: :oops: :oops: :oops: :oops: There are far too many user names, real names and faces for me to keep track of without an involved searchable database! I do remember you now. Spoon: there are hundreds of species of freshwater mussel around the world, most (over 200) are in North America Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HaNs Posted November 3, 2008 Report Share Posted November 3, 2008 Like this Ill pull some out of the water and may get Dad to bring some across when he comes over. They are full size, you can see where they have moved. They are not in the best of condition i must say Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stella Posted November 3, 2008 Report Share Posted November 3, 2008 Intriguing! I followed where the pic came from, and it is of the marine pipi, so did a bit of hunting. DAMN it is hard to find proper details of freshwater bivalves!! I did find Cucumerunio websteri, which may be it. Do a google image search, there are a lot of photos of old collections. I would absolutely love to see some! Thanks (my Cran's bullies are spawning as we speak, I even saw the female upside down so she could lay her eggs on the 'ceiling' of the nest! I have a tiny peephole into the nest) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HaNs Posted November 3, 2008 Report Share Posted November 3, 2008 Intriguing! I followed where the pic came from, and it is of the marine pipi, so did a bit of hunting. DAMN it is hard to find proper details of freshwater bivalves!! I did find Cucumerunio websteri, which may be it. Do a google image search, there are a lot of photos of old collections. I would absolutely love to see some! Thanks (my Cran's bullies are spawning as we speak, I even saw the female upside down so she could lay her eggs on the 'ceiling' of the nest! I have a tiny peephole into the nest) Yeh, pics of the marine one. Couldnt find any fresh water info. Not sure if its a Cucumerunio websteri. It looks more like a marine Pipi. They dig into the sand and you can see where they have been. Not many Common Bullies in the lake at the moment iv noticed, also snail numbers are down Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
preacher Posted November 14, 2008 Author Report Share Posted November 14, 2008 I picked up 3 from the local petshop for $12. Thanks for your help P. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stella Posted November 14, 2008 Report Share Posted November 14, 2008 I read an interesting article today about freshwater mussels. Just musing about why their numbers are down and the possibility that mussel numbers are low because host fish numbers are low. And then following that algal blooms in lakes are happening more often *because* the mussels aren't there to filter the water, rather than the algal blooms killing off the mussels. All very interesting stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanmin4304 Posted November 14, 2008 Report Share Posted November 14, 2008 They are filter feeders and can filter large volumes of water but can also very quickly polute a tank if they die. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K R Brown Posted November 24, 2008 Report Share Posted November 24, 2008 shit loads at lake wairarapa not to far to go either heaps of native snails to big and small Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
livebearer_breeder Posted November 24, 2008 Report Share Posted November 24, 2008 Animates Lower hutt sells them. $4.95 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stella Posted November 25, 2008 Report Share Posted November 25, 2008 I am currently in New Plymouth at the NZ Freshwater Sociences Society conference. (I am having a fabulous time!) I was talking to a girl today who has been studying freshwater mussells. We talked quite a bit about the difficulties keeping them. She thinks it is very very difficult to provide the conditions they need, and especially enough of the right foods in an aquarium environment (she tried, and had some success, but overall found it too hard to monitor their condition). The big problem is if there is enough food in the water for them, the aquarium would be pretty unsightly.... Her study looked at historical mussel gathering sites of iwi along the Wanganui river. Of 22 sites that used to be really good places (like, hundreds and hundreds of mussels) now 7 no longer exist and the rest show dramatic decline. She also compared the 'health' of the remaining sites based on western and maori ideas. The western science idea was of sustainable populations, requiring a high proportion (>25%) of juveniles indicating recruitment. Maori 'health' was (her words) 'enough good-sized ones for a feed'. There were quite precise ways of quantifying these things. Basically the 'western' way indicated two sites were 'healthy. The maori way showed one site. There was no crossover of these sites, as the maori 'healthy' site had absolutely no recruitment in the past five years, basically the population was aging and would die out with these remaining individuals. I am definitely going to revise the section in my book on keeping mussels to include more of the ethics and practicalities. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
preacher Posted November 25, 2008 Author Report Share Posted November 25, 2008 Well I am guessing my pond should be overloaded with food at the moment then given its green state... P. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stella Posted November 25, 2008 Report Share Posted November 25, 2008 apparently green water is ideal. she had tanks of it growing outside to feed hers. Another person here did one on what size particles were getting filtered out of the water. Large ones were selected for. It didn't go into *what* these particles were made of, but clearly they are not filtering everything indiscriminately. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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