preacher Posted October 24, 2009 Report Share Posted October 24, 2009 Hiya all, hope you all had as great a day as we did in Upper Hutt. I took the opportunity of the nice weather to drain the pond, clean the pump and check out my fish This was January last year... http://i370.photobucket.com/albums/oo14 ... -09002.jpg http://i370.photobucket.com/albums/oo14 ... -09003.jpg Now here in October after a major mid winter clean out and re-organisation... http://i370.photobucket.com/albums/oo14 ... -09025.jpg http://i370.photobucket.com/albums/oo14 ... -09026.jpg http://i370.photobucket.com/albums/oo14 ... -09027.jpg http://i370.photobucket.com/albums/oo14 ... -09028.jpg http://i370.photobucket.com/albums/oo14 ... -09029.jpg http://i370.photobucket.com/albums/oo14 ... -09030.jpg and my lovely fish... 10 Inanga, I was surprised to see they have almost all grown to 8-10cm in a year. http://i370.photobucket.com/albums/oo14 ... -09002.jpg I was very pleased to find I still had 4 Crays around, mind you that's just what I saw. http://i370.photobucket.com/albums/oo14 ... -09009.jpg A big surprise was my Bullies were still kicking! I hadn't seen them in months. http://i370.photobucket.com/albums/oo14 ... -09012.jpg This one's huge, it's about 10cm long (nb thats a fishermans guess http://i370.photobucket.com/albums/oo14 ... -09013.jpg Smaller at around 7-8cm http://i370.photobucket.com/albums/oo14 ... -09018.jpg The last 2 are about 3-4cm long. I wonder if they escaped the top pond... I moved them from the bottom pond to the top one where I have about 4 other small bullies. Lots of shrimp... http://i370.photobucket.com/albums/oo14 ... -09015.jpg I can hardly wait to see how much growth I get around the pond with Summer coming. Peter Makin Upper Hutt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stella Posted October 25, 2009 Report Share Posted October 25, 2009 Thanks for the update! The pond is looking great, will look even better as all those native plants around the edges grow up and fill in! And what beautiful fat fish! Obviously something in there is keeping them really well fed 8-10cm for the inanga in a year is not unexpected under good conditions. They are technically only annuals in the wild, dying after spawning but they can't spawn in captive conditions. I heard an interesting story last year: a guy had a bunch of inanga in a tank and one died from being egg-bound. When he retrieved her the eggs came out freely, so he squirted them into the tank for the other fish to eat. The next day he found eggs from the other fish all over the show! Obviously the pheromones prompted them to release the eggs in a way that they normally can't. The massive bully looks like a gravid female. The boy with the orange stripe *could* be a Cran's. Always hard to guess side-on. (I can't remember if we identified your bullies before) If they are Cran's, the fry do not need to go to sea, so you could have a self-sustaining population! Over summer look in the shallows for tiny fish Looking awesome! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
preacher Posted October 25, 2009 Author Report Share Posted October 25, 2009 Hey Stella! Great to hear from you. Hows that book going.... Well they haven't exactly been getting a lot from me! To be honest I completely forgot about the ox heart, I found it in the freezer the other day a little worse for wear.. I assume they have supplamenting their diet on the Goldfish granules I toss in every other day when the weathers nice but aside from that... their eating something! Interesting... I did have an Inanga carrying eggs a few years ago, from memory it was in December/January and it got very fat with eggs to the point it split and died. I will have to keep an eye on them and see what happens... From memory we decided the little ones were Crans. Its so cool the way they have grown from tiny 1cm fry to 4-5 cm in like 9 or 10 months. They love hiding themselves in the mud on the bottom. Peter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stella Posted October 25, 2009 Report Share Posted October 25, 2009 Peter, The book is done! Ask Zev how the formatting is going Hmm, my heart is cold and hard, your heart is dry cardboard... I wonder which is worse? I am sure there are heaps of bugs in your pond, and those solar lights may well attract extra ones. Ew, I hope I never have an inanga that splits! I may start recommending that if people get a very gravid one, they try stripping it and putting the eggs in the water so the pheromones do their thing on the others. (stop the book, I want to make an addition! ) Hmm,the fry were 1cm when you saw them... IIRC you found them in the pond some time after you put the fish/plants in, is that right? If it was a long time, like a couple of months, they could actually have hatched in the pond... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
preacher Posted October 25, 2009 Author Report Share Posted October 25, 2009 Cool, so when is it due on sale... Strip in Inanga... that sounds fun... I might have to get back to you on that one As for the fry, no they came from the river. There was a pool that had been cut off and was drying out in the summer heat beside the local bridge. I had gone down there to think after the wife and I had a 'discussion'. I returned later that day and the next and caught huge numbers, releasing most into the river and taking a tub full home. I had just lost almost all my fish to whitespot so I doubt they had bred, all my new ones were babies in a tub. From memory I put a few last babies I caught out the river into the top pond by themselves and was pleasantly surprised they survived Fingers crossed they breed this year P. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.